Dinner times at grandparents'

Not when your child goes to bed at 6pm.

I often feed 3 young Gdcs at least an hour, often two, before dh and I eat. I’d have thought it just common sense to have separate mealtimes - unless the adults are used to eating as early as 5 or 5.30.

It really doesn't matter what other families do, what matters is that you have the discussion with the hosts before you go. If they're not happy with either having the meal earlier or you cooking separately for the kids, then you say ok the visit won't work for us unfortunately, looking forward to your next visit to ours ☺️

I don't think it's better that DD eats spicy rather than plain either. I was merely pointing out that children don't only have to eat plain pasta and cucumber, as the PP rather disdainfully said she didn't want to eat alongside them.

Even if they do want plain pasta and cucumber everyday, there's no reason that the family couldn't eat together. Nothing stopping a pan of pasta being cooked alongside the nice, adult food.

Early tea for the wee ones, normal dinner when they are in bed!

I would aim for dinner for everyone at around 6-6:30pm unless the parents are used to eating separately to the kids.

As a parent of young kids your meal times often move earlier due to getting up early and there’s no way I could wait until 8pm to eat either. I also wouldn’t have the patience to try to get a reluctant toddler into bed on an empty stomach. If we were staying somewhere where the adults didn’t eat until 8-9pm I wouldn’t be keen to stay long.

I think eating together as a family is really important and it's something we prioritise - we all have breakfast and dinner together every day and lunch at the weekend. We like a wide variety of flavours and cuisines and the DC were given the same as us from the off.

They still want more beige food (well, ketchup isn't beige, right?) by the week and will eat less and less of the nice food we're eating. That's fine, it's very normal for children to have plain tastes, and it's not a success or failure of parenting for DC to like plain or spicy foods.

I, being 56 years old, cannot eat after 5pm. So we have our main dinner every day at 2.

It isn't absurd for some of us.

Tell that to my 5 yr old who’s starving by that time and tired by 7 and a bit and ready to go to sleep

I mean, I can't imaging eating that late so I can't see it being an issue, but, in your circumstances, like many others, I'd discuss with the parents beforehand to see how to make things work for everyone.
What I would most likely do is have the main meal during the middle of the day, so everyone eats together then, and then it's easier to perhaps give the dc something more like sandwiches / eggs / something on toast, and the adults can have that or eat later if they preferred (or get takeaway) or whatever suits, but we would still have eaten together each day.

In this situation I'd cook my kid's dinner and 5 and then the adults would eat later.

If I didn't feel comfortable 'raiding the fridge', my husband would cook for the kids.

Are t you hungry by bedtime or do you go to bed very early also?

I feed grandchildren at 5pm as little one goes to bed at 6.30pm. We sit & have a cup of tea with them while they are eating. Adults eat later. Works fine.

- at preschool you stayed up?

Yes.

Did your mum/childcare keep you asleep for most the afternoon to cope with dinner that late?

No. I pretty much never napped as a toddler, according to my mum.

However (unlike a lot of kids) neither I nor my siblings were ever the type who wanted get up at the crack of dawn. Our infant/primary school was literally at the top of our street, so my mum didn’t have to get us up particularly early to get us to school on time.

most people who don’t get in from work until that time will have missed dinner with their kids. They’ll have been fed by whoever is doing childcare /the other parent and then getting ready for bed at that time.

I’m sure that in most cases, that is indeed what happens. But my point was simply that it’s really just what you’re used to, and that it’s not necessarily a given that people who want to eat with their kids can only do that if they have dinner at 5pm. Everyone’s different, and people generally make things work for themselves.

Either I'd compromise on the dinner time and have it around 6-6.30ish, or I'd serve the children at their usual time and the adults later.

It's utterly mean-spirited to insist the children wait until 8 or 9pm to eat dinner. It would be inconsiderate to insist adult guests eat that late without discussion first, nevermind small children.

My son is just shy of 3 and he’s asleep between 7.30 and 8.30pm. I can’t imagine wanting him to eat dinner so close to bedtime or pushing bedtime back to not even start eating until 8pm!

My dp's priority are the kids so if they eat at 5pm then they are fed then. Adults sit down later.

Mine eat when they are hungry...

Not for under 5s who will be in bed a couple of hours later

I'd expect their parents to sort out the kids dinner if eating separately from us - that's how it works in our family

Give the children their supper at, er, 5.

Everyone has a cup
of tea too as it’s teatime.

Dinner at dinner time.

I couldn't eat at 21.00. My last meal is at 16.00!

For us, she eats better if we're eating too. She likes to be part of things.

It's not holding as a sacred caste. It's just modelling how we want her to eat. Which is properly with a good, healthy variety of food.

The fact that she does that because we eat with her is why we eat with her. Not because we think it's "better".

My point was that kids don't have to eat the bland food you were talking about. I didn't actually say anything in my original post to you about eating with her. Just that kids can eat proper food.

My in-laws eat around 8pm we (and kids )eat around 5pm

When we stay they either feed the kids at 5 and we all eat at 8 (after bedtime)

Or we all eat around 6.

That's great @IpsyUpsyDaisyDoos, and if eating together works for you guys, then go wild, enjoy. I just don't think we need to hold eating together as a family when the kids are toddlers as some kind of sacred caste.