Tell me about your after school snack size / dinner timings!

[LondonQQ]

Ds (6) gets home from school absolutely ravenous. I give him a sandwich and then take him to an activity (swimming, football, etc). Sometimes he’ll eat two sandwiches at 3:30 as he’s so hungry. After swimming, he won’t properly eat his tea (5:30/6) because he had that sandwich at 3:30. He then goes to bed at 7 having not really eaten tea, but complains and cries that he’s starving until 8pm. I usually give in and let him have rejected tea / oat cakes etc as I get worried about him being hungry and nutrition etc.

DH thinks I should stop the after school sandwich and replace it with something small, but he is SO hungry that he can’t cope.

Or he thinks that we should be doing dinner late at 8pm. But I think that’s crazy late for a young child and when would he go to bed?!

What do you do? What should I do to change it up?

DS 10 has about 8 biscuits when he comes out of school, on his SAT booster days he has a smoothie between hometime and his booster, we usually have dinner around 5. DS 14 doesn't have an after school snack.

Is he on school dinners? Move him to a better more substantial packed lunch so he isn’t so hungry at 3.30. Give him something small after school and a proper tea at about 6.

It's not the time they go to bed, it's how many hours they have. Does he get up at 6?

My children are adults now, we had dinner at 7pm and they ate at that time from around 5 years old if it fitted in with activities. They wouldn’t have had such a large snack though, more like a small piece of cake or a piece of fruit at that age. They had packed lunch though and I think they would have been much hungrier if they had a school dinner.

Maybe it would work better to give DS something hot like a jacket potato or a small pizza at 3.30 and a sandwich before bed if he needs to be in bed for 7pm.

What is he having for breakfast and lunch? Can you bulk those out? Now that it’s getting colder, maybe porridge and bananas instead of cereal etc?

And could you move his tea back to 6:30? If he’s eating at 8 anyway, it’s not going to make too much of a difference if he goes to bed half an hour later.

During the week I go for early kids supper and a snack after an activity. Adults eat later, after bedtime. I quite often skip lunch at work and eat something at kids’ supper and adult dinner instead.

To me, 2 sandwiches is tea. Give him a small filling snack then tea. Or a tiny snack and his tea as soon as he gets home.

I pick my two up at 4.15 then it is a 45 minute drive home. They each have a small snack in the car- maybe half a sandwich, an apple sauce muffin sort of thing. Then we have dinner at about 6 pm.

But they are both small eaters - have a 2 course cooked school lunch at 1 pm - and do not do any after school activities that require energy.

You could just give him his evening meal at 4 and a small supper later?

(oh- they are 10 and 12, and go to bed about 8.30)

He is on school dinners and I’ve been wondering if I should try packed lunches again. I tried it once before but he barely ate it! I will!

Also good suggestion that he’s really having tea at 3:30 and to switch it to something like a baked potato then a snack later!

He gets up at about 7 each morning and is falling asleep at something like 8:45 at the moment. He used to get up at 6:30 and go to bed at 7:30, but that’s all crept along!

Would it be too tricky timing wise to do a small hot meal before his activities? Instead of the sandwiches. Then before bed if hungry again a snack / sandwich / cereal

It would be tight timing wise on some days but not impossible!

I give mine a small bowl of soup (one of those small plastic Ikea bowls not full to top), maybe with a small piece of bread and cheese as a post school/ pre activity snack. I tend to make a huge pan on a Sunday for a family lunch and then keep leftovers in the fridge to quickly microwave. They do then usually eat their tea later, but might be a smaller portion.

Soup is a good shout. I often do soup on activity days for evening meal. Homemade soup can easily be a meal when it is packed with veg. Chicken veg and rice or lentil are our favourites. If you add a potato to your lentil soup it bulks it even more.

Serve that with a sandwich or crusty bread and then supper later.

1 sandwich at 3.30.

Move dinner to start 6.30, so he’s eating meal 6.30-7pm. That’s still 30-45 mins after to faff, and up to bed for 8pm onwards ( that’s pretty much the timings for my 18month old).

Yeah i think dinner at 4 then toast or a sandwich before bed might be better. Shouldn't be too hard if you make stuff in advance that can just be heated up like curry or casserole.