Reception child hunger - what do you feed them in the evening?

[tigerrr]

My son started reception this week and comes home absolutely starving. He has a hot meal at school and an afternoon snack so my plan was to give him "tea" (eg sandwich, fruit, yoghurt etc) in the evenings.

However he keeps asking for more more more. Yesterday he had pasta, a crepe, yoghurt, an apple, and then wanted more snacks so he had a pear, healthy flapjack, breadsticks and Philadelphia, cucumber sticks and raisins! We were running out of ideas by the end!

What do other people offer their reception aged child after school?

Normal hot dinner and he could have as much or as little as he needed.

My son was like this in reception. We were having to send extra food in as the lunch wasn't filling him up.
(He has a healthy appetite, pretty active, nothing crazy!) School became aware of it and acknowledged that the portions were pretty small. (They'll have been worked out on an average child consumption). They resolved it by him eating with the Y1s, as they had access to a sides bar (rather than a portioned out meal in Reception). This gave him access to bread, extra veg and salad. It made such a difference.
So it might be worth contacting the school to see if they can make any changes.

School lunches may be hot but portions aren't large and they have to eat so quickly that most hardly eat anything. I know some who can but not many, especially the little ones.

School portions are not great, also some 5 year olds pick at meals.

Plus come 5:30 it's been a long time since lunch, even with a snack in between.

You maybe need to start batch cooking his favourite meals at the weekend and making it easier for you when you get home.

My daughter eats earlier that we do for a number of reasons so I end up cooking 2 meals as she's currently enjoying gammon steaks, chicken dishes that can't be batch cooked 🙄

Mine prefer a sandwich evening meal and complain bitterly when I do anything else! They get a cold tea on days they have a hot lunch.

I work, so feel your pain on prepping evening meals! We prepare and freeze meals on less busy days - often weekends. Big fan of cooking double (or triple) and freezing. Chilli, bolognaise, stews etc. And there’s nothing wrong with throwing easier meals into the mix - like pizza, hotdogs, fish fingers.

Starting school changes so much! And yes, they eat loads! Mine get three snacks before tea 🫠🤣

Slow cooker is a good idea or save a portion from the night before. Lunch portions are usually not that big e.g. 2 fish fingers when mine would eat 4 or 5 at home. If they don't like part of it, then they are even more hungry!

We also aim for a more filling breakfast where possible - eggs, porridge, peanut butter on toast

I think he was hungry because he wasn’t getting enough protein - pasta, breadsticks flapjack etc. It would have been better to do beans on toast or eggs etc if you weren’t going to cook a full meal.

We all eat together at about 630/ 7.
Snacks after school = fruit, cereal bars, homemade flapjacks, crumpets, toast, cheese and crackers. Always come out of school/ nursery starving. On after school club/ nursery days they have ‘tea’ eg rolls, wraps etc there at about 4 so I make dinner something a bit easier that won’t matter if they don’t eat much

I always gave a proper dinner after school. Lunches are a bit hit and miss, if they are chatting they may not finish.

I feel you on this one and have no answer. The hunger is AMAZING. I am taking yhe strategy of a sandwich tea when she gets in plus offering dinner when DH and I have it a little later, plus a steady flow of fruit and veg.

Last night DD had...
(At 3.30)
Cream cheese and salmon bagel
Half punnet of olives
Half a punnet of raspberries
A bowl of mint chocolate chip ice cream

At 6...
A very large sweetcorn (the fresh kind you have to take the leaves off)
Two tacos with beef, burnt ends, avocado, sour cream, cheese and beans plus a side of rice and peas
A bowl of porridge before bed.

It's like the hungry caterpillar, but all in a few hours. I suspect she is going through both a growth and development spurt atm as well as we have noticed changes (and has shot up 2cm in a week).

Apparently she had seconds of both main and dessert at school as well!

What did you do before he started reception?

We have found this week that DS has been really hungry some days and not so much others. If we are eating later I have a couple batch cooked meals I save for him in the freezer or he is happy with simple stuff like eggs/beans and toast and fruit. I try have dinner on the table by 6.15 at the latest but the slow cooker will have a lot to do with this now it's getting colder.

Yes, I finish work at 4ish and we all get home at 4.45, so eating at 5.30 works for us - it wouldn't work for everyone. DH works from home and finishes at 5.30, so eats with us too (but no travel time).

Even so, we use the slow cooker a lot. We eat things that go in the over for c. 20 mins (e.g. fishcakes, roast veg). Or we have various pasta things.

We eat later after he's gone to bed. How do people have time to cook and eat so early if you're finishing work at 5.30ish?

To answer your question, we eat all together at 6 or 6.15. We eat pre-batch cooked food, or something very quick to cook like ravioli.

Eating later after your dc have gone to bed is an awful time-waster, imo. There's just too much other stuff to get on with and by then I'd be hangry. Plus they say there are social-developmental benefits to kids attending the family meal.

DS has just started reception too. He gets 2 snacks from school and lunch.

And he still needs more food and dinner.

So, he had

Massive bowl of porridge and a banana for breakfast a
Carrots and raisins at morning snack
½ jacket potato, cheese, carrots and more fruit for lunch.
Crackers and tomatoes for second snack.
Straight after school, a chicken drumstick, babybel and a handful of pistachios.
Then ate dinner of mackerel, roast potatoes and broccoli and had Greek Yoghurt, seeds and honey for after

He ate more than me 😂 😂 😂 😂

We pick DD up at about 5pm, she has a snack and then we do some form of hot dinner. Sometimes we all eat together (my WFH days) and sometimes we eat later (my office days). DH perm WFH.

DD has breakfast, fruit snack, hot lunch, biscuits and after school snack at school. Still hungry in the evening.

Dinners have to be quick so are things like pasta, eggs on toast, chicken wrap, jacket pot and fish/chicken, sausage and mash etc

It’s probably a growth spurt though @tigerrr and appetite will go up and down.

Damn! Wrong thread!

I would keep him a portion of whatever you and your dh have for dinner so he can have it the next day.

Yep full meal.

I have a weekly meal plan and often I batch cook or slow cook. Im up early to prepare for dinner - even if I have batch cooked, it’s a lot quicker when I finish work if the pans are out to heat food up and the table is laid.

This way we manage to have home cooked meal without shortcuts probably 9 weekdays out of 10. Usually there is one manic day when I have to feed someone a beige meal - I’m not a saint.

It gets harder and harder to juggle - my teen head to head out to activities between 5pm and 7pm three nights a week, dh is now back in the office 4 days a week so he’s often not home until 7.30 or 8pm; and my youngest also needs to eat by 5.45pm twice a week to fit in activities. Getting everyone fed and kids to and from activities whilst ensuring food is ready for dh to hear when he gets in is often a challenge. I tend to eat with the kids.

I feel like superwoman when I manage to pull it all off alongside a FT job!

My teen is always very thankful, which makes me happy.

This ^ (except I'm not a teacher). My 8 year old tells me school lunch portions are small and she can go back for seconds but she doesn't because she wants to finish and play! We also eat cooked dinner together every evening.

I tend to do a mix. If DH and I are eating later I do a quick meal for DDs but something reasonably filling. Scrambled eggs or beans on toast, or microwave a jacket potato (I bake them in the oven in bulk then freeze them and you can microwave from frozen.) Or I keep a portion back of whatever DH and I had the night before and reheat it for DDs the next day.

I do like to eat with them though so very often I eat with DDs around 5.30/6pm and save a portion for DH to eat when he gets home.

We have a proper dinner when I get home from work. 11:30 is super early for lunch even if it's cooked

Give a jacket potato one night, having cooked it the night before. Then cook extra of your meal, keep that and give it the next day so you're rolling on a lag but the kid gets something different each day.

I don’t think they are monitored
as closely as they would have been at nursery. They are made to eat quickly if ‘shifts’ of year groups have to come in so some may not eat as much as perhaps they otherwise might. I remember my children at
primary saying they didn’t have much time to eat in.

I think it is a growth spurt age too so they are hungrier. Does the wrap around offer any food?
I think you may need to consider eating a meal together as a family and start cooking as soon as you get home. It is hard work when everyone has been out all day though.