To give my dc bread-and-butter for supper every schoolnight?

[PrettyCandles]

I am fed up fed up cooking good meals. One will eat this but not that, one will have a screaming tantrum because it's not what they wanted (did they tell me what they wanted? ), one will refuse without tasting because 'it's disgusting' - and inevitably likes it when they actually try it.

Oh you've heard it all before!

They have hot school dinners, though how much they actually eat is anyone's guess.

I refuse point-blank to cook two different dinners.

So WIBBU to only cook for myself and dh, and give the dc bread-and-butter?

Two choices for tea in this house: what I cook, or nothing you can't get for yourself (so toast, cereal, piece of cheese, fruit, etc.). I don't cook things DD actively doesn't like (often) and I don't fuss if she doesn't eat. She eats most of most things.

Yanbu! I grew up with that type of dinner! Sometimes we had a salad or scrambled eggs thrown in as well and ham or cheese. It's normal dinner in some countries especially when you have hot lunch.

Oh and I don't think I have bad eating habits..

Go with Blu. Pander to the fussiness and offer alternatives only if you want to always have fussy children. Toast, cereal, sandwiches are all alternatives.

Without an answer, I assume you mean dinner. Seriously? You think it's ok to only give your children bread and butter every evening? Give them a 'proper' dinner. They either eat it or not, but to just give them that is, in my view, negligent.

I just offer the "eat it or go without" option. Funnily enough, it's always eaten :)

Negligent? Come and eat dinner in my house, and then tell me I'm negligent. And while you're judging me, consider this: my children need a peaceful and happy environment, which neither they nor their parents are getting at the dinner table - isn't it negligent to avoid doing something that might provide that environment?

Seems to me, from this thread, that b-and-b is not particularly unusual for supper/tea/dinner (the main evening meal). Bulk it out with a bit of tinned fish/peanut butter/hummus/egg etc, add some lumps of fresh fruit or veg, and the dc have a fairly reasonable meal. That does not involve me cooking anything.

You didn't mention the other stuff you are now mentioning. That would make it reasonable for some evenings. Consider this; if four children decide to 'create' every time they don't like/want to do something, will you always give in? Your children also need boundaries just as much as being properly fed.

Sorry - if your children, not if four children.

One of ours has sandwiches at school, so I think I need to cook a decent meal each night. Plus, I don't really know how much healthy stuff the other two eat at school (but can guess!).

It find that the person that dislikes x, likes y, and so just cook one dish a night and hope that the person not liking it isn't the same person each time. I also have a list in my cookery book of meals that all three like. [It is a short list!]

Not sure that I would go as far as bread and butter alone, but I'd try to cook really simple stuff if things were as bad as you describe. Good luck OP!

Sugar butties were always my favourite night time snack as a child :)

Do it.

As DD has a hot dinner at school I usually only give her a smallish meal in the evening (think sandwiches, beans on toast, soup). By then we are all tired, I can't be arsed cooking and she can't be eating. So it suits everyone.

Our family has one meal only. bUT I wouldn't be shelling out for hot school dinner and giving them hot dinner at nite as well. Why don't you give them sardines/beans on toast or something quik and easy

I don't personally think it's ok. DP used to give his kids things like toast for tea and when we moved in together I started cooking for DSS1 and DSS2. They're growing boys and had a worrying (to me) lack of protein in their diet. It can be difficult but I see feeding my family properly as hugely important.

DP's mother raised him on a rubbish diet and he and his ex continued bad habits. Since being with me and eating less carbs and more protein he's lost weight, got more energy and is less grumpy and irritable. Our diet has a huge impact on our physical and mental health and I couldn't take that lightly.

Perfectly normal in much of Europe to have just one hot meal a day, and then a bread meal.

Of course YANBU.

If my children have a hot meal at school (which is rare because it costs me 10 euros a day for all of them to have school food), then they have ham or cheese sandwiches in the evening.

Keep cooking.

Give them a small portion, insist they are POLITE about it. Teach them manners, explain how it hurts your feelings. Withhold favours (TV, pocket money) until the message sinks in. The have to at least try.

Then if they haven't eaten much, give them a top up snack of bread and butter before bed.

I once gave my kids cheese on toast for evening meal and they looked at it and shouted "WHERE'S MY DINNER!"

I know of course it suits some kids (and adults too) but it just doesn't cut it in our house.

Dd doesn't like fish pie, ds doesnt like stew (unless i put pastry on and call it a pie) so on those nights boy do they suffer with the cheese on toast.

The list of foods they didn't like has got dramatically shorter since I started with this routine. Or, as they call it "I'm gonna call the police mum you're STARVING meeeeeee!!!!!!!"

No to bread and butter. Cook one meal for all of you and tell them if they don't want it then they haven't got enough energy to stay up and must go to bed immediately. In my house they don't have to clear their plates but they must make a good attempt at everything on it.

For the love of monkeys don't do it.

You will just end up with DC who ONLY eat bread and butter. I actually have RL experience of this, and redeveloping the then teenager's tastebuds was bloody difficult and his diet will probably never be 'good'.

Just keep serving up the food even if they don't eat it and start some kind of reward/sanction system for being miserable moaners.

Mine ate what was put on the table (no, I don't cook offal!) - or went to bed hungry!

Oddly enough, they all ate everything that was put in front of them!

if they dont eat it, they go hungry

simple

I dont pander to any type of fussiness or cook separate meals. Either eat it or dont. No big deal

what would you do if your kid only ate Kobe beef-beef from the black Tajima-ushi breed of Wagyu cattle and nothing else

would you buy Kobe beef-beef for him day in day out?

To everyone saying no to sandwiches/cheese on toast/bread and butter with salad and hummus for tea, that's what your children eat for lunch if they have packed lunch!!!!

There's nothing wrong with serving the equivalent of a packed lunch at tea time, if they have a hot school dinner.

The school dinners are things like toad in the hole, roast, fish pie, surely if they had the same again, with another set of puddings, their calories will be too much?

Do easy things, like beans on toast, scrambled egg, soup, perhaps spaghetti with ham, served with lots of fresh vegetables/salad (e.g. sweetcorn, peas, cucumber) - a really good selection, then they can pick what they want.

I feel your pain.

If they don't want it, say 'fine' and leave it on the table. I usually find that sorts out the genuinely not hungry child from the one who likes making a fuss.

It pisses me off, have one fussy eater so nearly always pasta every night, another like me whose easy to please so we often eat the same, and a husband who decided a few years he lo longer ate meat. Don't always pander to them all and husband often ends up with beans on toast but it is a pain and a mess to clean up.