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?

We are struggling to come up with a variety of balanced light meals though, preferably - even cheese on toast is a struggle for her some nights. All suggestions welcome :)

Primary school meals are just a very light lunch...remember the kids are encouraged to go out and play straight after eating.

Also, they are far from hot...they're actually tepid.

I really wish people would drop this idea of the need for a hot meal, even in winter. It just isn't necessary.

Human beings are warm-blooded, therefore no matter what you eat, the digestive process produces far more heat than any food would provide.

Yes, if you've been out in the cold for an extended period, having a hot drink or hot food makes us feel better emotionally, but we don't NEED it.

Going back to the OP, reduce your workload, do as your OP suggests until your offspring see sense. I imagine it won't take THAT long, but do be careful about gloating/I told you it tasted nice kind of responses. That's one of the things that made me dig my heels in at times. I just wanted my mum to be pleased that my tastes had finally become more reasonable rather than CONSTANTLY going on at everyone who would listen about how stubborn I had been and how she was so pleased to have been proven right.

I wouldn't call a roast dinner and a chocolate pudding 'light' (which is what mine had yesterday)- is it the portion size that makes them so 'light'?

Mine seem to all have what I think of as 'heavy' meals, such as pasta bakes, sausages, roast and fish and chips on Friday (only one lot of chips a week). They also have seconds if available, though they don't get much time to eat them (is this different with packed lunches).

I hope I am getting my money's worth, if they are genuinely very light then they are very expensive.

Ok I just asked my son what a school roast dinner consists of;

2 small roast potatos

1 thin slice of beef

17 on average [yes he counted them!] peas

gravy

I dont see that as anything other than very light TBH.

If he had a roast that I had cooked, it would have at least 2 other veg options and he would eat more than 2 roast potatos. possibly yorkshire pudding too if I could be arsed to make it

The portions are extremely small.

It's all very well cooking the same limited range of meals day in day out, but I get bored of carrots, broccoli and cabbage day in day out. How is that teaching them to enjoy a range of foods? How is that fair on those of us who would like peas or ratatouille? And so on with virtually every food.

I could cook easy meals that they would eat, but then either I cook again for dh and myself, or we eat a boring and limited diet.

And this lot are capable of misbehaving even if I stuck to the same meals all the time. Yes, that has to be addressed.

Anyway b-and-b would only be 3-4 nights a week. And it wouldn't be thin white sliced, it would be home-made wholegrain seeded doorsteps.

I had to laugh at people saying 'oh just give them beans on toast/eggs/jacket with cheese'.

My DS1 won't touch anything like this, and it drives me mad. He would love it if I served up a full roast every night as he adores meat and vegetables and doesn't like his food 'mixed up'.

OP I feel your pain.

Unfortunately we don't all eat together. The DCs eat at about 5.15... When we were delaying it they were getting even more tired.

On a school night that means we eat separately but on the weekend we all eat together early. I always thought we'd eat together every day but it just wasn't working.

I'd rather they ate early (they aren't alone, we are there and have tv off etc) and had something cold (but still balanced) rather than eat nothing at all.

Sympathies OP and many others on this thread, fussy eating is a nightmare, have pretty much come through it with DSD though at 13 she still eats a limited diet.

I wouldn't call a roast dinner and a chocolate pudding 'light' (which is what mine had yesterday)- is it the portion size that makes them so 'light'?

Yes absolutely. Normally 2 very small roast potatoes, 1 slice of meat, 1 yorkshire and some veg.

Dessert is also tiny too

Which is just as it should be considering they're expected to play/do PE etc...

Worraliberty yes, that is a fairly modest portion. I just asked my daughter (7) what her roast consists of and she said 2/3 potatoes, one slice of meat, gravy, carrots and cabbage (she is one of the only ones that eats the cabbage). She said the portion is 'moderate'. I think it's ok for a 7 year old, perhaps not a 10 year old though.

I am more concerned that her option of yoghurt/fruit instead of the cooked pudding (plum crumble, chocolate cake) is often run out when she gets there. She doesn't like their desserts and I was under the impression she was choosing the other options. She says they only have about four yoghurts a day and it's first come first served.

I shall be bringing this to the attention of the school immediately!

I still think for her age, it's fine to have a ham/salad/sweetcorn meal in the evening, with some bread and butter, and not go cooking a complex dinner that then gets rejected, if only for my sanity (nothing worse than cooking and having it rejected).

In our house, there was the dinner, or bread and cheese if you hated the dinner, so you didn't starve to death, but it didn't encourage fussiness.

we have "on toast" followed by fruit on the 2 nights each week when DH and I both work, and DD1 doesn't even get a school lunch. Quick, easy, and everyone loves it. They'll not waste away.

I agree with all of that Hardgoing

I was the youngest of 5 kids...Mum was a SAHM and Dad was the only earner

Fussy eating or 'food issues' as it seems to be called now just wasn't possible

We all had the odd food we couldn't stomach (mine was liver) but there was never any "I don't fancy that tonight" or "I've gone off it Mum"

It simply wasn't possible.

i have never considered giving my children bread and butter for dinner , snack yes.. i have always gave them a cooked meal along side their school meals, i seem to making more hard work for myslef it seems looking at this thread ,maybe, i should do the b&b twice a night during the week to easy the what to cook burden.

On a normal day my ds (5) eats:

Breakfast: Porridge with raisins
Lunch: School dinner with a pudding
After school: snack of bread and butter or similar
(We walk quite a distance home)
By half five he is really hungry, then he has something like stew and rice, omelet and potatoes or baked potato and beans plus a green vegetable.
Yogurt and fruit for pudding.

he is quite skinny! If I tried to give him bread and butter for tes, he would be waking me up at 4 a.m begging for food!

From the age we were able to understand it my mother presented us with a simple choice. She was cooking X, we could have that or sort ourselves out. Certain things were off limits in the fridge but otherwise we could forage.

Means we are both reasonable cooks. We progressed from bread when v young to throwing leftovers together for dinner when Mum was doing stuffed hearts (again)

have you asked them if they are hungry

in our house we only eat when hungry and that means we often don't have an evening meal at all. Maybe two days a week we don't eat tea. DD has gone to bed without any tea tonight, not hungry - fine. I'd much rather that than have her force food down she doesn't want to eat. DH not hungry either, nothing for him this evening, big lunch - I've had a salad as I didn't get much at lunchtime.

Anyone is free to eat fruit/cheese/cold meats/eggs/bread/crackers and so on at any time should they wish.

I think soup plus bread and butter sounds like a lovely supper.

I don't do a cooked meal in the evening anymore for the DCs. They eat at 5pm - if we wait for DH to come home they're too tired to eat anything.

DD (5) is a very good eater, and has school dinners. 9 times out of 10 she eats her whole meal, plus dessert and fruit snack. She has a snack when she gets home from school (biscuit and fruit normally), and then a lunch-type meal in the evening - Jacket Potatos, Beans on Toast, Egg and Toast, Sandwiches and Salad etc.

DS (2) is a shockingly bad eater. He will NOT eat a cooked meal. He picks at it, but hardly a spoonful passes his lips. He will however eat sandwiches and toast, fruit and yoghurt, so that's what he has in the evenings. At nursery he gets a cooked meal, but rarely eats much of it. When I do a cooked meal in the evening it is a complete waste of time.

The rule in this house is one meal. You don't eat it, you don't get anything else (except fruit). End of.

There aren't any easy answers!
What I do is to cook just one meal for the whole family, accompanied by bread and butter. If they don't like it they can lump it fill up on the bread and butter. The idea is that the bread and butter is fairly boring and not treat-like so they aren't rewarded for fussy behaviour but at the same time they don't go to bed hungry.
Give them really small portions of the cooked meal and encuorage them just to try one mouthful. This sometimes works for our own fussy DDs and once or twice they have even asked for more!
If they don't like the cooked meal they have to say so politely instead of just "Yuk".
But as long as they are having a good hot meal at lunchtime the evening meal isn't so crucial - you can afford to experiment a bit.

I think bread and butter or toast and butter is fine as a snack or as supper in the official sense of the word (i.e. light meal before bed), but I think if it's their main evening meal, it should be a little more substantial. So, a sandwich/toastie/or pitta with a variety of fillings, some fruit and yogurt/fromage frais would be fine, imo, if they eat a school dinner and they eat it well. In a way, it's just the opposite of what we do- packed lunch for DS at school and a hot meal at home in the evenings.

I completely agree with BleurghUna!

Mine have hot dinners most days. They are not as fussy as they used to be, but there are still times I want to pull my hair out.

On some nights I cook one meal for all - no arguments. That is made clear in advance. They have come round to eating part of/some of what is dished up and not making too much of a fuss. By doing this, my youngest dd has started to like some of the dishes she has turned up her nose at in the past as she has repeatedly tried them with no drama. They are allowed to leave anything they don't like (e.g. DD2 hates onions so is allowed to pick those out) at the edge of their plate.

They are allowed yogurt/fruit and maybe a biscuit for pudding or can have a bowl of cereal later for supper instead if they wish.

On some nights, like tonight, I will cook something that DP and I both like, but that I know they don't. On those nights they are asked to pick something for themselves, but it has to be something simple. Often my DD (10) will chose to make something for herself. Tonight she had a bacon sandwich and some fruit.

When served something they complain about, do they also then say they're hungry after having refused it, or are they not bothered? It's all very well people saying school dinners are very small portions/ OK portions but really it's going to depend on the child and their appetite.

OP, is the one who won't eat beans also the one who won't eat baked potato, or are they different DC?

If they all like soup I would do soup and bread and butter every night, at least for a while. Soup is, or can be, perfectly nutritious. I also think sandwiches would be fine.

If they all like soup then a big pot of home made soup with some bread sounds like a pretty good, nutritious, no hassle evening meal for the kids for 2 or 3 nights a week. Serving bread and butter is just petulant (though I have threatened that for DS1's packed lunch, on occasion, when he's left it day after day) but there's no harm in something which is easy and will actually get eaten.