Is 6.30/6.45 too late for dinner for 9yo and 7yo?

[Rachtoteach]

Not a very exciting dilemma I know but I'm trying to be organised and really want us to eat as a family each evening. The thing is we also have a 10 month old and I give her her dinner at about 4.45/5 followed by bath and pyjamas. By the time I've done this, its getting on for 6pm, if not later, so by the time I've cooked dinner for the rest of us (me, dh, nearly 9yo ds and 7yo dd) it's 6.30/45 by the time we sit down to eat! Is this too late? Only alternative is to give Ds ad dd1 their tea at same time as baby and then do something for me and dh when all kids are in bed.

What do you do?

I don't think it's too late. We all eat together at between 6.30 and 7 in the summer. DC's are 11, 8 and almost 2. When bedtime is earlier in the winter the 3 DC's eat at 5.30pm and I eat later with DH. We all eat the same meal though, we just re-heat ours later.

When I was working evenings, I would cook for DCs and myself at 5.30(ish) and then go to work when DH got home, leaving him to either cook for himself/ heat up whatever we had had.
Now I don't work evenings, we often eat later, in fact tonight we will be eating together at 7.30.

we eat dinner about 7 and have done since DD was born. She has an afternoon snack as 7 hours is a long time to go without food, she has lunch at noon. Is there a reason your 10 month old has dinner earlier? Why don't you all eat as a family?

I don't think that is late at all. We used to eat later than that when my DD was a similar age, so that we could try and eat as a family (OH didn't get in from work before 7).

Would it be possible for your OH to bath baby, and put her to bed, whilst you are cooking dinner? Or for him to cook dinner whilst you are dealing with baby? Sounds from the OP like you are doing both, and you might save a few minutes if you could share the jobs.

No, not late at all.

We eat at 7 - 7:30pm in this house as DH finishes work at 6pm usually.

its too early in my house, and mine are mostly younger.

Sounds early to me. You are SuperMum in my world if you can manage to get a 10 month old in bed on time to cook dinner for the rest of the family by 6.30/45!
DH and I mostly eat around 8.30pm and it's a good night if we get both a 3yo and 9mo in bed asleep by 7.30pm

Is it causing hassles or just totally frenetic ? Easy to mix it up when they are back at school and the 10mo moves onto more "normal" food. Later dinner on Friday/Saturday with the older children. Friday pizza night etc

No, unless the DCs have an activity at that time then we eat around 7pm - they are older than yours but we have always eaten at that time so we can eat as a family.

When the DCs were younger I would do an after school snack to keep them going - toast / fruit / yogurt etc.

We have ways eaten at 7pm ish.
I have a 9 year old, and 2 teenagers.
It's always been about 7 because by the time we are both home from work and thinking about dinner, it's past 6.
Never been too late for my DCs.

I would have thought that would be fine for their ages long as they aren't long going to bed afterwards (I would expect that age to be in bed by 7.30/8pm)

I have 3.5yo DS and 15m DTs and they currently eat together at 5/5.30pm, bath at 6.30pm and in bed by 7pm (DTs) and 7.15 (DS). DH and I then eat by 8pm.

I plan that when they are around 7yo and 5yo we can move to a snack and then 6.30pm dinner as a whole family aiming for kids in bed 7.30pm/8pm.

I think eating as a family is very important but so is good sleep so for now the kids will have to make do with family breakfast and lunch and dinner just them (although I do sit with them) as i'm not prepared to sacrifice them getting a good 11-12 hours sleep.

i'm a bit of a routine queen....can you tell?

We don't have set meal times, even less so in the holidays, sometimes I cook at 5/6pm but we usually all sit down around 6.30/7pm (sometimes 9pm for them but they know I don't like this)!

They are usually hungry when they come in from school so have a snack around 4pm.

Not late no I was brought up to wait for df to come home we eat from 7:30 pm

sorry, meant to add that the point of explain my routine was to say that I agree with you feeding your youngest and putting her to bed first. imo she is to young to stay up that late (unless you are able to let her sleep in later but with school age DCs I would expect she has to be up for the school run!)

We have a 5 and 3yo and when we all eat together is is between 6 and 6.30. If they eat on their own its 5. Just do whatever suits your routine.

We always eat later than that (8pm on average).

We always have done and now have x2 toddlers who eat then also

It seems early to me. My 10mo eats about 7pm. I would fit it into what works best for you.

Sounds fine. We tent to eat at 7ush during term time. There's usually a big tub of chopped salad in the fridge so I let them a bowl of that around 6 as a kind of starter.

Mine used to have tea at 5pm, bed by 6.30.
Dh and I would eat about 7.30.

Now they are teenagers we eat together only on a Sunday and perhaps the odd Saturday. They are out and about too much.

Can you not push your baby's dinner to match everyone else at 6.30? Only one lot of cooking has to be a good thing!

We've always eaten at around 8pm or later, including when I had a little one. I'd say 6.30-45 was quite early, but whatever works for you all is fine. I think it's nice if you can all eat together rather than feeding the baby separately, and also easier to prepare one meal for everyone at one time.