To ask those of you who have a later family dinner get young dc to bed on time?

[Newtothis2015]

My 2 and 6 year old normally eat dinner at 4.30pm with me, there dad gets home at 6pm and reheats his later. I have been doing a trial of us all eating dinner at 6pm and it is not working for the following:
1: dd is starving after school and is eating a dinner sizes snack after school (think toast, biscuits, cheese, sausage rolls, Apple, all at once!)
2: it takes youngest dd 45 minutes to eat dinner as she is slow and steady and has a pudding too which she also eats slow and steady
3: dh sometimes has a late lunch at work and doesn't always want to eat straight after work
4: I am tired by 6.45pm and am slow at cleaning the kitchen
5: the kids are not in bed until 7.30 with a 6 dinner and take an hour to fall asleep so are not asleep until 8.30 and do not want to wake in the mornings

Shall I put this down as not working? Or are there any of you who manage a 6pm dinner and kids asleep by 7pm? If so how do you do it??

Agree to pp who said it won't always be that way. When ours were little I would feed them at 5-530, still sitting round the table with them and then I would eat with DH later when he got home. Weekends, all eat together.

Now they are older, we're often so busy with sports, after school clubs, etc that it depends on what day it is when we eat together. Sunday dinner is sacred in this house as it's the one meal I expect all of us, particularly the teens, to be here, no exceptions.

My (rather long winded) point is, I think it's great that you're trying to make sure you get family meals together, but if it's not working every night, aim for a couple of nights a week when it could.

Doesn't sound like it is working - I'd leave it until they are bigger.

Could you and the kids start eating dinner at 5:15/:30 and then by the time your other half gets home he can reheat and everyone can sit and have time together even though they have technically finished eaten?

In our house I eat with ds at 6:30pm and then get him fully ready for bed and then when dh gets home at 7:30 we sit with him so he gets to see ds a little during the week.

I get in at five, have a piece of fruit or soup or something when DS has his dinner at about 6, and then eat later with DH, who doesn't get home till about 6.45 and is the household's main cook. Admittedly we tend to only have elaborate meals at weekends, so weeknight dinners are soup or salad or a sandwich or stir fry or something quick, and can be thrown together after DS (who is three) has gone to sleep.

I suspect our current arrangement only works because DS has no interest in food, and would live on apples and toast if allowed, so he's not hungry earlier, even if he's had a very active day - and we're too tired to eat much on week nights. I would love us all to eat together, but it isn't workable.

mummamayhem my dh ends up with unimpressive looking left overs too! I think I will carry on eating at 4.30 but maybe have a second portion with dh later as well!! I just need to work on meals that everyone likes where the leftovers for dh do not turn into a shrivelled lump!!

I've tried eating at 5 but I have the same problem of dd being hungry and snacking all the way up to dinner. I will stick to 4.30 dinners and save eating together for the weekends. Thanks for all your help guys!

Monday to Thursday, smallest DC eat earlier (4:45pm) then DH & I (plus any older Dc about) eat around 6:30pm (with younger ones picking at out meal if they are hungry. Friday and Saturday we all eat together, as bedtime can be a little later, and Sunday we all have a fairly early roast together. That way, it works for everyone, and we still get 3/7 evening meals around the table together.

On the weekdays, we (DH & I) split the tidying up the kitchen/getting DC ready for bath tasks so we can move pretty quickly once we have eaten.

I have always worked so dinner is necessarily somewhat later (7 ish). I think it just depends what you are used to.

We never had time consuming messing around at dinner or when getting to bed simply because the timetable didn't allow it! I find with kids, activities tend to expand to meet the time available for them.

Sorry, xpost. You've come to that decision anyway!!

things like chili or bolognaise or curry ate fine left fir an extra hour or so or on "keep warm" on the slow cooker.

thinks like chicken breast or steak or meat cutlets , well you can cook those when needed.

things like pasta bake divide into two dishes. bake the kids one when they need and then bake yours later with your dh.

steaming veg only takes a few mins so just steam yours later on.

We have dinner around 7pm and dc go to bed at 9pm. We get them up for school at 8am and that works fine for us. They are 5 and 7, before they started school they would go to bed later and get up around 9-10am (I miss those days!)

I think (on MN in particular but in RL to an extent) early mealtimes are seen as somewhat gauche (or might I say Non-U) and 9pm as the height of continental sophistication. But frankly,those considerations are secondary to the fact that I want the kids in bed by 7ish so I can have an evening, which means supper for them at 5.30. DH and I eat at 7.30/8 if we eat, which quite often we don't (neither of us like cooking and both happy to forage in the fridge), or we're out at the gym etc.

Unless DH finishes work early, we've come to accept that DCs eat earlier and are in bed for 7/7.30 and we eat about 8, but Fri, Sat & Sun we always make sure our meals are together.

Docs are 6,7 & 8 and wouldn't cope with later bedtimes as are all early risers. Works for us.

we regularly have dinner at 6pm and my 5yr old is in bed by 7pm. My rule about eating after school is 2 things max, one healthyish (cheese/yoghurt/cerealbar/fruit) and nothing after 4 pm until dinner, that might help with your dd

Keyser - we aren't home until 7pm so it's not being 'sophisticated'. There's no way mien could ever be in bed by 7pm as we literally couldn't fit that in. 9pm has always worked for us since children in school. As babies they didn't have a bedtime, which worked for us as they slept in even later.

Personally I would just give them a snack at 4 ish if they need and do dinner at 6pm. Surely 4.30pm dinner becomes impossible if you go out anywhere after school? Don't you go out at least in summer?

Dinner at 6, tidying up and getting school bags ready etc at 6.30, bed at 7 for littlest (5) bed at 7.30 for eldest (8) lights out at 8 and 8.30 respectively. They don't have a bath every night. When they do, it is generally before dinner.

When they were smaller, it was pretty much the same - eat at 6, bath at 6.30 while other parent did washing up (or did the dishes later), bed and story at 7, stay with child while they fell asleep.

The children do tend to have a fairly substantial after school snack (rice pudding and fruit/ crumpet, cheese and fruit/hummus, pitta bread and veg sticks etc) and we only have pudding once a week or so.

It doesn't sound as though that timing works for you, though.

We eat together most nights but I also feed the kids after school just something simple soup, toast, pitta and dips etc with fruit and yoghurt and a biscuit. Then they have a small portion of whatever we eat at dinner. I like it because I am not to worried if they don't like what we are eating it's the eating together that's important and they get a healthy mix of food over the day.

After dinner we go straight to bedtime routine. Kids normally in bed with lights out by 8. If they are tired I might do 2 dinners and get them in bed early once in a while but like you I had enough of cooking 2 every evening and also not eating till 9 which meant I was snacking in the evening and putting on weight.

The madthings have always just eaten with us at 6pm Ish, occasionally more like 5:30 and often later. Tbh it never occurred to me to give them dinner at 4:30pm, with after school clubs or just going to the park after school etc we can often not be in til after 5pm.

They get a snack at pick up if they are hungry which they often are but I wouldn't think of serving dinner at 4:30. I couldn't be arsed with cooking twice, clearing away twice. We eat together and then younger kids in bed by 7:30, older ones stay up later obviously. We don't do bath every night and sometimes do bath before dinner depending on what we are doing, a bath never calmed mine down for bed anyway it always made them more hyper. Quiet reading etc will calm them down for bed and I am quite strict on no messing around at bedtime or dragging the bedtime routine out, this is partly due to having five kids I guess and also because dh does shift work so I am often on my own in the evenings so the bedtime routine is down to a t.

When they were little they didn't have a bedtime as such and gradually one evolved. Expecting baby no 6 and for an least the first 6mths they will be with us in the evening and will probably start with a 9pm bedtime that gradually moves forward as they get older and sleep longer stretches etc.

I guess it is what you are used to and what fits in with your lifestyle.

DH doesn't get home from work until 7/7.30, so I feed the children at around 5.30/6 and sit at the table with them. Then DH and I eat closer to 9pm, as he likes to cook to wind down, and spends time helping to put the children to bed when he arrives home. My son is vegetarian, and by extension my daughter eats mostly vege meals, so I have to cook separate meals for them anyway.

Either of those routines sound impressive to me!

I have big age gaps (12, 8 and 1), am a single mum, we don't finish school till 4.45 and are usually due at activities by 5.30. We then don't get home till 9ish or later. So 'family dinner' is usually whatever I throw at them in the car en route to dance or whatever and again on the way home. On days where I work late the children stay late with me (all at the same school) and have school dinner at 6. Routine isn't a word I know!

Keyser - we aren't home until 7pm so it's not being 'sophisticated'

It wasn't a criticism of anyone of this thread, more an observation of the many similar threads where it becomes very clear that the late meal/bedtime people think the early mealtime/bedtime people somewhat unsophisticated. I wondered if the OP's concern was rooted in those opinions, when in fact, if the current routine works for her family, then she should just stick with it.

We do a snack on the way home/at after-school clubs; then it's dinner at 6, reading/board game or cards and bath/bed by 8 or 8:30. If we are all home on time, we all eat together, otherwise whichever parent is around has a cuppa (DH: some toast and a cuppa) while DD eats. We, the grown-ups then eat together later. Fri/Sat/Sun we eat as a family.

Like you op, I just don't get how the whole family can eat together on a week night.

My dc are very hungry after school but if they eat a small snack they won't eat all their dinner, so I give them their meal straightaway.

I also prefer to bath them after they have eaten as they are messy eaters.

We eat our dinner once the dc are in bed. Neither of us wants dinner earlier than 8pm.

We always eat together at the weekend though.

I wouldn't let DD snack all the way up to dinner. A healthy reasonable snack when she gets in from school then that's it until dinner. Maybe she needs a bit more at lunch?
Also depending on what you mean by messing about at bath time I would clamp down on that too.

My DS is nearly 4 and we eat all together at 6. So he has snack at about 4, dinner at 6, pudding while one of us runs his bath. Toilet and teach clean then into bed for a story. We then turn his lights off and leave although this might not work with your 2yo depending on if you have to stay while she falls asleep.
He's in bed and done by about 7.20 most nights.

DD (3) eats at around 5.30 - during the week she has her main meal at lunchtime and something on toast or a sandwich for tea. I will sit with her and nibble something light like fruit. DH and I eat around 8.30 once she's in bed. At the weekends, we eat with her and cook our main meal for 5.30, giving us the evening free.