to not let 12 year old eat supper?

[Jw35]

My 12 year old dd is a little overweight. She's not fat and she's growing but she's in age 14-15 clothes.

I also have an almost one year old. I get up at 5.30 most mornings and by the time baby goes to bed at 7pm in shattered (I'm also pregnant so more tired than usual).

Kids have dinner at 5pm. Always a biggish meal, dd is always full afterwards. She wants more to eat around 8pm-usually a sandwich. By this time I'm tired and want peace and quiet. I've introduced 'quiet time' between 8-9pm so she goes upstairs and reads or whatever then comes down to say goodnight at 9pm

I said she can have supper at 7.30pm but my sister has said to me (while she visited last weekend) she shouldn't need anything else and I'm over feeding her. (Not in front of her) Is she right? Does she need supper at all? How should I handle this? She doesn't snack much just 3 meals a day and supper

How about a piece of fruit rather than a sandwich?

Is she actually hungry or has it become a habit?

Is she getting enough protein. Bread or fruit are just going to make her hungrier.

Supper and tea can be snacks or meals.

I think dinner should be later, but no supper

Later dinner yes

I don't think you should limit what she is allowed to eat. If you are worried about her being overweight, cut down the sugary/artificially sweetened softdrinks and stuff.

Is there obesity somewhere in your family line? How do your daughter's eating habits differ from yours when you were that age?

Just enjoy your peace and quiet, and let your daughter make her own sandwich. She can feed herself. At that age, "overfeeding" is not an issue, unless you tell her to always eat everything on her plate AND fill the plate for her.

Or something like fruit salad or veg sticks

You could sell it as trying to up her give a day

What time do you eat? 5pm seems quite early for a 12 year old. DS(10) has his tea usually around 6.30 if eating on his own, and anytime between 6.30 and 8 if eating with us. Could she eat with you?

Depending on how late tea is, my teenagers might have supper.

Some nights, tea is ready at 5, so they might have toast or cereal before bed.
Some nights it's nearer 7, so they might have nothing, or something small like digestives or crackers and milk.

I think when they're growing at this age, they can get hungrier in the evening. I rarely eat supper, but i always had it as a child/teen.

I would just move dinner later, 5pm is pretty early, and I presume why your up at 5.30am, 1 year old is hungry 12 1/2 hrs after last meal.

Move dinner and bedtime. 6.30pm dinner, 8pm bed for 1 year old, hopefully they then sleep in to 7am at least as last meal 90 mins later.

If it suits you to have dinner for the children at 5 then carry on. But I can see why a 12 year old would feel peckish by bedtime if she eats that early. If you're worried that she's eating more than she needs you could always try making slightly smaller portions for dinner.

Agree with cariadlet - it's less about when she eats and more about total food consumption in a day.

I had supper every night at that age, at about 9pm, after a substantial 5pm tea. Interestingly I was perfectly slim then and only put weight on later in life under a different eating pattern. I would say maybe reduce it a bit, say one piece of toast with a hot drink, and alongside this get her to be more physically active rather try and control her diet too tightly?

5pm seems too early, especially if she goes to bed late. Don't listen to your sister- if she needs to lose weight, stop buying biscuits etc. and encourage to fill up on potatoes at dinner (no, really, they're not fattening, and v. nutritious).

Making her go to bed hungry will just lead to resentment.

A glass or warm milk might fill her up. Or if that is a bit babyish for her then she could have horlicks or ovaltine or something.

I'd be wary of making the way in a change that implies she eats too much though...I'd say something along the lines of 'it's not good to eat too near bedtime, you'll get a tummyache/indigestion/not sleep properly' but it's ok to have a drink instead....that's true isn't it, that you shouldn't eat too near bedtime?

we run on earlies too - up at 5 am, lunch at 11 etc

So dinner for us is about 5.30pm and no way would I need a sandwich later. Nor DH and he's a big bloke with a manual job.

It sounds like an extra meal to me....is she really hungry?

I have a (sporty) 13 year old and he eats dinner at 7ish and then has a pudding. I wouldn't dream of letting him eat after that.

According to medical advice you are overfeeding her.

www.heart.org/HEARTORG/GettingHealthy/Dietary-Recommendations-for-Healthy-Children_UCM_303886_Article.jsp#

Depending on the sandwich it could be by about 400 calories per day.

I would be hungry again if I ate dinner at 5 or 5.30pn, and I'm not growing. I always had a drink of milk & a couple of biscuits. what about a (low calorie - options is nice) hot chocolate and something like a couple of digestives, or a banana, or crackers?

The human body is an engine it needs "fuel" to work. the fuel being food. If you give the engine more than what it uses then it tends to store the energy it doesn't use. Of course you can get it to burn more by using it that means expending energy;!.

I think these days we're all a bit too sedentary for our own good and I'm no exception. When i were a lad etc in the last century we were always running around playing. TV was distinctly for after evening tea, computers were si-fi. But we had great freedom and we used that. In doing so we burnt of a lot of energy.

Far more than what children do these days.

Ds has supper. I see no problem with this. If he is not hungry he doesn't eat it, if he is hungry he won't sleep. He doesn't eat huge meals, smaller meals more regularly.

In a growth spurt he will eat a big breakfast, normal lunch, small tea as he walks in the door at 3:30pm, another small tea at 6pm and might still come back for toast at 9pm.

But just after a growth spurt you will struggle to get him to eat breakfast, he will leave some of the normal lunch, he will have a light snack (yoghurt and a plain rich tea biscuits or two) as he comes in from school and then a small tea.

I would much rather that he eats when he is hungry and needs the food rather then eat out of habit. Also there are people who just can't eat big meals and are better eating more smaller meals. Imo it is not the number of meals but the intake as a whole specifically in terms of nutritional quality that is most important.

DD - also 12 - is known as 'two suppers', because on two nights a week she literally eats two suppers - one earlyish, at about 5 pm, and one about 8.30 or 9, accompanied by milk. However, she does dance for 3-3.5 hours between those points, so the calories are needed.

She finds that she can't eat enough in the 'early sitting', especially because she has to be so active so shortly afterwards, so she has a small amount then (often pasta or a warm wrap), and then has what we have later.

If she WASN'T as active, she wouldn't need both. On the other nights of the week, when she only dances for an hour or two, she just eats 1 supper when the rest of us do.

So for your DD it depends a lot what she does between dinner and supper. If it is a lot of exercise, what you're doing is fine. if it is low-energy evening activities, she doesn't need both.

(DD also wears clothes for older than her age, being very tall - adult age 6 or 8, depending on stockist. However, it is the length, and length of arms and legs, that drives that - her waist, for example, is well-fitted by clothes for her own age or younger)