Waiting to 6pm and no later for dinner together

[LovelyBath77]

My husband is self-employed. He gets a bit huffy as he likes us all to eat together, but I say we usually wait till 6pm is and go ahead with the children's dinner as they get a bit hungry by then. I usually have something with them.

AIBU?

When I'm working on an afternoon I don't finish until 6. Now the kids are older and largely left home my husband on flexitime rarely leaves at 5 as roads too busy so also leaves at 6 so both home 6.45-7. Often G&T whilst preparing meal unless the teenager has been keen on cooking which she usually isn't and dinner 7.30-8.
If I'm not working on an afternoon we still usually don't eat until 7.30 as generally my husband doesn't want to get home and eat instantly. He wants to get changed, unwind, chat a bit, do music practice have a drink etc first. Sometimes he wants to do a cycling turbo session before eating or I might want to go for a run.
Different when the kids were small, although often then other people helped feed them if both working.
The only time I eat earlier on an evening is on a weekend if we've done brunch then dinner and eat at 6

For goodness sake! What's with all this children will go cannibalistic if they don't have dinner by 6 business? Is it proper food or 'children's' food you give them? This simply does not exist in Europe. We have always eaten dinner together since our son was a small toddler and we all eat the same, proper home-cooked food, sitting at the table. Oh, and my husband shops after work and then does the cooking. You can give them something small when they get home from school if they really can't survive without constant snacking. Eating together is important socially and I'm not surprised your husband doesn't want to eat alone.

The poor little kids that have to stay up and eat after bath and lianas! The children's blood sugar and wellness should take priority over when someone comes home from work! I have a 1 and 3 year old. They are up early so want breakfast at 7, lunch at 11 and dinner 5 hours later (which is long even with snacks) at 4 or 4:30. They are ready to sleep by 6:30/7. i agree with you - 6 at the latest if they're little but even if they're teenagers I wouldn't make them eat past 7:30!

I live in a small town. Not London. Therefore basically most people are home from work in ten minutes.

My dh gets in from work (self employed) and is starving at half four. If he's doing a late night he's happy to eat alone.. He has a high metabolism, does a physical job and cycles between 20-30 miles a day. The kids are hungry at five. We have dinner between 5-6.

In from school at 3.20. Homework done straight away. Play together. I start cooking at 4.30/5. They have supper before bed after their bath. Up at seven am for school and eat breakfast. Snack at 10.30. Lunch at half twelve and a snack after school of fruit or something when home.

When I worked, I finished at five and dinner was ready for six as was home for about half past at latest after collecting kids from childminder. Potentially could be starting a new job which finishes at six. So my dh will get the kids and feed them before I'm home.

Yes, on the continent little Patronius has his feast at midnight. Probably later during Saturnalia.

Dgd (5) & I eat no later than 5.30. Bed is at 7. Who wants to go to bed on a full stomach? ?? Older kids 6 would be OK. At least an hour for food to settle I think.

It's 5-6 here for all of us, my kids are 4 and 5. Any later and the kids won't eat as they've stuffed themselves on snacks whilst waiting. DH works full time but starts early, finishes at 4.15 and is home 20 mins later. I'm not currently working but when I did work FT (8.30-4.30), I was usually home by 5.15 after collecting my son from nursery and DH would have tea nearly ready.
My parents usually eat around 5 too and they're retired. We're all working class and from the north (although we live in the south).

Paula21112.....mine too when they were younger! All over 16 now, but when they were at school during the week we always ate by 6 and usually before, especially if they had places to go to (Brownies/Guides/Scouts/sports etc) DH never home by then so I either ate with them, or had a cup of tea with them (we always ate at the table) and ate with him later. He didn't mind eating alone, though I would sit with him...said he would rather eat alone than me be bad tempered through hunger cos I'd waited for him!

I think 6pm is late enough for kids at school...one of my friends used to feed hers at 4.30pm as they were so hungry. She said it was better to feed them a good, filling, healthy meal rather than have them snack and perhaps not eat so much later on.

Id rather have them eat a healthy proper tea at 4.30 than snack on junk then not want their tea at 7. They are childre i wouldnt make them go 7 hours between school dinner and tea

Say what gemma19846?

Are those the only two options - tea at 7.00 or snacking on junk?

So when DD gets home and has a banana or a slice of toast, that's 'snacking on junk?'

How do you all think the majority of the work copes? Most of mainland Europe eats 8-10pm, the Middle East def eats late into the night, most of South America is dinner after sunset. They children manage to eat at 10pm, bed after , get up at 6.30am for 7.15am school. With a 2 hour siesta maybe for young ones

If mine had dinner at 430 they would be snacking again by bedtime!

Different things work for different people and for different age children. My children (10 & 12) are not stuffing themselves with junk and then going to be on full stomachs. They are having healthy snacks post school, a good meal later and then bed 1.5 ish hours after that.

Artandco what has the rest of the world got to do with the op bit of a daft comment to make when they have different cultures and a different lifestyle. Due to the hot weather they go to bed a lot later and are up later because they have siestas and it's cooler at night. There's absolutely no similarity.

Ops children are hungry when they are hungry due to their daily routine and shouldn't need to delay their dinner and upset their routine just to keep a grown man happy. Iv no idea why this threads been derailed by people trying to argue why their dinner times best.

Everybody who does kids tea, what are you feeding them? It can't be proper meals that take a while to cook or you will be spending all night cooking two meals. Some things you can reheat - a lot can't.
It is important that we all eat together, not just for the social benefits but for a nutritious home cooked meal. I'm not prepared to do that twice. DH made sure he was home by 6.30 when the kids were young by going in earlier. Now it's 7.15ish

It is relevant to people above saying 'how can children possibly eat after 6pm, children should be in bed bed by 7pm'. Says who? Those children in Spain and Greece don't sleep 12hrs a day. They eat 10pm, sleep 11pm-7am. Plus a 2 hr siesta. That's 10hrs. No different from a child in the uk eating at 8pm, sleeping 9pm-7am but that's seen as terrible and almost child abuse

The poor little kids that have to stay up and eat after bath and lianas!

Huh?

For goodness sake! What's with all this children will go cannibalistic if they don't have dinner by 6 business? Is it proper food or 'children's' food you give them?

Is that my post you're referring to, Ms oh so sophisticated European?

Both of mine have ASD. One has lunch around noon and the other can't bring himself to eat anything at school, so the last solid meal he's had is breakfast at or before 7am (he's out of the house from 7:20-5pm, same as DH). Of course they're bloody hungry.

And DS2 goes to bed around 8-9pm, as his natural cycle involves getting up before the birds, so 6pm, when we're all home, anyway, is a perfectly reasonable time for him to eat, along with the rest of us.

There's no medals for hanging on until 9pm for dinner.

6p.m. seems incredibly early for an adult to eat their evening meal. It is OK for young children but just not possible for the majority of families if both adults work and don't have a childminder/nanny to cook the children tea.
When my children were younger they used to eat at about 6.45 p.m. and went to bed at 9. They weren't up again until about 8 a.m. so that worked well for us.
Now they are teenagers we all tend to eat at 7.30 to 8 p.m..

Well, we don't have siestas here, artandco so what they do over there is irrelevant.

Hot countries might snooze through the hottest part of the day. Up here, we'd end up sleeping through what little daylight we get for a good chunk of the year.

I don't understand the hostility towards those who eat early. Dp and I both work ft, both start at 7:30am and finish at 4. Home by 4:30. 6pm to us is a decent time to eat, having already spent time catching up on the day.
Considering we are asleep by 10pm I'd say it's a similar procedure to a lot of other families, but generally an earlier day across the board.

I find myself feeling a tiny bit hostile towards people who clearly haven't thought "hang on a minute, how can everyone in the household eat at 6pm if they aren't even HOME by 6pm?" - which is the simple truth for millions of parents in this country. If you can't look beyond your own little world and declare other people unkind or cruel to be serving dinner after 6 then you deserve a bit of a imo.

It obviously depends a lot on the time you get up and go to sleep. I generally aim to eat at least two hours before sleeping. If it is too long though I would get hungry again and ultimately probably eat more.