AIBU to think kids don’t need 3 meals in the school holidays?

[firstworldproblems2018]

Obviously not starving them. But is there anything wrong with (especially in this heat) my two primary school age DC not having three ‘proper’ meals a day during the holidays?! We’ve been pretty relaxed this holidays- getting up later so maybe having breakfast at 11, or not having it at all and then having an early lunch and dinner, or having breakfast and then a later Big picnic lunch and then they don’t feel like dinner so might have a snack in the evening instead.

Basically not sticking to the breakfast at 8, lunch at 12, dinner at 5.30 routine of school term time. AIBU to think it’s totally fine not to have set meal times in the holidays, and if they don’t feel like eating dinner it’s not a big deal? They are not snacking on endless food during the day although maybe have more snacks than normally allowed.

YANBU

When your routine changes, there's no need to set your stomach by the clock anymore.

If they were hungry, I'm sure you'd hear all about it!

Wouldn't bother me in the slightest, as long as they aren't hungry, and aren't snacking on cakes, chocolate and crisps all day long.
Maybe ask them about 4:30 if they would like a "hot" dinner, and see what they say.

It's fine if there's food available.

The issue with children not getting their
three meals a day is an affordability thing.

Your children are fine and dandy.

Thousands of others have nothing.

Yanbu

Mine got up at half nine had pancakes and fruit for breakfast then appeared for an apple or something a round 3. They just weren't hungry. Dp is doing them wraps for tea it's too hot. They'd have come in sooner of they were hungry.

That's fine. Mine are eating breakfast around 9ish (usually huge amounts of porridge) so then not having lunch until 2ish then they may just have toast around 6ish. I'm going with flow and feeding them when they are hungry

As long as they are getting enough food to get a nutritional balance (ish!) and not too much that they are over eating then I wouldn’t worry.

During holidays routine tends to go out of the window.

It's fine.
Keep the snacks healthy and make sure they know "proper" food is available if they want it.
Once the weather eventually cools down they'll be eating you out of house and home...

Provided they aren't hungry, your business.

Sounds like you do exactly what we do - they’ll soon shout if they are hungry! Yanbu!

I wish mine were like that, they seem to require about seven meals a day during the holidays! I feed them big meals and still get constant 'Can I have something to eat?' requests every five minutes. Mind you DS1 has grown a foot in the last year and DS2 is clearly having a growth spurt so that doesn't help.

I always followed the 'feed them when they're hungry' rule in holidays.

idk, it depends on the child and the food available, I guess.

Structure/routine in diet is really important in our family for various reasons and I would hate it if my children weren't eating breakfast, lunch and dinner in a vaguely normal way (not worried about set times of course).

But, as long as your children are physically and mentally healthy about what they eat then I don't think there's a problem.

My DS has just decided to eat the sandwiches I made for a late lunch (2pm) so I don't follow set meal times during the holidays at all.

As long as the snacks are healthy why not?

My son has been up at 6.30 all 3 days so yes we are 3 meals a day plus supper so 4 I really.

If your children aren’t hungry it’s fine

It's just so hot here at the moment, eating makes me feel even hotter. I've just made lots of mini-lunches/dinners that can sit in the fridge ready to be doled out when somebody's hungry.

Anyone else gone off bread a bit in this heat? I know that as soon as it's cooler I'll be wanting toasties again, just not now.

Mine have picked today they just - like me want that much in this heat

I was doing this (first day of the holiday) but not from tomorrow my DS 11 is ok with it but my 7 year old DD doesn't eat enough in one sitting and gets very grumpy so now there's panic and stress over lack of food earlier and pressure on me to cook dinner quickly. They don't have much of an appetite though so lunch has been rejected. Both are very thin and my son in particular can't really afford to miss lunch.

Mine would lose weight too quickly if we didn't stick to reasonable amount of food 3 times a day, so I think it depends on your dc and their metabolism - if yours are fine and dandy, that is the important thing!

As long as they’re not hungry. It’s fine to mix it all up.
Our snacks are not healthy I let them have junk during the summer holidays. Only ever time I do. Loads of takeaways too. Totally different to how we eat any other time. But we love it.

Mine still have 3 meals and snacks as well. We just have the meals later than normal. So if they don’t have breakfast until about 11 then lunch will be at about 3 and dinner at about 9. They don’t go to bed until about 11 in the holidays so it works for us.

At the he moment I’m not managing one meal let alone 3.the kids seem to be happy with one and then they pick on things but often they are not very hungry.

We do this more in the holidays.

It's our regular Sunday eating pattern anyway - breakfast at 10.30, big meal at 4 and fend for yourself on fruit and biscuits later if need be

I don't know. Not for us. Ds needs about 4 meals a day! The thing about snacks is they tend to be a bit shite and I'm trying to put fat on the kid!

Only really succeeding in putting fat on myself so far. ..I wish the heat made me not want to eat. Instead I have turned into an Italian Momma, doling out high calorie food from my non-stop hotter than Hell kitchen!

My children are all up by 6am so the breakfast at 11 thing is just not going to work here...