To ask what time you eat your meals?

[Cherchezlaspice]

Inspired by another thread, what time do you eat your meals every day? Posters were talking about having dinner at 5pm and I thought that was really interesting! It’s not something I’d previously come across.

Also interested in whether this varies by age or region, so it would great if you could say. I’ll start.

DH and I are in our 30’s, have no kids and live and work in Central London

Breakfast (well, a smoothie): 8.30am

Lunch: Half 1ish

Dinner: circa 8pm

Breakfast- 7.30 to 9
lunch 12 ish
dinner - 5
my husband has supper around 10

Timing are such now we have very young children.

Breakfast 8ish, lunch 1ish, dinner 8ish. We live in London with teenage children.

Pre DS we used to eat at about the same time as you (when we were young, and in London).

Now we have a DS, are in our mid 30s and live in the shires we eat earlier so we can eat as a family at a time that suits him.

Breakfast - toast as soon as he’s awake, followed by porridge

Lunch - between midday and 12.30

Dinner - 5.30pm approx. It was 5pm when he was a bit younger; it keeps moving later as he gets hungrier later, so will probably go to 6pm as he gets older, then eventually we’ll maybe revert to 7.30pm when he’s late teens!

I insist we all eat as a family round the table. We do this whenever he’s not at nursery, and even on nursery days we always cook a dinner and eat it as a threesome when he gets home. Usually a small portion for him because of the food at nursery, but we all eat the same thing at the same time.

Yes @workwoes123 I was thinking the same. I sort of meant why on mumsnet it would still be viewed that way.
Someone has actually said on the thread that they can only imagine shift workers and toddlers eating at 5pm.
My children have to get up in the week at 6.30 so an 8pm dinner would mean they wouldn’t get enough sleep. Plus I like to exercise most evenings. If I waited until after we had eaten at 8pm there wouldn’t be enough time for sport.

Breakfast 8am
Dinner 12:30pm
Tea 5:30pm

I'm a northerner if the dinner & tea didn't give it away

Mid 30s

Oh and DH is a shift worker as was my DDad when I was growing up so maybe that does play a part.

2 kids 3 &5.

Breakfast - 7.30 in term time, 8 on weekends/holidays.
Lunch 12/12.30
Tea: 5/5.30

I eat with the children most days, I work from home. My kids are larks and wake naturally between 6 & 6.30am most day, they are shattered and eat poorly if their dinner slips past 5.30pm. The nights I eat with DH it would be 7.30/8pm.

Oh and it suits me as it leaves my evening free for exercise/hobbies/work.

0700
1130
1630

SE with older DC
breakfast — depends on person. Either none, or about 9 am
lunch 1-2 pm
supper 7.30 -9.30 pm

I said that because (aside from surprise about people being hungry enough for dinner 4-5 hours after lunch yet fine for 12-18 hours until breakfast) I can’t see how logistically it works for other categories of people. Everyone I know is still at work at 5pm unless they work shifts, and toddlers get fed at childcare. For most people, surely it doesn’t work to eat before at least 6 once you’ve got home and had a chance to prepare food. Are people who eat at 5pm not eating as a family? Or households where all adults work part time? Or live next to their workplace and not cooking each evening?
Also it’s easier to exercise before eating as you don’t have to wait to avoid indigestion that way.

I eat with my kids now so all meals are early. I go to bed around 11pm but don't eat anything at all after dinner.

Breakfast: 6.30/7am
Lunch: 11.30am/12pm
Dinner: 4.30/5pm

@AppleBottomRats yes we cook most evenings. I’m very organised. I work about 15 minutes from home. I have to pay more for after school club if I pick up later so it’s a good incentive to try to leave work on time. Home by 5. Tea ready 5.30/6pm. All digested and ready for exercise by 8pm.
If I exercised earlier it would mean leaving 2 young children home alone which I don’t think would be appropriate. Also the intensity of exercise I do would be very difficult on an empty stomach. Have tried previously and felt quite ill.

Hobbitfeet I'm exactly the same.

I have to be super organised to get tea on the table by 5.30 after collecting kids at 5 but I do it!

surprise about people being hungry enough for dinner 4-5 hours after lunch yet fine for 12-18 hours until breakfast)

It's normal though because you are asleep for 8 hours of it? I have breakfast at 7.30am so theres 14hours without food but isnt the whole point supposed to be we should eat our meals within a shorter stretch of time (bit like 16:8).

You digest things slower in the evenings.

On most week days if not WFH we leave for work around 7.45-8, and we’re usually arriving home between 5.30 and 7ish. Kids (young teens) get in earlier, after school and sometimes after clubs, and will have a snack when they get in. We both work ~8.30/9 - 5/6 with 30min / 1 hour commutes.

So:
Breakfast 7-8
Lunch any time from 11.45-1.30 depending on meetings
Evening meal 6.30-7.30 depending on who can start cooking first and how long it takes.

Though on some sports / scouts type evenings we’ll get a meal out at 5.30, but the kids will be starving again by the time clubs / scouts are finished at 9 so will have more food then.

When they were younger we’d try to make dinner closer to 6-6.30 but was busting a gut to get back from work in time. When they were really little and ate at the childminders, we’d get home, play, stories, bedtime etc and finally sit down to our own dinner around 9. That was hard.

Weekends more flexible.

Food 2 to 3 am if I am working night shift

Breakfast 9:00
Lunch 12:30
Dinner 18:00
Adult DC only, no young ones
East Anglia

We live 5 mins walk from workplaces. I'm not into the commuting lifestyle.

Breakfast 7
Lunch 1
Dinner 7

Breakfast - anything goes really. I don't always have breakfast at all. If I do, it would be 9.30-10ish on a weekday, at my desk. If I have breakfast at the weekend it would be about 10.30-11ish.

Lunch - on a weekday, depends on whether I had breakfast and what I've got on at work, but usually something at some point between 12.30 and 2. Weekends it would be later than that, and if I had a late breakfast I might just grab a snack late afternoon instead.

Tea/dinner - the earliest would be about 7.30, usually more like 8ish.

It's just me and DP, in our 40s(me) and 50s(him). We live in a northern city but we're both from London originally, working class backgrounds.

Someone has actually said on the thread that they can only imagine shift workers and toddlers eating at 5pm.

Well, yes - because unless someone is at home with young children, or works shifts/flexitime/part-time hours, they would typically still be at work at 5pm. I've never had a job in my adult life where I could finish work, get home and prepare a meal by 5pm.

This is so interesting and makes perfect sense. I come from proper, working class stock, so my mam would have been brought up with an early dinner- which she continued. Dad worked shifts (police) but he had to just fit in around the early ish dinner!

For all those saying that early dinner is impossible/ unusual, I'm a teacher, so home with DC by 4/ 4:30pm (huge bags of marking/ prep home with me for later 😱) and DH is 8-4, so home by 5. 5:30-6:30 works for us.

I’m astonished some of you eat so early!

No toddlers, shift workers am not working class. I just get hungry about 5-6pm.

We wfh these days, but even back in the day when we went out to offices, we pop something in the slow cooker in the morning or take a batched cooked meal out of the freezer and then its just a case of making potatoes, rice or pasta and a few veg to go with it.

Not a keen breakfast eater so have a large, milky coffee at any time between 05:30 and 09:00.
Lunch around 13:00
Do not generally eat supper, but if so around 19:00.

Breakfast 6:30 on work days, when/if I am hungry on weekends
Lunch 12:30ish on work days, when/if i am hungry on weekends
Dinner/Supper Whenever I can be bothered - usually between 6:30-7:30pm.

I have a much healthier attitude to food at weekends as not constrained by a timetable.