"You didn't really expect food to be ready at 4pm did you?"

[123bumblebee]

Said to me by my mother recently when, after driving 2.5 hours with a toddler and planning our meals around this, dinner didn't appear until 6.30pm. We were staying in a hotel so imminently had to leave to get our 18 month old settled for the evening- we're not precious parents who are rigid about bedtimes, it's just she loses her shit with tiredness past 7pm and it's not fair on her. She won't sleep out and about in a pram, never has.

It got me thinking. I've had another recent family fallout where I hosted my brother for lunch at midday and he turned up 2.5 hours later claiming the time he said he was arrive was 11.30 "ish" so therefore we were obviously supposed to know that he was going to be so late.

Am I naive to expect people to serve meals or turn up for meals at the time stated? My mother laughed at me being so naive to expect a 4pm meal to be served....around 4pm. Obviously I understand things crop up and it sometimes takes longer than expected but this was a BBQ and the host didn't even light the BBQ until gone 5pm.

If so, how the frick am I supposed to plan my life if this is an unspoken rule that I have never been informed of?

I’ve used three nurseries so far and they’ve all had afternoon snack right after nap, and tea at 4.15 or 4.30. It’s a light tea – sandwiches and crudités, but definitely not a snack. Some hungrier kids might have a supper at home with their parents as well (mine just had some yoghurt), but anecdatally I don’t know any nursery that doesn’t do tea at 4ish.

Anyway, if you actually read the OP’s posts, she was told food would be served at 4pm. She wasn’t asking anyone to adhere to her toddler’s routine: she was expecting food to be served at 4pm. What with being told that by the host…

It is when everyone agrees to et at 4 pm! Anyone who doesn't want to eat at 4 pm has the option to use their words and say so! Then alternative arrangements can be made.

When there are young children involved, everyone knows full well that there are going to be scheduling considerations.

I think it's quite clear that "everyone" does not know this.

The reality is that most people have some flexibility in their day, most people are not the parents of toddlers and do not organise their daily routine around the needs of toddlers, and so it is the responsibility of the person whose toddler has a rigid schedule to make their needs absolutely clear.

You can't blame normal people for not realising that not lighting the BBQ at a particular time is going to cause chaos for some of their guests unless those guests have specifically said so beforehand.

I also highly recommend a reclining buggy, means that they can nap whilst you are out. Before anyone says i don't understand autism, my dd is autistic (adult now) and the one thing my dr advised at her diagnosis appointment aged 2 is to not be rigid with routine otherwise we'll be stuck in it. It worked - I advise it to all parents. You make a rod for your own back with strict routines

Maybe your mother has always been quite relaxed/flaky about meal times before but it’s only now that it’s become important to you because of the constraints of a toddler and their sleep pattern. Babies are easier and older children can be more flexible but you are acutely aware of what routine works for your DD at the moment.

I have been quite surprised at how much I had forgotten about baby and toddler care with the arrival of my DGD but am relearning fast by clarifying with my DD - things that are second nature to her as things develop aren’t to me. I babysat for most of the day recently and rechecked food and hoped for nap timings, which had changed since last time I did it.

Yanbu to expect food to be ready roughly around the time you were told by the person making it that it would be ready, not 2 and a half hours later!

You should have left for the hotel early enough to be able to nip to a shop on the way and buy sandwiches.

It just happens 🤷🏼‍♀️ maybe people were chatting, socialising, enjoying themselves and the food time got pushed back. I personally wouldn’t expect to eat at 4pm either but maybe whoever told you that misunderstood or planned to start at 4pm but couldn’t. If you had to leave so early anyway maybe you should have just passed on the whole thing? :/

YANBU about the barbaque I would expect to eat an hour/hour and half of when they said the barbaque is.

YANBU not to take something for your toddler to eat.

YANBU

And as a grandmother I would definitely arrange things like that around the toddler.

I might expect about 5, but I would also expect my mum to have the sense to know 6.30 is way too late for a toddler!! Does she think bedtime can magically be pushed back without dire consequences?

Yanbu to expect people to stick broadly to the timing they offer

Yabu if actually, knowing your own mother well, the outcome was predictable? Do they often eat as early as 4pm?

My mil would invite us for a lunch at 1pm, i know for sure she'll never serve food until about 2.30, and so i ensure the children have had food earlier.

As far as I am concerned, the social norm for hosting is that you can expect guests to be a bit flexible if they are all adults, aren't making a long journey, and don't have any dietary needs such as diabetes that means they need food to be served on time. Even then, I would still make sure there were plenty of nibbles.

When the guests include children, especially toddlers, I'd make sure the meal included stuff that could be cooked in advance or needed very little cooking time.

You are apologising for your suspected ASD and not reading social cues. I don't think that's needed at all. The BBQ hosts should have made it clear when they were serving food.

This.

If so, how the frick am I supposed to plan my life if this is an unspoken rule that I have never been informed of?

Normal ettiquette for going to someone else's house is arrive, greetings, chill, food after that. Normally at least an hour to an hour and a half after arrival.

Food on arrival I'd find weird and potentially actually quite rude tbh.

The exception is with small children and parents, where if I'd requested it at a certain time, I wouldn't be impressed at food at 6.30pm if requested at 4pm.

However I wouldn't necessarily still expect it bang on 4pm either.

And frankly, your lack of flexibility on this is the problem - regardless of the age of your children. Even if you have small children, don't bank on food being ready on demand like that, if your children can't cope if they don't get fed 'on time'.

It still is up to you to manage that and make sure you have something you can give them. What happens if you get stuck in traffic for example?

Most adults don't adhere to a rigid schedule when hosting meals. There might be a vague "arrive at 1, we'll aim to eat around 2" but no one really expects that to be anything other than a rough guideline. I don't think DP and I have ever served a meal at the time stated, because there are always unintended delays, cooking timings getting pushed back etc.

A bbq is on the particularly laissez-faire end of timings, I'd say. Most bbqs end up being "rolling" meals - the food is ready when it's ready, then later some more food is ready, and the mood is generally very relaxed and no one is paying attention to time.

As a child-free person, I can't say that toddlers' meal times or nap times ever cross my mind unless a parent has a specific request. But every time we've hosted parents with toddlers, the parents have brought their kids their own simple meals/snacks, and usually they feed them early on while chatting to us as we're still cooking. The toddlers aren't expected to eat with the adults or at the same time.

With a barbecue I'd expect there to be some breadsticks or chopped vegetables or something to nibble and the meat to run late because it took longer than expected for the barbecue to heat up.

@RedToothBrush If you bothered to read the OP's other posts you would see that they were told food would be served at 4pm so they arrived hours before that. And that she did bring food for her child.

The issue wasn't about feeding the child, it was about the child's bedtime. The food was finally served when the parents had to leave to put their baby to bed. This meant that the parents would either have to go without food after traveling for hours to be there, or they would have to upset their exhausted baby by keeping her up beyond her bedtime after an already long day.

I am exactly the same, so if you are wrong, we both are. Luckily my friend and family understand that I am a bit rigid with food times. However, if I am in a situation where food timings are not ideal, I have on occasion excused myself to arrange my own food. Although then you just get accused of being rude not eating with others, so you can't win!

@gannett I don’t think there’s a hard and fast “most adults” rule, though, and that’s where OP will struggle. Personally I’ve never served food more than five minutes after I said I would, and my family and social circle are the same. If I want X ready at Y time and it takes Z minutes to cook, it goes in the oven at Y-Z. And the five minutes delay is often just shuffling around of serving dishes and corralling people to the table rather than any significant delay. Maybe I just run with a punctual crowd!

I agree a barbecue is more loosey-goosey and ongoing, but still, if I said food was being served at 4pm, I’d start the barbecue going at 3pm, start putting meat on at intervals from 3.30, and start putting out the salads, rolls, condiments and side dishes from 3.45pm, so it was ready to be served at 4pm. And I’d have crisps, drinks and things on offer from the arrival time. I’d just expect to have to keep replenishing, because barbecue appetite renders humans suddenly capable of eating a burger every half hour for four hours.

We once went to a bbq with 1 year old dd that was at 1pm. We assumed we'd be having lunch there but they didn't serve food til 7pm. By 6.30 I was saying "We're going to need to take dd home to bed soon" and they were saying "Oh no don't go yet, we haven't served food yet." Luckily we took food for dd, but we were starving.

Well that is weird. Who invites guests for a BBQ at lunchtime and then doesn't serve any food until dinner time, a full 6 hours later?

If you need to leave by a certain time which means you need to eat before then, it's up to you to let the hosts know beforehand.

They were South African. Not sure if it was a cultural difference

Who knows? But I think it's very weird to invite people over and not serve any food for 6 hours, especially when it's a BBQ which is centred around food.

I would have given small child some food and then eaten at the BBQ when ready.

Why couldn't your child have gone to bed at grandma's house and you could have stayed later, seems a bit rigid

This sort of thing annoys me too but I have also come to expect people will be late.