To absolutely hate tea time with small children (3 and 1)?

[ihateteatime]

Worst time of the day by miles. I want to send them away and have them returned after tea.

Do supper club.

Join up with a group of other parents and take turns and head there after nursery. Hosting parent does kids dinner. Adults get their own cup of tea. Leave pretty fast after tea.

We did this. It saved our sanity.

Yeah it's a rubbish time of the day with small kids. When my first two were that age, DH worked in London and didn't come home till 7.30-8...at teatime that seemed like an eternity! I agree with PP - see if you can swap tea times with friends, have a picnic every now and again...I used to take them to my mum-in law's, which wasn't particularly fun but gave me a spare pair of hands and an adult to talk to for a couple of hours! Having the radio on helped me too if I was alone. Good luck!

What specifically do you hate about it?
I do snacky plates for mine of similar ages and it takes a lot of the pressure off. They might have a bit of precooked chicken, a Fromage frais, some fruit and a veg, something easy like frozen peas or something.
Picking at lots of little things seems to help and try not to start dinner too late if it can be helped.

The idea of bundling them into a car and to a friends and then back again is making me laugh a bit hollowly. Or do you all live on the same street?!

A glass of wine numbed the pain slightly when mine were at this stage.

Yeah never mind a cleaner just someone to come in and feed them and clear up. They are pretty disgusting creatures

Mine don’t really go for picnic type food. It just isn’t eaten. I hate inevitably getting covered with food and telling the three year old to sit down, the mess it causes and the stress!

Get them used to tapas style, little bread little this and little that.
Don't Tell them to sit down.
Try and reframe it all. Them not sitting now doesn't mean they won't as adults.

Again try and re frame the mess, put them on plastic or paint sheets.

If all else fails occasionally giving them TV won't hurt

Mix it up a bit. Have a teddy bears picnic In the garden. Make it fun. Doesn't have to be picnic type food. Serve dinner in a little bowl each Relax.

They don’t eat picnics.

Not U to hate it - I don't miss it but I am now completely over it when it comes to cooking and serving food for the family so probably not the best person to answer! Just do whatever is needed - prep in advance / mix it up / bribery / TV or promise of TV / a game / audio book. Perhaps feed baby first - give a toy or pudding they can do by themself while you pay more attention to three year old - divide and conquer?

When it comes to sitting at the table I'm old fashioned and didn't like DC running about during mealtimes. But not so old fashioned I wouldn't do whatever was needed to get them to sit for ten mins to eat including TV / music / word games like guess who / I spy / reward charts etc. Would a reward chart work for the three year old? I seem to remember I had one specifically for meal times / table manners.

Getting food everywhere is par for the course. Kids are messy while they are learning. Then they are teenagers and still messy in a different way.

It’s not called the witching hour for nothing!

I found sitting down with them with food of my own was the only way to get that period to run a bit smoother. Not painless but a bit easier

Ditto!

Just eat together? Mine ate as a family from 6 months.

Stick an iPad in front of them 🤷‍♀️

Solidarity.

When mine were this age we had a little kitchen with no space for a table, and a separate dining room. Dinnertime drove me bananas, I seemed to spend the whole time darting from one room to the other like some sort of crazed whackamole. I swear this is the main reason we moved.

Solidarity too. It's impossible to get them to sit at a table and eat - even when I sit and eat too. They eat while walking/ running though the house. I've given up. Deal with the mess when they've gone to bed. Accept the walls and doors will be covered in their food finger prints. A lot of parenting requires letting go of anxiety

My son is only 8 months old, but crawls around like a lunatic smearing food everywhere.

All the other babies I know are non-crawling and sit in chairs to eat. Whilst mine has spent the past six weeks finding a new place to jam food that I hadn't guessed each day.

Solidarity. It's a hideous time. Tired children loudly rejecting/wasting/throwing lovingly prepared food at a time when you are just DONE with the day and want to sit with a glass of wine in front of the telly.

When I am fed up beyond all bearing it (and you're right, it's the worst time of the day), we do 'movie night' tea and I plonk a random selection of stuff on a picnic rug on the floor of the living-room and we watch a movie together. Things like carrot/cucumber sticks, cream cheese on toast, fish fingers, fries, pizza, sweetcorn, popcorn for after. I pick up the worst of the debris afterwards and then the rug gets shaken in the garden and the birds deal with the rest.

Glass of wine for you, saved my.life when twins were small (now adults) and serve things like mini sausage, cucumber sticks, carrot sticks, olives dairylea cheese and ritz crackers etc maybe buy some mixed dips from Aldi. Kids love a snacky/picnic tea, don't over think it.
You've.got this, but wine or gin.does help 😂

We eat together, I make normal food just with no chilli or salt. I have a 3 year old and 1 year old. I'm not a huge fan either. They're exhaused and therefore incredibly annoying. I'm exhausted and quick to irritate.