Dinner times at grandparents'

[applestrudels]

If you had very young grandchildren (under 5), who usually ate dinner at 5pm, whereas you normally ate dinner between 8 and 9pm, and then you invited your grandchildren, along with their parents, to stay at your house for a few days, would you try and make the children's dinner at 5pm, or would you stick to your normal routine of dinner anywhere between 8 and 9pm, or would you compromise (so, 6 or 7pm)?

YANBU: I would try and make dinner earlier, at least for the children
YABU: My house, my rules. Dinner is at MY usual time.

We're another one who always does kids tea at about 5pm and then the adults eat once they're in bed, usually after 8pm as that allows a bit of time for extra faff at being time due to being in unfamiliar beds.
We do similar at home too. I only eat at 5pm with the DC if DH was out and I couldn't be bothered to cook for myself. We rarely ate as a family

When we go to grandparents either parents make food for under fives at the children's usual time and adults eat once the children are in bed, or it's all brought forward to around 6pm.

Well we have tea around 5/6 at the latest here, even weekends. So I'd be sorting myself and the kids.

We eat at 5:30 every day because of the importance of modelling family meals to children

Many people aren't even home from work at that time, let alone had time to cook a meal.

@Cobblersorchard I had already suggested in my earlier post that young children could be fed at 5 if that's when they usually eat.

But when we were away in holiday when our daughter was about five, we tended to eat earlier than usual at about 8 and she ate with us. Part of the excitement of being on holiday for her was eating later, going out at night, and going to bed late. There was always plenty of time to sleep in the next day if she was tired. Whenever my daughter stayed with my mum when she was that age, they used to eat at about 7.30 - again it was part of the fun of being away from home for a night.

Not for small children who go to bed at seven

When I stay at my mums I cook tea for the kids myself and they eat earlier - they go to bed at 7 so all hell would break loose if they had to wait for an 8pm dinner!!!

You can't make the tiny ones wait until 8pm to eat!
Even if they're staying up for a special occasion they need a tasty snack late afternoon.
It would be mean to leave them hungry.

They are well aware of our normal schedule, they often come and stay at ours.

It's not so much of an issue now, as now I do feel comfortable raiding the fridge and cooking something myself (it's my ILs, not my own parents), and we now bring our own food for the children too, although when our firstborn was little and we hadn't got into the swing of things yet, it was quite stressful sometimes.

I was just curious to understand if it was a common thing to do, really, as it's not a dealbreaker or anything, but it does just make staying there more stressful and less enjoyable for us, when a compromise (6:30 or 7, say) would just make things so much easier.

Well because adults who usually eat early are adults and therefore able to cope with being out of routine a bit. Have a snack at 5ish, eat dinner at 9, perhaps a little less than normal to account for having had a snack at 5pm.

I mean, I expect adults to act like adults, I will always make allowances for children to act like children.

I don’t like cooking twice, and would secretly hope that the parents would look after their kids and clear up afterwards, leaving the kitchen ready for me to do the evening grown up meal.

Of course they would be my guests and I’d have all the food.

I wouldn’t eat my evening meal at 5, no.

Someone has to change their mealtime in this situation, it's inevitable. Personally, I think an intermediate time (6:30 or 7:00) would be best for everyone. But failing that, I think it's far easier to eat earlier than your usual time than later than your usual time, as the person who's eating much later than normal will feel very hungry.

You ask why adults should wait and children shouldn't

Because they are adults. They are meant to have developed maturity which involves understanding that children with smaller stomachs, less emotional and physical development/maturity are less able to cope with waiting to eat than an adult.

Adults should be tolerant of those individuals who struggle - whether that be because of disabilities or young age.

As they get older people will have to tolerate their difficulties and try to help them manage this rather than say 'that's not convenient for us, just learn to fit in and eat what we tell you/when we tell you'

Who said I'm making a big deal? I literally just asked the question. You might also have noticed if you'd read the OP that I said the children are staying with the GPs for "a few days". A sandwich for your main evening meal is alright as a one-off, but it's not really sufficient 4 or 5 days in a row. Nor would most grandparents want their grandchildren to live off sandwiches for several days, I wouldn't have thought...

Do you stick to your normal schedule when they come and stay with you? Or compromise? If everyone gets on well and you've found ways around the stress of staying there (raiding fridge!) then it all sounds fine as it is to be honest. Flexibility is a good thing to teach kids. But then the concept of a routine is pretty alien to me so I get lots of people wouldn't agree and prefer to do things their way!

My FIL (many years widowed) had a very fixed routine for meals which made life pretty uncomfortable when we visited with small DC. As a grandparent myself now, we always align our mealtimes with whichever DGC are visiting.

@applestrudels if they know your routine from their visits to you does that mean you don't compromise when you are hosting?

I agree someone has to change, and it should be the people visiting, not the hosts.

I'd find it absurdly late fullstop! I'd be well past it at that point.

I am of grandparental age and am sometimes surprised by the specific food requirements of today's children (we definitely didn't have the vast array of toddler specific snacks and pouches and meals and so on you get today when we were raising ours), so I do get a little bit of the reluctance to make everyone else fit in around the kids rather than vice versa, but surely anyone who's ever met a toddler even in passing knows that it's a terrible idea for everyone's sanity to let them get hungry and tired? Any under 5s who visit here are stuffed with food from the moment of their arrival, and anything that lends itself to an early bedtime so the adults can eat in peace without dodging food missiles or having to shout over the toddler's rage/babble is generally also encouraged! IME most parents especially if the kids are fussy eaters usually have a multitude of tupperwares and snacks on their person just in case too so I'm quite happy if they want to stuff the little darlings horrors full separate to what I've provided!

If I was the grandparents in this scenario I'd definitely want the children to eat by 6 at the latest if they're used to dinner at 5. Either by fetching them something suitable to eat myself or asking the parents to choose something from the kitchen/pantry to feed them, or bringing everyone's dinner forwards (I wouldn't want to eat at 5pm myself, 6pm OK if warned in advance to not have a late lunch), or getting the parents to bring some child-friendly food with them, or even warning them to feed the toddler before they come if for some bizarre reason I had an aversion to anyone in the house including infants eating anything before 'official' dinner time. I understand wanting to serve your own dinner when you want it, including at 8pm but forbidding a toddler from eating for a full 3 hours after they'd normally eat is just a recipe for an unpleasant evening all round surely?

We always feed my kiddo on his normal schedule when at grandparents, that means breakfast around 8.30, lunch around 11.30 and dinner around 4.30. That's the schedule he's on at nursery so we stick to it generally on weekends. We usually bring food to cook for DS and sort it out when we're ready. Then adults eat later. If my parents or in laws tried to suggest I shouldn't feed my kid at the time that worked for him I just wouldn't be visiting them again until kid was on a later schedule.

Actually we're just modelling our start times being earlier than yours. I finish at 4 because I start my day at stupid o clock. Which means my child is home from nursery before 5pm, meaning eating before 6 is entirely possible.

DH and I have always been early risers and DD has naturally woken early, regardless of her bedtime. She wants to be in bed by half 7 ish most nights, so she needs to eat early. We like to eat all together as that's how we were brought up and we both enjoyed it.

It's different to you, it's not us saying we're better or being smug or anything like that. We just work different shifts.

Did you deliberately miss the soup, leftovers bit?

I think it's far easier to eat earlier than your usual time than later than your usual time, as the person who's eating much later than normal will feel very hungry.

I actually don’t agree with this, there’s nothing worse than being expected to eat a full meal when you’re not hungry and even worse if you have to prepare it too. Have you not seen the Vicar of Dibley where she’s presented with 6 Christmas dinners? And especially for older people I think sometimes appetites can decrease naturally so the result would be that they just wouldn’t eat. And it destroys the social atmosphere of having a leisurely dinner with a few drinks into the evening. Far better for the hungry person to have a cracker or something and wait in most circumstances, although obviously if they’re going to fall asleep they should eat the whole dinner earlier.