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.

Id feed the kids first. But...ask their parents advice. There is no way i could eat my own dinner that early ...

DC aside (who need to eat earlier), I think it’s much harder for adults who eat dinner at 8pm to eat earlier than vice versa. I just wouldn’t be hungry at 5pm so wouldn’t eat much. If you can’t wait until 8pm you can have a snack.

IME nursery tea for the DC then an adult dinner after they go to bed works better than a compromise midway. You just end up with tired, hungry kids who are either too tired to eat or too hyper to sleep, and stressed adults from dealing with the DC. It’s quite nice to have an adult dinner without DC once in a while!

You clearly don’t know much about under 5s or nutrition. There is nothing wrong with a last nights leftovers or a sandwich and soup - it’s carbs, dairy, protein and lots of vegetables. No harm will come to a toddler who eats this for 5 whole days 🙄. I trust you can throw in a bit of fruit and a glass of milk without creating too much drama?

I can only assume you don’t like these family members and don’t want them to visit you, as you are clearly determined to be a martyr and make them feel as unwelcome as possible.

Or you disapprove of them feeding their kids at 5pm and want to make some sort of point about how their choices are wrong. I assume you are the mother or the MIL - my advice to you is that you to learn not to sweat the small stuff .

Save all your disapproval of your child and their partner’s parenting for things that actually matter. Then you have a tiny chance they might listen to you.

In this instance I always fed dc earlier and then put them into bed before dinner with GP's. I could then enjoy a glass of wine!

I am not a fan of family meal times when the kids are young.

Eating my (always glorious and well thought about) dinner with lovely (let's face it - adult) company/peace is my favourite part of the day. And I've always protected that.

I'm not swapping that for 'do you know mummy, mummy do you know mummy. Mummy, one and one makes two mummy' accompanied with a bland meal of spag Bol or something.

Btw I do enjoy my kids, and spend a lot of time with them, but not at my precious dinner time.

And bizarrely, now that they're older, and more interesting, and they really love food like me, we do spend a lot ot time preparing and eating food together.

So by-passing plain pasta and cucumber meals with boring chat when they were small, hasn't stopped them being able to converse round a table as adults.

Early tea for the kids, then dinner for grown ups at normal time.

Early tea can be any number of quick meals - it doesn't have to be just a sandwich

I'd feed the children tea at 5pm. And expect them to be in bed around 7pm I think, if they are under 5.

I'd then feed the adults between 8 and 9pm and have adult conversation without small children.

Lol we used to have this with a certain couple of relatives (childless at that time).

Not only was dinner at 8pm, they served "tea" (with cake/biscuits) at 4pm. Guess how that ended up.

6.30-7pm at the latest. Eating too late is not good for digestion.

Children can eat non bland food too.

My DD is 2 and much prefers things like curry, spiced chicken, proper Italian pasta, chilli, etc to plain pasta and cucumber.

She eats what we eat.

That's great @IpsyUpsyDaisyDoos, and if eating together works for you guys, then go wild, enjoy. I just don't think we need to hold eating together as a family when the kids are toddlers as some kind of sacred caste.

My in-laws eat around 8pm we (and kids )eat around 5pm

When we stay they either feed the kids at 5 and we all eat at 8 (after bedtime)

Or we all eat around 6.

For us, she eats better if we're eating too. She likes to be part of things.

It's not holding as a sacred caste. It's just modelling how we want her to eat. Which is properly with a good, healthy variety of food.

The fact that she does that because we eat with her is why we eat with her. Not because we think it's "better".

My point was that kids don't have to eat the bland food you were talking about. I didn't actually say anything in my original post to you about eating with her. Just that kids can eat proper food.

I couldn't eat at 21.00. My last meal is at 16.00!

Give the children their supper at, er, 5.

Everyone has a cup
of tea too as it’s teatime.

Dinner at dinner time.

I'd expect their parents to sort out the kids dinner if eating separately from us - that's how it works in our family

Not for under 5s who will be in bed a couple of hours later

Mine eat when they are hungry...

My dp's priority are the kids so if they eat at 5pm then they are fed then. Adults sit down later.

Either I'd compromise on the dinner time and have it around 6-6.30ish, or I'd serve the children at their usual time and the adults later.

It's utterly mean-spirited to insist the children wait until 8 or 9pm to eat dinner. It would be inconsiderate to insist adult guests eat that late without discussion first, nevermind small children.

My son is just shy of 3 and he’s asleep between 7.30 and 8.30pm. I can’t imagine wanting him to eat dinner so close to bedtime or pushing bedtime back to not even start eating until 8pm!

- at preschool you stayed up?

Yes.

Did your mum/childcare keep you asleep for most the afternoon to cope with dinner that late?

No. I pretty much never napped as a toddler, according to my mum.

However (unlike a lot of kids) neither I nor my siblings were ever the type who wanted get up at the crack of dawn. Our infant/primary school was literally at the top of our street, so my mum didn’t have to get us up particularly early to get us to school on time.

most people who don’t get in from work until that time will have missed dinner with their kids. They’ll have been fed by whoever is doing childcare /the other parent and then getting ready for bed at that time.

I’m sure that in most cases, that is indeed what happens. But my point was simply that it’s really just what you’re used to, and that it’s not necessarily a given that people who want to eat with their kids can only do that if they have dinner at 5pm. Everyone’s different, and people generally make things work for themselves.

I feed grandchildren at 5pm as little one goes to bed at 6.30pm. We sit & have a cup of tea with them while they are eating. Adults eat later. Works fine.

Are t you hungry by bedtime or do you go to bed very early also?

In this situation I'd cook my kid's dinner and 5 and then the adults would eat later.

If I didn't feel comfortable 'raiding the fridge', my husband would cook for the kids.

I mean, I can't imaging eating that late so I can't see it being an issue, but, in your circumstances, like many others, I'd discuss with the parents beforehand to see how to make things work for everyone.
What I would most likely do is have the main meal during the middle of the day, so everyone eats together then, and then it's easier to perhaps give the dc something more like sandwiches / eggs / something on toast, and the adults can have that or eat later if they preferred (or get takeaway) or whatever suits, but we would still have eaten together each day.