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.

Tell that to my 5 yr old who’s starving by that time and tired by 7 and a bit and ready to go to sleep

I, being 56 years old, cannot eat after 5pm. So we have our main dinner every day at 2.

It isn't absurd for some of us.

I think eating together as a family is really important and it's something we prioritise - we all have breakfast and dinner together every day and lunch at the weekend. We like a wide variety of flavours and cuisines and the DC were given the same as us from the off.

They still want more beige food (well, ketchup isn't beige, right?) by the week and will eat less and less of the nice food we're eating. That's fine, it's very normal for children to have plain tastes, and it's not a success or failure of parenting for DC to like plain or spicy foods.

I would aim for dinner for everyone at around 6-6:30pm unless the parents are used to eating separately to the kids.

As a parent of young kids your meal times often move earlier due to getting up early and there’s no way I could wait until 8pm to eat either. I also wouldn’t have the patience to try to get a reluctant toddler into bed on an empty stomach. If we were staying somewhere where the adults didn’t eat until 8-9pm I wouldn’t be keen to stay long.

Early tea for the wee ones, normal dinner when they are in bed!

I don't think it's better that DD eats spicy rather than plain either. I was merely pointing out that children don't only have to eat plain pasta and cucumber, as the PP rather disdainfully said she didn't want to eat alongside them.

Even if they do want plain pasta and cucumber everyday, there's no reason that the family couldn't eat together. Nothing stopping a pan of pasta being cooked alongside the nice, adult food.

It really doesn't matter what other families do, what matters is that you have the discussion with the hosts before you go. If they're not happy with either having the meal earlier or you cooking separately for the kids, then you say ok the visit won't work for us unfortunately, looking forward to your next visit to ours ☺️

I often feed 3 young Gdcs at least an hour, often two, before dh and I eat. I’d have thought it just common sense to have separate mealtimes - unless the adults are used to eating as early as 5 or 5.30.

Not when your child goes to bed at 6pm.

Surely not many DC are going to bed at 6pm?! We'd never see them if we ran on that routine, and we'd be up at stupid o'clock too.

We've always eaten with our kids at dinner time, between 6-6.30.
My in-laws like to eat late but they will serve "nibbles" before....they are weirdly formal. Salty fatty snacky things. The kids will eat them and lose their appetite for dinner and then dinner time is stressful as they won't eat properly. My parents would just let me dictate what time and what they eat. So much easier.

No, I don't work full time. We completely changed our lifestyles to allow part time for me as that's what's best for our young children. I'm not sure why working times matter to when grandparents allow small children to eat!

They matter to mostpeople as to what ti e their kids are fed.And grandparents may also be working until 6pm as well so would be difficult doing a kids dinner at 5

Compromise at 6pm, no later

Not for a child. Quite normal going by grandparents I know.

Mine would have been asleep in their food !

Preschool age -dinner at 5 then bath and sound asleep by 7pm
They often slept until 7am
Children don't get enough sleep these days.

This is easily done for breakfast, lunch and at weekends.

Who eats at 8/9pm? That is entirely abnormal in my opinion and a recipe for health issues, notably acid reflux and tooth decay due to reflux as your stomach won't have had time to digest and empty before bed.

I'd make the kids tea at 5pm, something simple like pizza/cheese & beans on toast/noodles/soup & bread/macNcheese. Then the adult eat a proper dinner later on. If the kids are still awake and hungry, I'd give them a bit in a bowl.

If GP’s knew kids ate at 5 I’d make sure kids ate at 5 and adults ate at the usual time with the GP’s

My partner starts work at 5am, so 5pm for dinner is not absurdly early for us to have dinner, it is sometimes earlier!

We would've always eaten around 8 pre DC.

Also 8pm is a very very normal time to book a restaurant.

A small meal at 5 pm with no dessert to tide them over, no sweets, and then an 8pm with the family. Think continental family holidays.

Children at normal time or shortly after. Suits either with children or when they go to bed.