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.

not in my house. We are all different.

I would think with so many people working from home it is more common nowadays than in the past

But home workers all swear they are working not cooking during office hours 😉

8/9pm at night is so late to eat. I'm often in bed by this time and when my DC were you g they were in bed by 7pm. Tea was about 4pm
I went away for a long weekend with my DH last week and we booked our evening meals for 5:30pm 😂

I always taught my kids to eat with family, so if away maybe compromise with 6.30
and let them have healthy snacks in the afternoon
from a babe in arms my son ate at restaurants etc and when tired just napped in my arms
older he knew how to behave at the table
now in his twenties loves food and the social
time it brings
always did tbh ,

I'd just feed the children at their normal time of 5pm and adults eat later at GPs preferred time.

The general rule is if you want your children and grandchildren to visit you, you make their visits less stressful and more enjoyable by accommodating them as much as you can.
The mealtime of course of course is not a deal breaker but I bet all of us prefer places where we feel more comfortable.

When we’re with the GPs over holidays we always just do an early picky tea for the kids at their usual time, and all the adults have dinner together when they’re in bed. Seems to work for everyone! All the kids in our extended family are 6 and under.

My parents do dinner earlier for us but it's still late for us but they still work when we visit, we stay for a week usually, so my dad finishes work at 6 and cooks dinner for us where as we would be finished at 6/6.30, I bath my son and get him ready for bed before dinner before so he goes down around 8 8.30.

Ha ha yes of course we do lol, but my point is more there is no commute home. So I finish at 4 and am able to cook dinner, collect kids from after school club and we eat at 5. Couldn’t have done that in pre covid times with an hour commute home.

I'd give them tea and share a drink with them and maybe some light food. Then I'd have a supper after they went to bed.

Keep the children on their schedule. You can always wait and eat later if you don't want to eat at 5.

Won't that depend on what time you go to bed though?

Grandchildren eat at five, bath and bed then adults relax.

This

Ours also is great at restaurants, we’ve been taking them since they were babies and always eat out at least once on a weekend. Never had a problem with them and it’s easier now they can talk and have a conversation.

We don’t eat together during the week though, they eat with their peers at nursery, then have a snack about 1830 when they get home. My husband and I eat at 2100.

Do I don’t think it’s necessary that for your children to behave you have to all eat together all the time. I certainly didn’t with my parents during the week. We all love going out to eat and family dinners play a huge part of our socialisation, especially on holiday. But, that’s not because we all ate at 1800 every night, pretty much the opposite!

Whenever I visit parents or in laws, I myself make dinner for the children who eat earlier, at the time which is convenient for them.
Parents & in laws will then cook dinner for themselves and whichever other adults choose to join them at their usually dinner time (8 or 9 ish).

I think it’s unreasonable to expect anyone to cook dinner for you or your children at a different time than what they are used to. Especially an older family member who is already hosting you.

It is reasonable for them to give you access to the kitchen so that you have the means to meet your children’s needs.

This entire thread exemplifies why, if we have guests, I always make sure some water, biscuits and nibbles are available in their room at all times. Different folks eat at different times.

As a parent I would say something along the lines of what time are you planning on eating tonight. If they say after 7 I would say do you mind if I/we make something for the kids and myself earlier as thats too late for us? As TBF I wouldn’t want to be eating my main meal after 7 either and would prefer to eat no later than 6.30pm. So I would be eating with the kids too and your DH can do what he likes.

MIL used to always like going out for a meal on a weekend at 8.30pm or after when staying with them and expected us to take the kids along. At that time they were very little younger than yours OP and she expected them to be happy when tired and very hungry while she faffed around taking ages to choose and always insisted on three courses plus coffee. We solved that by excusing ourselves and feeding the DC at hers and saying we would just rather stay in with a takeaway pizza. Eventually she started saying when is the latest ‘rather’ would go out for a meal and we would say 6.30/7.

Maybe you could offer to cook for kids at 5 pm and grandparent cooks adult meals only?

Children can be served dinner earlier, but adults would be rude to insist on an earlier dinner time than what their hosts have decided on - that would be pretty rude IMO. Obviously you can have a sneaky snack when feeding the children ;)

If my kids wouldn’t be getting dinner at their usual time ie 5pm - then they would not stay there, end of. What time are they expecting the children to go to bed if they won’t give them a meal?! And no, not a sandwich for dinner every night, maybe once or twice.

For me the adults can wait and eat later (with snack) as their bedtime is later. GPs either had weird routines for their kids or have forgotten.

Grandchildren eat at 5, adults sit with them and have a cup of tea and some olives or dip as a snack so the children are still sitting at the table and socialising, parent then does bath and bed and quick tidy, and then adults all have a relaxing evening meal at 8.

I don’t think it is for children aged 5 and under when you would presume bed time would be around 7! Breakfast around 7, lunch around 12, dinner at 5. We always ate dinner at 5, we came out of school starving like most kids. Eating at 5 means you can digest your food before bedtime - I think it’s selfish to young children to wait until parents are ready! Plus, kids will then snack before dinner as they are so hungry adding more calories to their daily intake, which would in turn cause weight gain!

Tammy Jones, spot on 👌