To find preparing 3 meals a day an absolute grind

[Bobbinwinding]

Just a vent.

I am just so absolutely sick of the relentlessness of having to plan, prepare and clear up three meals, day in, day out.

One DC is vegetarian, the other has a very restrictive diet. Literally the only foods they both eat are eggs, cheese, pasta, bread, yogurt and apples. That doesn’t leave many meals that can feed them both so I’m usually making something separate for each of them.

DH is a workaholic with some hang-ups about food/weight and will impulsively decide he doesn’t want dinner after I’ve already plated it up.

I’m perimenopausal and increasingly having to watch what I eat.

I used to adore cooking, browsing recipe books snd meal planning. But the daily grind of either trying to come up with something everyone will eat or making different meals for everyone is driving me to despair.

No one appreciates it. I feel constantly guilty about whether anyone has had 5 a day or too many UPFs or sugar or whatever were being told will kill us this week.

Can anyone relate? Any tips to make it more bearable?

Yes, this. Everyone gets their own breakfast - I can’t imagine the stress and daily chore of making breakfast for everyone! For us, it’s cereal or toast or yoghurt. Cereal we only have reasonably decent things like shredded wheat or muesli or oats. Bread is whole grain. I cannot be arsed worrying about UPFs in any of that.

Lunch is easy and quick stuff from fridge. Bread or leftover rice, cheese, cold meats, eggs, baked beans, soup. No need to decide what to make.

We meal plan a weeks worth (or 5-6 days with a bit of improv) and food shop for it so there’s no real decisions needed on daily basis. Everyone has to come up with meal ideas before we order the shop.

My suggestions would be - make breakfast self service and way simpler. Lunch ditto, or at max get the relevant things out of fridge and put on table. Cook the dinner - we take turns.

If this happens more often than once in a blue moon he can cook for himself from now on...

how old are the dc? Do you need to do breakfast and lunch for them or can they get their own?

To add also - just reread your post and the absolute ungratefulness would totally grind me down. I don’t know what to do about that other than teach yourself to let go of the guilt and reduce effort a bit. I’m so sorry you’re dealing with that - it sounds wholly thankless. Hopefully the kids will get better with time too - ours are brilliant now but did used to be much fussier.

I’ve 4 kids aged 8-15yrs.
I ended up absolutely losing my mind!

Breakfast we have Toast and cereal. Lunch they have a choice of sandwich fillings, yogurt, fruit. If I have time I whip up some pasta.

Dinners- each kid gets asked for one meal choice a week. As much as I can I fit it round all activities, so everyone has one meal they like. Write the meals on a meal planner on the fridge.
Sometimes I throw in a surprise and cook something new!!!

Everyone gets a meal they like and has to put up with the rest of the week. If they really don’t like it then they have to tell me although it can only be one or two other meals.

They then have the choice of making their own meal…. Soup, eggs, beans on toast etc.

We have staples like spag bol, cottage pie etc that I make in bulk and freeze.

This has worked for us for the past year or so.

I often remind my kids and husband that I rarely complain and quite often eat things ‘I don’t fancy’

Good luck … don’t think any of us signed up this 🙄

We do porridge in a pre-set slow cooker. Everyone helps themself and adds fruit, nuts, yogurt. Lunch is sandwich or omelette with salad or something on toast. Again, everyone can make their own or if we have the same thing it takes five minutes. Dinner is a cooked meal & we all take it in turns. Not so bad.

Yes, it's awful although at least my DP actually eats whatever I cook so that is a lot better but the feeding of the autistic DC with restrictive eating is a nightmare and other DC is just slightly fussy but obviously want to offer them more variety than other DC but they still don't eat enough variety or enough stuff I would like to eat regularly. So yes, 3 different things here for lunch and dinner usually. Breakfast everybody sorts themselves. School lunches are the worst even though it should be easy as there are so few options that DC will actually eat. What worked will for me for a while was a load of batch cooking of stuff in the freezer and a meal plan that used the same carb per weekday, so pasta Monday, rice Tuesday etc and then I would use freezer for different sauces/curries etc. Could cycle round safe foods, didn't have to think on weekdays and could just defrost and reheat

Why aren't you willing to tell us how old the dc are?

I agree with others, any person old enough to make a decision they want to be vegetarian, is old enough to take their turn with cooking.

Even before that, dc are perfectly able to get their own breakfasts and lunches.

I don't understand why you are making 3 meals a day.

100% to this. Don’t feel guilty …. Needs must x
Also agree that my kids have got much better as they have got older.
hang in there.

Thinking of meals each day is a chore. Breakfast we have a multitude of cereals, pick one and pour, milk is in the fridge. Lunch I have bread and various fillings make your own lunch to take with you. Tea is the pain and we all eat the same. Im trying to find different foods, but it is a pain to do, its the thinking, buying, prepping. I would eat toast all day if it was just me. Maybe some cheese in there for variation......

How old are the kids? I told my Mum I wanted to be veggie when I was about 9 and she said fine but I'd have to cook it myself. I decided against it.

It seems unfair that you are cooking AND washing up. I cook, and DH cleans. We both like this because he hates cooking and I hate cleaning.

I agree with pps who say don't bother cooking for breakfast or lunch. We have granola, toast, yoghurt and fruit for breakfast. Sometimes crumpets or croissants - even my 4 yr old can sort their own granola.

Lunch is either soup which I make enough for a week, or people helping themselves to stuff in the fridge.

My dc is quite fussy. There are about five meals they reliably eat, so we have those a lot. If I want something else, I ensure dc has leftovers available from the previous day or else it's a tuna jacket potato or more sandwiches.

I also expect gratitude. Any whinging is met with either "feel free to cook tomorrow" or "I think what you meant to say was thanks Mum for cooking this delicious meal".

I assume she means 3 meals as in one dinner for the veggie, one dinner for restricted diet and one dinner for her rather than breakfast, lunch and dinner.

Batch cook some and let them fend for themselves for some.

Hi OP,
Here’s a few ideas (possibly things you already do/have tried):

• Keep breakfast and lunch simple.
• Breakfast- Cereal/toast, yoghurt or fruit. Overnight oats can be prepped the night before with different milks, fruits etc to pull out in the morning all done. Scrambled eggs are super speedy. There are some nice recipes for breakfast bars (healthy ones) that can be made in advance.
• Lunch- sandwich/toast with different fillings. Cucumber/pepper/cherry tomatoes. Cheese. Yoghurt & fruit. Spanish omelettes are lovely, can be eaten hot or cold and could have different toppings on each half/quarter.
• Evening meal- recipes you can easily adapt to different needs, eg spag hol across 2 pans so 1 can have meat, 1 quorn, but all eat the same pasta/cheese/salad.
• Is your DH around at breakfast? Could he take the lead on a weekend day if out all week?
• Are you children old enough to help, even if just pouring cereal and milk? Do they contribute ideas to the weekly meal plan? Can you do any together, eg making pizza (easy to adapt based/toppings).

If all else fails, definitely treat yourself to a take away now and then 😊 good luck with it all 😊

I think you need to limit your repertoire deliberately. Find ten meals that you can rotate, and possibly batch cook some of them so you can just reheat. The restricted diet and workaholic might start eating more if you pay less attention (feel less irritated) by their behaviour and even the vegetarian might spontaneously start suggesting things and cooking them. My restricted diet child starting eating all sorts when he smelled the delicious mushroom pasta or sun-dried tomato and olive homemade pizza, and they all fancied the roast dinners when it was being eaten by the meat eaters.

Cook for yourself and enough for leftovers and see how it goes!

Off the top of my head...broccoli and anchovy pasta, olive and tomato pasta, cheesy potato dauphinoise, macaroni cheese with bacon on the side and tomato salad, vegetable chilli with plain rice, paprika potato wedges with sour cream and spring onions on the side, quiche (courgette, pepper, spinach or just plain with cheese and ham) Lentil dahl with yoghurt on side, and spinach stirred in, plain rice. You could cook most of these and reheat for next day or two saving prep and washing up, or if someone isn't in the mood.
My husband does all the cooking in our house these days but it was hard pleasing everyone (five of us, one restricted eater), looking back I was too anxious to make everyone happy. I notice he cooks what HE likes and we all without fail eat it!!!and it's delicious!!!!!

No need to cook breakfast everyone gets their own cereal or whatever ready
Lunch again each takes responsibility eg sandwich
Dinner cook one meal rotating for vegan or other needs the one who will not or cannot eat it gets something themselves .

How old are the kids? Do a roster. Look for some easy recipes. Freeze some meals. Get healthy reafy meals. Get some takeaways.

Really? I bet you wouldn't. Cook what you fancy for yourself.

Also two meals a week need to be very easy...ie oven chips with a roast, frozen green veg or washed salad, shop pizza, fish and chips, egg fried rice with peas and bits of protein, noodles ditto. Things you can do with your eyes shut

How old are the kids?

Why aren’t any of them (especially your DH) doing some of the meals themselves?

DD was getting her own breakfast and helping make her packed lunch by the time she was 7, by the time she was 9 she was making her packed lunch on the days she didn’t want school dinner, and at 11 she generally sorts out her own lunch at the weekend, her own dinner some days if she’s in the mood and fancies cooking. She has a few meals she loves cooking like Ramen with a spiced chicken mix she’s created or cheese and bacon pastries, or scrambled egg on toasted ciabatta.

I pretended to be asleep tonight, fake woke up and dh had made dinner - win win!

What I've realised looking back was that there was a lot of tension around meals. Not surprisingly this reduces appetite and children start playing up..The workaholic sounds super tense anyway. You sound exhausted by all these pressures on you to meet everyone else's needs.
So if you can focus on everyone feeling relaxed, and it starts with you feeling relaxed.
Don't meal plan for the first week. Just buy some ingredients that will get you through a week with minimum effort - tins of tomatoes, bread, plain rice, frozen veg, frozen chips, yoghurt, pasta, block of cheese for grating, eggs, shop pizza, bacon. A chicken to roast. Reduce your standards for one week. See how it goes and if the world ends. Enjoy chatting at meals

I generally have to make 3 separate dinners as one child is ultra picky (doesn't like spice etc), husband and other child will generally have the same and I'm vegan so have something different again. It is f#cking unbearable at times and I'd rather not eat than deal with the relentless cooking/sorting food and cleaning up. Ot just rolls from one meal to the next. Husband useless as not here or not helpful so falls on me day in, day out. So I feel your pain, but I guess it's a good problem to have in the grand scheme of things 😬

I should do more veggie soup/stew type things like this - veggies DS is pretty happy with most things like this. Though the fussy one won’t touch anything mixed/wet so he always need catering for separately if that’s what we are eating.

This sounds impossible and I’d just stop. Am guessing your kids are old enough for this to be a bit ridiculous as you haven’t answered the many people asking so they can feed themselves and you can feed yourself and your selfish DH can do whatever he likes.

my kids are 8/12 and they get their own breakfast and lunch and have for some time now. Of course sometimes I make pancakes or my husband makes something for lunch but for the most part they sort themselves out and add things to the grocery list if they want to have something around.

if everyone is picky and obnoxious about it then easier for them to just prepare for themselves. You can then eat wherever you like. No one will starve.

unless of course you’re talking about toddlers and then just ignore much of what I said

I feel your pain. I have 2 neurodivergent children and the combination of restricted eating and their lack of executive function (for their age) means that feeding them seems to occupy a lot of my waking moments. I think there is one meal I can realistically make for all of us and it’s not something that can be pre prepped and frozen. Like yourself I am adventurous and enjoy making meals. Well I did.