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?

I'm a mean mum. I cook a meal...you eat it or don't. If you don't there's a fruit bowl and bread. If everyone so fussy they cook once or twice a week.. breakfast and lunch everyone gets own...maybe Abit of support to get the bowl down as dd is small. Obviously if allergies id adjust and support for that .. it's only tea you need to deal with...draw up a rota and get everyone on it...you be surprised how much children love this freedom

Yes I do remind myself I survived on a diet rich in Crispy Pancakes and Angel Delight!

My 10 year old loves the CbBC cooking with Buddy show. There’s a book with it too. She can make fresh pasta from scratch having read his book. My previously very fussy 12 year old will make a homemade fishmonger sandwich.

highly recommend it.

Havibg a restrictive diet doesn’t stop them making their own breakfast and lunch

Your 8yo could certainly be doing their own breakfast and dinner, cereal, sandwiches etc. At 8 I didn't make my kids their breakfast or dinner, just cooked tea on a night. Obviously things with your 10yo are different but maybe just slowly allowing/teaching him to pour cereal in to the bowl and then eventually he may be able to make his own breakfast.

I do agree though, I hate sorting tea every single night, I absolutely hate cooking and also have a fussy eater that will rarely have what everyone else is having.

Ah, I feel your pain. My kids are teens now and I often just leave them to it so there is a murky light at the end of the tunnel.

If I’d plated up a meal and he refused it I’d shove his face in it!

Honestly batching is your best friend.

I'm the vegetarian, DH will eat like a vegetarian with the occasional meat and DD6/DS4 have their own likes and dislikes. On the nights with clubs DH and I end up eating later. The kids get something like a jacket potato with a filling of choice or a pitta pizza. Then DH and myself will have something I've batched at some point. I always try and batch one thing a week and it gives me a constant rotation. I usually do this on a day off or on a weekend as soon as the food shop turns up. It literally takes me 5 minutes to prepare a minimum 4 servings (so 4 meals for me). For DH I just chuck some raw meat in a bag with some vegetables for roasting. He adds his own flavourings and carb choice when he cooks it. He had the shopping rota on his phone and checks nightly to if he needs to get something out to defrost. You like to eat healthily and your DH is a PITA. You can't change your children's diets but a couple of minutes prepping 4 meals of yours to go in the freezer will massively help. Night before you just grab one bag to put in the fridge to defrost. Serve it with something simple like salad or frozen veg. Leave DH to figure himself out and then just concentrate on the kids. You can't run from all cylinders without burning out.

Edit to add that sandwiches can be frozen. Your 8 year old could definitely make his sandwiches up on a Sunday night for the week. He just needs to grab out of the freezer morning of school alongside his other bits for the lunchbox.

Yes we absolutely have this issue - no-one would think to eat if I didn’t put food in front of them. I went out early and came back at 11am. Had anyone had breakfast? No of course not.

It’s not so much the doing of the simple meals like breakfast it’s just having to constantly have the headspace for it.

I like the “meal in a bag” idea.

It's definitely helped in our household for sure. You can get soup moulds off Amazon you can freeze into portion sizes, pop them out when frozen and add into a food bag. I do that with Dahl, lentil bolognese and chilli for example. Then throw a block into the saucepan to heat through. I also chop up any left over veg at the end of the week and chuck it all into one freezer bag (courgettes, peppers, onions, mushrooms etc). Then if I'm stuck on dinners, roast it and put it in a wrap with hummus.

Just because the rest of my household eat differently to me I'm not sacrificing a varied diet because of it.

Hope some of that helps.

I am with you OP.

I have a fussy two year old who is going through a a very fussy phase and a 10 month old who I am weaning - they can't have the same food.

Also my partner doesn't like food without salt / spices added whilst cooking so I have to make three different meals...

It would be a lot easier if we could have the same things

Your husband has to make half the meals? And kids if they’re over 10. Please don’t say you do everything? Why?

Plan a menu and put it on the fridge, anyone who feels it isn't going to be for them can make other arrangements- if the children are under 10 then be a little flexible for them-otherwise if they don't like it it they can make their own meal.
Vegetanism is a lifestyle choice-if the child is old enough for a lifestyle choice they are old enough to make their own meal. Restrictive diet is something many parents struggle with, keep a good stock of the small amount of items they both eat-they can get on with it. Your husband ought to show your efforts more respect- if he doesn't like what you cook he can fend for himself.
Plan interesting meals that will be fun to cook, so you can reconnect with your love of cooking, enjoy, your family are likely to join you when they find how dull making 3 meals a day with a handful of ingredients is.

I hear you OP! I’m a single parent 2 DDs, 16 & 15. And yes. It’s exhausting! Thanks be to the almighty they’re now old enough to make themselves some breakfast and lunch and at least three nights a week I don’t cook. DD1 thinks she will die if she doesn’t have three ‘meals’ a day (ASD, food OCD) and DD2 is happy with a slice of toast …it does get better, it feels a bit like when I could finally stop leaving the house with a nappy bag, change of clothes, snacks, books, everything under the sun.

ADHD mum of a AuDHD kid here with a Au Dad. I get it. At one point I had one veggie, one carnivore and one lactose free.

Picky plates work well, just assemble and adapt each one. I make them stand with me as I am saying "Hummus? Olives? How many crackers? Look, do you want some of this? It's xxxxxx. Yes? There's definitely no mushrooms." 😆 I apply the same principle to roast dinners, fajitas, baked potato night etc and put bowls out where I can so they can choose.

And then, for example, her carrots stay raw on the chopping board whilst I cook ours. Or she gets a spoonful of sweetcorn under her pasta to warm it up.

Am lucky that she doesn't have the aversion to wet so will eat pretty much anything liquidised... I'm still liquidising her bolognese sauce and she's 18!

DH and I both work "full time" but my "full time" is 35 hours a week and rarely anything more and his full-time is usually at least double that. He also does most of the laundry, at least half the cleaning, all the DIY and is generally a wonderful human. But he has a complete blind-spot about cooking.

I have thought about doing more swaps of the division of labour - like it's just such a treat to have someone make a meal for me because it almost never happens. I do think everyone else in the household gets a bit complacent that meals just "appear" (just as I'm probably a bit complacent about the stuff DH does).

I try to get the DC involved and I've got to play the long game on it because at the moment it's more work to get them to do stuff than it is to do it myself and I often don't have the mental energy to manage to chaotic sous-chefs.

Ha yes we have to do all those little adaptations too for the AuDHD one - raw carrots while everyone else has cooked, a ramekin of frozen peas (still frozen!), one piece of broccoli very carefully not touching anything else on the plate (not that this ever gets eaten but I live in hope).

There a bowl of raw carrots with everything in this house!

Completely relate to this. When I hear the words "I don't like this," it makes me want to hide in a dark room and scream! 😂

I thought I got it right last night. My ND dc was eating usual pasta with blended med veg sauce, but with tuna stirred through unblended (usually wouldn't eat the tuna). I thought I've cracked it, felt all proud of myself, a little smug even. Then cue the little one, who is usually better with chunks of things moaning, "I don't like the tuna bits!", and sat all cross looking. I ended up scraping the tuna off and hand feeding the pasta that I was assuring were just "cheesy", thank god dc ate it. I've also been known to shout "just pick it out!" I do my best to adapt meals we are having to suit both dc's tastes, but sometimes it gets so bloody trying doesn't it?!

Mine are very little, I'm vegetarian, my husband is neurodivergent and only eats a few vegetables. DS4 is a good eater but prefers vegetarian and DD3 is picky picky and would live on cream cheese and crackers if I let her.

Breakfast I have engineered a method that they can do themselves - even at 3 and 4 yogurt and fruit, for hungrier children add an easy carb like a brioche roll.

Lunch we make at the same time I (or DH) make dinner so it feels like we are only cooking once, it's purely psychological but its really easy to put together lunch boxes while the pasta boils for example.

Dinner we make sure that everyone has at least a protein that they like and I serve all our veg in the middle of the table "family style" with at least 3 veg options so there is a choice, sauces can also be done separately if that's an issue.

For one pot things like curry I just use the veg that everyone likes.

I do a salad bowl with most dinners too so the little one can for example pick out just the cucumber

Basically we just make sure that everyone has something that they will eat, what they then choose to eat from what is offered is up to them

You have my sympathy OP, it’s absolutely bloody exhausting. It’s the mental load more than anything, even if breakfast is ‘just toast, cereal, fruit etc’ it’s remembering to have enough of everything, has the fruit gone bad, did someone use more ham then normal because of extra packed lunches…and the ‘I DON’T LIKE THIS’

Also I may just be a terrible mother but my DC aged 8+6 do not get their own breakfasts because they would be glacially slow and muck around. I am struggling to get out of the door as it is and I think it would finish me off.

I am appalled about your DH rejecting plated up food. It’s a terrible example to show to the children about how one responds to the effort and energy of another - and it’s a waste of food (or worse, it goes into the fridge covered in clingfilm and you feel YOU need to eat it for the lunch the next day when it’s no longer at its best and you probably fancied a nice salad or something). I would get a stack of Cook meals for when Mr Important Man Job feels like eating and take him out of the equation altogether.

I only have a 4 year old so I haven’t had to deal with Vegetarian or Restricted Diet, but if it were me i would do the following:

Breakfast - they can make themselves, my 4 year old gets his own breakfast (cereal, yoghurt and fruit, porridge, toast). Me or my DH will obviously cook the toast and make the porridge but our son will get the bread and whatever he wants spread on it, he will put the oats in his bowl and get the milk from the fridge for it, we just heat it up basically. He then spreads his butter or peanut butter etc on his toast. Same as cereal, he pours it all himself and gets what fruit he wants and cuts it with his toddler safe knives.

Lunch - Choose one thing to make for the week and adapt it to their diets. Say wraps, you and your husband might have chicken and cheese salad wraps, make the same for the Veggie but take out the chicken.

Dinner - Again everyone has the same, just take the meat out for the Veggie. Spag Bol is an easy one make it with lentils in one pan, fry off the mince for you a DH in a seperate one. Lentils only goes on Veggie plate, mince gets mixed in with the lentils for the rest of you. I’m not a huge meat lover myself so I often have my meal without the meat on it. Roast dinner is a prime example, I’ll have everything just not the meat if I don’t fancy it but I won’t cook something separately for me as I cba!

Not sure about the restrictive diet as to whether it’s allergy based, fussy eating based or something else entirely but again with that if it’s allergy based just remove the allergen before cooking or if was say dairy, you can make a chicken wrap without the cheese for that kid. It wouldn’t take 10 seconds to not add it in. If it’s fussy eating then I would personally just serve whatever you and DH/veggie are eating and be done with it. They can eat one of the options or choose not too have anything. If it’s something else entirely where neither of those apply like Afrid (think that’s what it’s called), I think i would go down the batch cooking route for that kid. List a few meals they will eat and batch cook them once or twice a month so you can just freeze and defrost/reheat them. That way you don’t have to worry about doing it on the day.

Ps, as for your DH. I would be telling him that he either eats with the family or he makes his own evening meal. My husband went through a stage of not fancying what I cooked a few years ago when our son had just reached toddlerhood, but it soon stopped when he had to come home from work and cook for himself every evening. He will still occasionally want something different which is fine, as he makes it himself. I only cook once and even that is once too many for me some days with a 4 year old 😂

Can you put aside an evening as a family to all find 14 recipes which everyone can eat? Then you've got a fortnight's meal plan.

When you get near the end of the second time through it, put aside an evening to all work together on making up a third week of meals. Keep adding an extra week to the cycle until you have several weeks.

This shares responsibility and vastly reduces the mental effort required each day.