Page 6 | In laws with tiny stomachs

HumbleStumble · 2025-12-27T19:06:37+00:00

Staying with in-laws (aged in late 60s). We are a normal healthy family with normal appetites (I think?). I am sick of having to "request" 3 meals a day. As far as I can work out they generally must eat a cup of tea for breakfast, a dry wafer with a thimble of cheese for lunch and a grilled sardine for dinner usually, with loud exclamations that the enormous amount consumed for each meal will see them out for the next few days. Today I have had to drive to a cafe for a normal lunch and bought horderves "for Christmas" just to bulk up the dinner of boiled potatoes and two slices of ham. Children are ravenous. It was their choice of hosting, and I am paying for all the food (but they get to dictate the (lack of) menu!

SoftBalletShoes · 28/12/2025 02:43

grinchmcgrinchface · 27/12/2025 19:12

My parents are the same, literally have one meal a day and claims it fills them up and can’t possibly eat anymore. We don’t visit anymore if it can be helped as we always starve. (Not skint either.)

Communicate with them! Tell them that you need a lot more food and arrange a delivery for soon after you get there! Then cook and eat, and leave them to their bird portions. It's better to communicate than not to visit.

My late father never had any food in in his later years. He ate out all the time. My sis and I had to do big food orders whenever we went to stay.

SoftBalletShoes · 28/12/2025 02:45

OneOfEachPlease · 27/12/2025 19:22

Gah this is maddening. My ex in laws are lovely generous people but because ‘there will be dinner later!’ there was never any lunch?! They used to think my appetite was a marvel: oneofeachplease just eats and eats -said with awe. 😂

Yeah, my late elderly father fell into the habit of skipping lunch and was just appalled that I would have lunch! And he wasn't working but I was! He seemed to conveniently forget that he had eaten a packed lunch every day of his working life!

SoftBalletShoes · 28/12/2025 02:47

HumbleStumble · 27/12/2025 19:23

I'm too ravenous to spell hors d'oeuvres.

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🤣🤣🤣 Oh dear!

Ponderingwindow · 28/12/2025 02:49

My ex-ILs were like this. A tiny cup of coffee and half a piece of toast for breakfast. Then it’s time to hike all day. Surely we don’t need lunch.

my parents were just as bad. They ate normal portions, but served their “children” portions that would have been appropriate when we were 5 when we would come to visit. I There was a reason I was severely underweight when I left home for university. Even if I tried to take over and buy the groceries and cook, they would find ways to keep me from playing up normal meals for everyone, like packing up the “leftovers” before we even served dinner.

SoftBalletShoes · 28/12/2025 02:55

HumbleStumble · 27/12/2025 19:34

He doesn't want to rock the boat. He has starting buying extra 'condiments' such as hummus, pita bread and olives. I have formally requested to get takeaway tomorrow on our final night here as a thank you for all their "efforts".

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Why on earth would asking for more food rock the boat? Food that you'd be paying for?

People need to communicate more. Just tell them you need more food, get a supermarket delivery, and rock on. It's ridiculous otherwise, especially with hungry children.

SoftBalletShoes · 28/12/2025 02:58

LikeNoYeah · 27/12/2025 19:40

Every year on MN there is a post from someone spending Christmas with their stingy relatives who eat like birds and serve tiny portions to guests. Is it the same person, or is this is really common?!

I think it's common when people retire. My dad became like this.

SoftBalletShoes · 28/12/2025 03:02

Bernadinetta · 27/12/2025 19:59

My parents brought out a box of crackers (like crackers for cheese, not the type you pull), from last Christmas- the BB date was April 2025. “We just haven’t been able to get through them”. The definitely aren’t hard up, have had several holidays abroad this year, whilst being unable to finish a box of crackers. They were so soft 🤣

We NEED the laugh emoji back!

Bleachedjeans · 28/12/2025 03:23

Staggering lack of awareness. DH and I have reached the age where we basically eat one main meal a day: a decent lunch or dinner, but not both. But we are fully aware that children and young adults hoover up food! And we are happy to provide it. When DD stays I make sure there’s cereal, bacon, eggs available plus ham/cheese for sandwiches and 3 meals a day are provided but our portions will be much smaller. I don’t get the weird behaviour of your PIL

SoftBalletShoes · 28/12/2025 03:23

TheChosenTwo · 27/12/2025 22:45

My in-laws only live a couple of streets away so we don’t have to stay with them, they both have small appetites and stuck with one of the Michael Mosley diets that they started a couple of years ago to lose a few lbs (they really weren’t overweight), they now look a bit frail but are happy they feel better so…
They’re in their 80’s, a typical day for them is a breakfast of homemade muesli and freshly squeezed orange juice, lunch of homemade soup with no bread and dinner of roasted veg and halloumi.
they do eat meat sparingly and do realise that other people need more food than they do when we visit but I think if my 3dc were to stay with them now overnight I’d need to send a load of provisions with them!
I’m now on MJ and eat lunch and a small dinner - I’d probably be fine there now!

Their diet sounds very low in protein.

Emma8888 · 28/12/2025 03:24

I think there are a few strategies you can try if you don’t want to confront it head on. You could pop to the supermarket and pick up a few things ‘that our local Sainsbury’s doesn’t have’ and that you wanted to try (and of course they are short dated so you’d better just pop them out for lunch / snacks…). You could get the children to bake / cook something if they are at an appropriate age - it would be very heartless to not then serve up / eat their cooking of course. Another option is to double up on the veg etc. you help prep because you ‘saw this great Nigella recipe for leftover x’. Oh whoops, we ate the intended leftovers. Same idea ‘while the oven is on we will cook up x for tomorrow’ (save on gas doncha know) and ooops, it just looked so yummy once done!

In other words, been there, done that, and learnt some tricks along the way. I have a couple of friends with ED as well so I also always have emergency snacks in my overnight bag (graze flapjack, some olives, pack of biscuits swiped from the train) as I detest being hungry while trying to get to sleep and I don’t want to make them feel uncomfortable (we’ve had occasions where a bowl of mixed nuts and bottle of wine was declared dinner, that sort of thing).

AllTheChaos · 28/12/2025 03:48

This just reinforces my suspicion that my family are secretly hobbits! My
mum (70s) still eats lots, as did my grandma well into her 80s, there are no small appetites in any age group for us!

FiveShelties · 28/12/2025 03:59

limetrees32 · 27/12/2025 20:36

I'm 75.
Do wish I had a small. appetite.

I am 69 and also waiting for the small appetite to appear🍰🍷

CarterBeatsTheDevil · 28/12/2025 04:03

My otherwise very lovely and not remotely hard up in-laws were like this. They had never been big eaters and as they got older it became insane. I was normally fairly relaxed about it as you could fill up around meals on bits and pieces, but I lost patience completely when my poor husband had been doing a variety of highly physical tasks for them one morning and my FIL produced, for lunch, a ready meal for one featuring a 2" by 2" piece of cod which he suggested that us three adults could share with my then 2 year old. I just said very firmly, "I'm sorry, FIL, that's a meal for one and the whole thing wouldn't be enough for DH after the amount of work he's done today, what else do you have?" and started rifling through his freezer. He was a little offended (embarrassed, I think) but he did up his game a bit on quantities after that.

Thursa · 28/12/2025 04:41

I’m in my 60’s, my appetite is nowhere near it used to be. Our adult children and a dil live with us and we seem to cook too much, because they don’t finish it either, so we throw out loads of leftovers.

Aimtodobetter · 28/12/2025 05:12

Sounds painful OP. Next time I'd plan ahead and bring "special" christmas cereal for the kids so they can fill up at breakfast and a bunch of snacks for inbetween / head out for a walk with the kids and go for top up lunch!

Allthecoloursoftherainbow4 · 28/12/2025 05:21

mindutopia · 27/12/2025 20:27

Can you not just buy food and cook it?

We always do all the hosting and most of our guests sit there like penguins waiting to be tossed a fish, mouths open, three times a day. I get so fed up with feeding and watering everyone after several days. We have one set of friends though who come armed with food shopping and snacks. When they or their dc get hungry, they whack it out and feed themselves. They are still fed 3 meals a day, but if they’re hungry in between or the kids want to eat at a different time or won’t eat curry or whatever, they have supplies and sort themselves out. It’s wonderful.

Do you not understand the concept of hosting guests?!

When you invite people to stay it's usual that you also serve them food and drinks!

I'd be mortified if guests in my home felt they had to bring food and start cooking it themselves that just demonstrates you've been a poor host?!

My parents similarly now have small appetites and do the whole 'we won't need dinner, we had a big lunch' thing.

But they absolutely recognise this is their age and would be horrified to think of the teen grandkids going hungry in their home so when hosting always provide lots of food and check with us as to what portion sizes we will need. Because they understand what it means to be hospitable hosts?

ChattyCatty25 · 28/12/2025 05:27

Be totally honest OP. Are you fat?

springintoaction2 · 28/12/2025 05:30

CandiedPrincess · 27/12/2025 19:23

As you get older, you need less calories, your metabolism changes and you eat less. A lot of older people only eat small meals.

Crikey - that hasn't happened to me (yet) !?!

Allthecoloursoftherainbow4 · 28/12/2025 05:35

Celestialmoods · 28/12/2025 02:01

Some people just eat less than others and while it is normal for some people to be in the kitchen sorting out three meals a day, for others it is too much. It is weird to jump to accusations of ‘controlling’ just because of differing appetites. I’d expect you to be welcome to help yourself to toast or cereal for breakfast and a sandwich for lunch but you can’t expect an older couple to have the same eating habits as a young family and then complain about them when they don’t.

But a good host should not expect visitors to have to go foraging for food in the kitchen because they haven't been offered enough? I'd feel so rude just going in someone else's kitchen and helping myself!!

As a host even if you yourself would usually eat less you should be considering the needs of your guests and catering to them?

wibdib · 28/12/2025 06:13

SoftBalletShoes · 28/12/2025 02:58

I think it's common when people retire. My dad became like this.

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DH has just retired and is saying he feels we ought to eat less although I am a few years younger and not at that stage yet 😂
However he has been triggered after coming back from a festive meal with my mum (in her 90s) and the rest of my family - the table was groaning under the weight of all the food on it, both for the main course (there was ham, turkey and only 4 sausages each plus hard boiled eggs, new potatoes, lots of different salads and plenty of fresh bread, then several different desserts plus lots of ice cream, hot chocolate sauce and the expectation that everyone would have at least two different choices…
needless to say she was still worrying as we sat down that there wasn’t enough food but lots ended up being put in the fridge for the next few days 🤣 But still I’d much rather her be like that (always enjoyed putting on a decent spread for guests) even if she doesn’t eat much herself any more so struggles to work out how much is reasonable now (not being able to fit the bread basket in the table as it was covered with so much other stuff should have been a clue I think!) And it meant that there was plenty for the family that did stay over to eat at without any effort for the next few days too.

BIossomtoes · 28/12/2025 06:22

Allthecoloursoftherainbow4 · 28/12/2025 05:35

But a good host should not expect visitors to have to go foraging for food in the kitchen because they haven't been offered enough? I'd feel so rude just going in someone else's kitchen and helping myself!!

As a host even if you yourself would usually eat less you should be considering the needs of your guests and catering to them?

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You are catering for them if there’s plenty of food available and it’s made clear they can help themselves wherever they choose. If guests are incapable of making themselves a sandwich or taking some fruit out of the bowl they’re not hungry.

99bottlesofkombucha · 28/12/2025 06:40

Passaggressfedup · 27/12/2025 19:40

It's hard to answer because I've had family members who consider I eat next to nothing and are starving myself when I have a perfect BMI and theirs put them in the overweight category. I don't have the heart to say to them that my calorie intake is fine, theirs on the other hand is the problem.

It’s not hard though when the op has listed what they eat?

we couldn’t survive this because my active healthy kids would have a melt down and eat the furniture and any host would regret their choices when they saw the difference between feeding them and not feeding them. Luckily we don’t have to survive it at any family members of ours!

99bottlesofkombucha · 28/12/2025 06:44

Celestialmoods · 28/12/2025 02:01

Some people just eat less than others and while it is normal for some people to be in the kitchen sorting out three meals a day, for others it is too much. It is weird to jump to accusations of ‘controlling’ just because of differing appetites. I’d expect you to be welcome to help yourself to toast or cereal for breakfast and a sandwich for lunch but you can’t expect an older couple to have the same eating habits as a young family and then complain about them when they don’t.

Sounds like you’re saying some people shouldn’t host others. The op literally says they are buying all the food but think the hosts would have binned any ‘extra’ they ordered. My mum doesn’t need to eat a huge amount, but she feeds her grandkids well when they are over (& us too)!

G365 · 28/12/2025 06:44

HewasH2O · 27/12/2025 19:36

We were asked if we wanted Horses Doofers at our wedding many decades ago. The name has stuck ever since

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I was once told the company offered real wood or " fox" (faux) wood.

Sorry for derailing thread

99bottlesofkombucha · 28/12/2025 06:46

Bleachedjeans · 28/12/2025 03:23

Staggering lack of awareness. DH and I have reached the age where we basically eat one main meal a day: a decent lunch or dinner, but not both. But we are fully aware that children and young adults hoover up food! And we are happy to provide it. When DD stays I make sure there’s cereal, bacon, eggs available plus ham/cheese for sandwiches and 3 meals a day are provided but our portions will be much smaller. I don’t get the weird behaviour of your PIL

I don’t really need breakfast. I’m very well aware my kids need 6 weetbix each with milk and then happily hoover up toast and fruit to follow up if time. An hour later they will be ready for a snack, an hour after that ‘is it lunch time yet???’