arrrrrrrrrrrgh i am not your personal chef i will do dinner when i am ready to cook it......

[SheSellsSeashellsByTheSeashore]

and if you dont like it cook your fing dinner!!!

is what i said to dh before walking out of tesco and leaving him with a trolley full of food and no money.

another tip to save you cooking every day
is to cook 2 meals at the same time, it doesn't take much more prep time to do a big shepherds pie and a big pan of bolognaise or lasagne, then you have 2 meals ready, and maybe a portion or 2 left for the freezer

if its not rude, how old are you and DH, he sounds like a dinosaur - a colleague of mine used to joke about his dinner being on the table at 5 on the dot or else, and that he knew what it was by the day of the week, but he was much older and with no kids

yr DH needs to get real, either eat what you planned and have cooked ready, or cook himself!

sounds like a lazy sexist sod, sorry!

start cooking just for you and the kids if he doesn't fancy what you plan to cook, let him do his own

lol i know im going to sound like i am poo pooing all your suggestions here but i dont have a freezer just an ice box so there is no room to do that. i have enough room for a few packs of frozen veg and some fishfingers and that is about it.

my cooking routine suits me and the dds no one is crying or complaining but dh. and its him who is causing half the problem.

from now on i will buy what me and the dds want from the greengrocers and butchers and if he doesnt like it/doesnt like what time it is cooked well then he knows where mil lives im fairly sure that mummy would be willing to jump at his command and make him something vile like chicken nuggets

why on earth are you going shopping with your oh after dance...why not send him during or you yourself go during...or why not have something in the house anyway....

obviously dinner can't happen atr 5pm all the time because of kids activities...but surely the shopping bit after is entirely unecessary...and anyway, why don't you postpone dinner fullstop...

Ah well, sometimes you just want to vent I guess

If he finishes work so early, on your "late" nights, why doesn't he cook for you all, he could learn something easy like spag bol, and he could make enough for more than one night too.

You'd have to sort out the shopping though, or why couldn't he go shopping on his way home, and still have your dinners ready?

I don't think what you're doing at the moment is very efficient, but it does sound like your DH could pull his weight more.

YANBU

How old are the children? If they are having dinner so late are they getting to bed too late?

What time does DH finish work?
Also, I think your 'snack' sounds more like tea! It's huge!

YANBU. If he does'nt likw it - let him cook.

yes, why doesn't DH shop for what he wants whilst you ar at dancing...then either collect you or just go home and at least start prepping the meal?

what does your dd eat at luch and at what time? if she is genuinely hungry ten she probably needs her tea earlier not crisps to tide her over

well he could but i have the food money. i suppose i could leave him my bank card though.

she has her dinner at 12 afaik. its a school dinner. dd2 has a rather large dinner at 1pm with me.

they go to bed no later than 8:30 buts its normally 8. dd1 seems fine with this. 9 times out of ten she gets up for school without moaning. towards the end of the week she gets a little tired on morning but is wide awake by the time we get to school.

they are 5 and 16 months. the snack is so large because dd1 comes out of school hungry. they arent normally given crisps. its usally a sandwhich two pieces of fruit each and a cake, yoghurt or falpjack. the crisps were only because i had no change to pay for the dance class and the dancing school never have change so instead of making up her snack bag i took her to the fruit shop and she choose her owns things but despite me asking again and again if she wanted more she insisted that two plums and a small choclate bar were enough, she was then complaining of being hungry when we got to dancing so ia hd to leave her to get changed alone and pop to the shop for her.

i dont think even with online shopping/getting meals prepared that i could feasibly get tea on the table before 6pm without stopping her dancing and i know she would rather go hungry than do that.

i ahve in the past done casseroles and left them in the oven while she is at dancing so all i have to do is boil some veg to go with it when we get back but even then dinner has been 6:00pm. thats the earliest i can manage.

her class is meant to finish at 5pm buts its more like 5:15 by the time she gets her shoes etc on and we get home its 5:45. dh could get off the bus early and collect her from dancing then i would be able to drop her off at dancing and come home to make dinner but last time i entrusted him to do this he left her brand new snack bag in the toilet at the dance school. the time before that they lost her ballet shoes. i cant afford to keep replacing things. plus if he got held up at work there would be no one to pick her up.

when we move we will be literally 5 mins away from the dance school so i could go and get tea on and be back to collect her but thats not looking like it will be untill after xmas now.

plus as i said earlier without her snack she is too hungry with it she isnt hungry enough to eat dinner before 6:30pm

I'd cut down the snack (it really is a hell of a lot for a five year old) and do dinner for 6pm.

A child of five needs around 12 hours sleep to function properly, so if she is going to bed at 8, she shouldn't be getting up until 8ish.

You say the routine is fine for you and the DD's but I don't think it's right that dance classes (especially 3 a week) rule your whole family's life. Does DD2 do the dance classes too?

you have the food money? do you not have joint finances..could you not just withdraw a sum each week to give him?

does your oven have a timer on it?, could you not make something like cottage pie, leave it in oven, oven comes on at 5, so it's all ready for when you get in. lots of other one pot recipes you can do the same with, pasta bake etc

so its your five yr old who does dancing 3 times a week for an hour after school, blimey,I had assumed we were talking DD1 secondary and DD2 primary. I know its none of my business but do you think she'll be able to keep that up as she gets older and school becomes more demanding. My 5 yr olds would have been absolutely shattered with that routine. I know plenty of 4-5 yr old who do dance but only once a week.

could the real issue be Dh does not approve of all the dance/thinks its too much/a waste of money etc

I appreciate that there's good reason to get DCs to eat earlier than 7:30, but I do think OP's original question was at least partly on whether she should be feeding the kids at 5pm as per her DH's insistence?

suggestions for making shopping and cooking easier are good - and I agree with other posters that you should look at online shopping, it will change your life - but why should she have to feed her DCs at 5pm just because that's what DH wants? isn't a compromise available?

she is up at 7am. she is stoopdily hyper and i am considering taking her to the doctors about this despite saying over and over that i dont want her medicating as she never sleeps. never. well not that i see anyway. she is in bed by 8pm. no tv, no music, nice bedtime/wind down routine. she is still awake when i go to bed at 11pm and still awake when dh goes up at midnight. yet she is never tired. she is awake when i get up at 6am more often than she is not. i try to get her to stay in bed but she is downstairs the second she hears me down there.

joint finances no, not as yet. once we are fully moved in together in our proper house we are getting one joint account for bills and food. atm he pays the rent, morgate, most bills with his money. i buy clothes and food and pay the next bill and my own phone bill.

he knows my pin number and could use my card and i know his, we have access to each others money if we need it. its not like "right that is my money and that is yours" its just that this is the way that works best for us at the moment. he could go shopping if i gave him my card. but whether he would or not is a different matter.

dd2 is too young for dance classes. though the owner of the school has taken a shine to her and said she can start baby classes a year early but she loves going there as all the girls make a big fuss of her and there is another baby a similar age that she enjoys tormenting playing with.

3 dance classes a week, each an hour long, that is a lot for a 5 year old.

internet shop

person who is at home, cooks

Not rocket science. He sounds utterly bizarre.

How about HE takes dd to dancing, then you can be home cooking and have dinner ready for near 5.30ish?

her late nights could be down to the fact that she's not having her tea until so late though, she needs time to digest her food, plus they quite often get an energy surge after eating, which she also needs time to come down from before bed, maybe if her tea was earlier, she may be asleep earlier.

BlingLovin, no, she shouldn't feed the children at 5pm because it's what her DH wants. But neither should the whole family have to eat late because of dance classes. I suggested 6pm as a compromise.

Crikey, your DD is only getting about 6 hours sleep a day? It could be that she is overtired and overstimulated so finds it hard to sleep.

loobey dh hates dd1 dancing with a passion. she has now put her name down for musical theatre on a saturday morning and he is not happy about it as its another £3 per week. i mean a whole £3 how can we afford that he also doesnt like that she invests so much time into it as he would like to take her to sils after school some weeks but with niece dancing on the days that dd1 doesnt dance its difficult. weekends are no problem.

obviously if it starts affecting her schooling we will have to review the situation but atm she is fine. she dances through her choice. she is not pushed into it. if she fancies a day off she can have one. she left not long ago as she was busy doing other things.

actually, thats not a bad idea hg, me & dh often are a tag team in situations like this, i take the kids, he's meet there later, i go home and cook, then he brings them home. tea on table on time, plus he's had some time with the kids, everyone's happy!

YANBU. WE all have tea at 7, DS (3) seems OK with it. He's asleep by 8 and wakes up at 7.30-8am. There's nothing wrong with that physically - he does get snacks between meals, small children need them, but he still eats his tea. If you get up earlier, you could make it 6 or whenever suits you, but trying to force everyone to eat at 5 when your child is actually still at dancing is totally ridiculous. Sit down as a family and talk about a compromise.

Oops did not mean to shout that "we"!

she put her name down for saturday theatre...sorry but if he hates it so much why are you allowing even more of her time to be taken up doing similar?

what if you want family time at the weekend, days out etc?