do you eat all together in the evening?

[SuperAmoo]

Do your DCs eat separately from you ealier in the evening or do you eat together. I have a 4 yr old and 8 month old and at the moment we eat dinner together at 6. But 8 month old is struggling to make it and crying for half an hour before. But I really like eating altogether with DP who's home from work by then. What do you do? Do you put food away from you dinner and give it to DC's the next day for early dinner? I guess I also don't want to cook two meals from scratch! How do I avoid doing that?! Any suggestions?

DH and I never eat alone later unless we have a takeaway Saturday. It sounds lovely but impractical for us as it takes us ages to get all children bathed, homeworked and bedtime storied. We don't get downstairs until 8:30 so we'd be eating really late THEN have to do house work, my work, packed lunches, ironing, etc., after it all! My children are also dreadful at waiting for food (9, 7, 4 and 2) so depending on the type of night (clubs, me working, etc) they usually eat with one or both of us at about 5 ish. If dh or I haven't eaten due to being home late, we eat when we come in, alone. It suits us anyway. x

I've always cooked one meal for everyone - even when DS was under 1. I'd just cook our meals without salt and then we'd add it to our plates if we wanted it.

We eat dinner together at 6.30 - though DH and I are both freelance and work (mostly) from home, so that makes it easier.

This week I've been working in another city so have missed dinner times with my family .

If DS gets hungry I just give him a rice cake or juice, something that's substantial enough to keep him going but not enough to fill him. That said, sometimes I'll give him a bigger snack than that (healthy one) and then a smaller dinner.

No. The DSes (3 and 9mo) have their tea at about 4.30-5ish. DH doesn't finish work til 6 and they are both ready to drop by then. DH and I eat together around 7.30 when the boys are in bed.

DS1 is a fussy eater and for a while we did instigate 'family tea' at the weekends but although it was nice to sit down together, we found DS1's eating actually got worse during this time -- he would just play with the food, be distracted by grown-up cutlery/condiments/drinks, and the whole thing could get very stressful very quickly. I much prefer pottering round the kitchen while the DSes entertain each other, it seems all of us find it more relaxing that way.

I'm sure once the kids are older it will become easier to all eat together but I'm not that fussed about it tbh.

Evening meals, rarely; DH isn't home until 7.30 -8pm, and I eat with him an hour or so later. The children eat about 5.30 ish. I can't eat then, I'm just not hungry - I haven't eaten dinner at that time since I was about their age

Chocices, to be honest the main reason I went the BLW route is because I can't be arsed spooning food into my daughter when I'm hungry as well. So she's got good at finger food/spoon from the start, too.

we eat together at 6ish (me, dp, 2.5yr old ds). He can make it easily as nursery feed them tea at 3.30ish.
Not sure about your situation though (due in june with no.2 so will be there soon enough).
8m is quite young so I would probably feed bbaby an hour earlier but then sit all at table together too.

Meal time in this house is timed for what suits the majority. When they were under a year and being spoon fed I would feed them first otherwise my food would go cold. They would however still sit at the table with the rest of us to eat unless they didn't want to or needed a nap etc. So baby would normaly have suitable left overs from the day before so no cooking twice. These days I time evening meal around the dc who are now 10,7 and 3. It's normally 5.30-6pm ish. They have a snack when they get in from school to see them through. Dh gets home at different times each day depending on his diary and workload so I don't wait for him. If he is home he eats with us if not I will plate his up for later and I will eat with dc. Family meals are lovely but hungry tired children are not so lovely so I have always tended to plan meal times around them rather than dh.

my dh is a long distance tour driver and called away at a moments notice to airports and things like that so meals have to go ahead without him.

i eat with the dc,s at around 5 to 5.30 i cook dh,s and he has to re heat it, we always always eat together when were home together, we have young boys and i have multiple sclerosis so some nights i cant cook or prepare so we all have to muck in and sometimes we have to wait for dh to come home to do the cooking which he does as hes a star

We eat together at 6ish. If dh is home on time, he eats with us, if he's not, I put it in the oven for when he's back. I think it's important to eat together and my kids (4 and 2) generally eat most things and are reasonably well-behaved. Mind you, I'm quite no-nonsense too!

Haven't read the whole thing but wanted to suggest eating early kids only (if they can't wait for Dad).

Then dessert together as a family, in pyjamas if necessary.

It gets harder as the day goes on so we try and eat breakfast together.

We don't eat evening meal with DS, generally he eats at 4:30 - 5pm and we eat at 8:30-9pm partially due to working hours and other commitments, but I always eat lunch with DS.
He does get a fair few left-overs, I generally keep some of whatever DP and I had for our evening meal (cottage pie, pasta sauce that kind of thing) and re-heat, but with fresh veggies. He would end up eating eggs and fish fingers every night otherwise.
Quite often, on a Saturday we do have something together at around 5:30, because we are all around and hungry.