When will DD be able to have her tea as late as 6pm?

[Chepstowmonkey]

My Dd is 16months old and I'd really like us to eat our evening meal together. At the moment we eat breakfast and lunch together whenever we all around and I have just started trying get us all to eat an evening meal together on a Saturday. Dd usually eats at 5pm (4pm for 2 days in nursery) but that is a bit early for DH and me to eat on a regular basis. This Saturday I tried to compromise and get tea ready for 5.30pm but unfortunately as the rugby over ran it was 5.45pm by the time we sat down to eat and DD had been shouting for 45mins while I tried to cook.

From your experience is it realistic that I will be able to keep Dd waiting for her tea until 6pm (our preferred time to eat) so that we can eat together on a regular basis or should I just stick to us eating at 5pm on a Saturday and accept that every other day we will eat separately.

I remember tea time being at 6pm when I was little but as I remember it I was obviously a lot older than 16months!! At what age does 6pm become a reasonable time to eat?

Also I have tried giving DD a snack (even a substantial one) but still from 5pm onwards she shouts for food - especially if she sees me cooking - and it makes the whole experience unnecessarily stressful.

me and dh eat earlier at the weekends than we do during the week. I make the kids their dinner around 5/5.30pm during the week and then I eat with dh later on around 8pm (or later!) - he makes that meal. At weekends we all eat together around 5.30pm.

I did BLW with DD and she had her tea at 6pm from the start (age 6 months or so).

Why not try making it 15 mins later each week so she gradually gets used to it?

Is it hard keeping them waiting till 5.30pm or do they just accept it? I think DD would ideally like to eat 4pm like she does at nursery!

What Seona said, but we eat together at 6 Friday to Sunday and have always done ( DS now 2). We give a decent snack between 3 and 3:30- a crumpet or some bread and cheese with a cup of milk, which tides him over. If seems hungry may give a breadstick at 5ish, but it's rare.

On nursery days we don't get home till 545 so can't eat earlier than 6 anyway. But this is a snack as they have main meal at lunch then afternoon tea at 3.

I think it depends on the child and how strict you've been with routines.

Ds had his tea at 6pm from when I went back to work 3 days a week at 11 months. The days I didn't work he sometimes had it a bit earlier.

But we've never had particularly strict mealtimes so I don't think he ever got into a routine of expecting a meal at a fixed time (obviously meals are in a ball park time - not talking about lunch at 2pm or 10am).

Then again, he might just have been naturally quite flexible about the times he ate which allowed us to do this - difficult to separate preference & habit.

Yes suzikettles I think you have figured out that both me and Dd like a routine - I fully admit it - we are both very comfortable with routine!!! The reason I have posted here is that the only friends I have whose little ones eat as late as 6pm are the ones (both child and parent) who have always been very flexible and don't seem to understand what the issue is. Other friends with DCs like mine who seem to instinctively know when it 5pm and get hungry and shouty don't think it is worth the effort as they are still so young and it'll be easier when they are older.

mine are 4 and 6 and are starving by 5pm! I think we are a long way off a 6pm tea. Mind you mine are in bed at 7 so they need enough time to digest so 6 would be too late until they stay up later anyway I think

We all eat at 6, though we always have. Youngest now 2. I'd give a snack at 5 if that is when she's hungry then her "proper" tea all tiger at 6. Even if you split her meal into two bits.

Tiger? Wtf. Together.

DS, now 9, still needs an early tea and prefers it at 4:30pm! As DH isn't home til 8:30 or even 9, I always give the kids an early tea, usually at 5. Weekends we all eat together early, DH and I usually have cheese and biscuits and fruit later when the kids are in bed. DS had a ridiculously strict routine when he was a baby (self imposed routine) and literally went to sleep and woke up from naps to the minute most days. I think it was early nursery tea that made him want to eat early. DD eats with DS but is much more flexible, though younger. It's only a problem when we are on holiday, DS goes all grumpy, badly behaved and shouty if tea is late. It's far easier to feed him early, then he stays normal!

Children eat around 5pm Mon-Fri (5yo and 3yo twins), I don't eat until later, about 7.30. Weekends we eat together, though have the main 'proper' meal at lunchtime on the Sunday.

They all go to bed at 6.30 during the week, so tea any later than 5/5.30 wouldn't really work.

Right, well it seems like from what people are saying some kids can eat as late as 6pm, others are happier at 5.30pm (which would be a good compromise), while others are best eating earlier.

I guess the only way I'll know is to give it a go for the next few weeks and see what happens.

Thanks for replying, I appreciate it.

I found with my two that by 3 they were able to wait until 6/6.30/7 for their evening meal. Before that age we all still ate together but at 5.30 ish (and the 30 minutes before were always rather tense!)

Children all eat at 5ish and DH and I eat at 8.30 when we are back from work and have finished putting kids to bed and have managed to cook some supper.

At the weekend we all eat at 5ish together as it is just so nice to eat together.

When I grew up we all ate together at 5pm if possible, with my dad eating when he got back from work. I grew up in the North and am married to a southerner and live in the south - there definitely seems to be a differential that everyone I grew up with had "tea" at 5pm and all the southerners had "dinner" at 6pm or later.

If we go much past 5pm my kids are ravenous fiends and if they get too hungry, they almost get too hungry to eat....DS2 will really meltdown if he gets too hungry and it is a fight to then get him to start eating, but as soon as he does he tucks in (he is 2). However, if they have a snack to "keep them going" they then don't eat properly and will want snacks before bedtime.

So it is easier at this young age for us to keep to 5pm supper, particularly as we do bathtime at 6 or 6.30 and then it is bedtime from 7.15-7.45 for the 3 kids.

I hasten to add that all my 3 DS's are under 5 so all pretty little....

What time does she eat lunch? Could you try making that a bit later so that there isn't too much of a gap between meals?

When are her other meals and does she have snacks.

I must admit I am in the camp that finds routines baffling, and 4:30 tea times even more so. We have always eaten as a family around 6, sometimes at weekends it slides even later. Mine are 8 months and nearly 3.

However, if she is having lunch at 11:30 or something, it's no wonder she won't last until 6. We tend to eat lunch around 1 if we're not busy, or sometimes closer to midday. Anything before midday is still breakfast in my view.. I'd try a snack late afternoon (if she doesn't already) and to make sure that the lunch to dinner gap is not too long.

honeyandhaycorns - later lunch is not really an option because she has lunch before her nap and if I push it too late (which obviously sometimes happens when we are out and about on a weekend) then she is too tired to eat and therefore doesn't sleep enough and wakes up hungry....which means I end up giving her too many snacks.....which means she doesn't eat her dinner.

I think messing around with the routine earlier in the day would be more hassle than it is worth - but good suggestion!

The issue is that I want us to eat together and don't really care what time we eat. DD wants to eat 5pm and DH doesn't want to eat earlier than 6pm. However, if I just start with the weekend I can try and get dinner ready for 5.30pm (which is a compromise), see whether DD can cope with waiting for that extra 30mins and if she can't then it'll get a little earlier and earlier and DH won't even notice!!

Problem solved and if I end up with a moaning DH and shouty overtired DD then I'll just give up and try again in 6 months or so!

I know what you mean OP - in an ideal world I would like us all to eat together every day, but whilst they are so little we just find it easier to do things that suit the kids and avoid tired, hungry children who won't eat well because of being tired and hungry!

DD has eaten her dinner between 6 and 7pm since 6months, but sometimes earlier and sometimes later. For various reasons we ate at 4pm the other day, and DD then refused to go to bed (in the sense that she cried and cried, refusing the breast and everything) until we fed her again, going down straight away once she'd had some dinner. Presumably she thought she'd been sent to bed without and dinner.

Can you not just give a snack in the afternoon?

Like SecondTimeLucky no attempts at enforced routines here, we just do stuff - although things tend to happen at similar times obviously.

Mine is not quite 3, and we have always given her a snack (oatcakes and/or peanut butter sandwitch, with a sippy cup or bottle of water) on the way home from the Childminder's at 530 or 6, then had dinner at 630/as soon as possible when we got home. She also gets a snack (fruit and oatcakes, frequently) around 330 or 4 when she wakes up from her nap. We're also quite realistic about how little to expect her to eat at dinner, because of all the snacking.

Bedtime is later than most, though; she starts around 8 and is down between 845 and 9 (I'm trying to make this earlier)

I think you could offer her dinner at 4, and a snack at 6 as a family (maybe a tablespoon or so of whatever you're having?), then swap what food/how much food gets offered when after a few weeks. Also, if she's shouting for food, why aren't you giving her something?!? (a bit of fruit, a bowl of frozen peas, yoghurt, or (dry) cereal and rasins are popular "need food NOW" snacks in my flat)

In term time DD (8) would tear me limb from limb if she is not fed within 20mins of getting through the door so about 5pm. School holidays she goes till 7pm.

Myself and my daughter eat at 5pm and dh eats his when he comes home at around 6.30.

I cook for all 3 of us, but just wrap dh's in foil and put it in the bottom of the oven to keep warm (turned off obviously! :D ) if we have gravy he just nukes the left over in the microwave

Depends on naps/bedtime etc IME.

2.2 y.o. DS eats with us at between 6 (the theory) and 7 (often when teatime has slipped back). But he has lunch after his nap, so at about 3pm.

He goes to bed fairly late though - never before 8.30, often later (depending what time he's woken from his nap).

Our children have eaten with us at 6, 6.30 from the get go

Mine too! DS (4) usually has a little snack after school though. DD (1) copes very well with this. It's dinner, bath, bed. Makes for a concise evening!