If your DCs have a hot meal at lunchtime...

[Highlove]

...what do you feed them in the evening? Full meal? Snack? Something in-between. If it’s nit a full meal, can you give me an example of the sort of thing you do?

DC1 is in reception and gets the full hot meal and pudding. I’ve no idea what the portion sizes are like. Thoughts welcome?!

Full meal, she’s in Y1 now but she’s always been hungry after school. I think portions are quite small. I give a snack straight from school (sandwich or fruit or cereal bar type thing) then dinner later around 5.30pm. Full meal plus fruit and yogurt after. Sometimes she’s still hungry before bed . She does swimming, rainbows and a dance class during the week after school so thats probably why.

Where I am the portion sizes aren't that big so I just give a full meal still at tea time. DD is always starving and eats all her tea!

We do a normal dinner at home. He may not necessarily eat all his lunch if he doesn’t like it and he always has room for dinner plus snacks. That said those kids get more exercise than greyhounds so it’s not surprising he’s always up to eating.

DS is a very picky eater so our repertoire isn’t that wide. He has easy teas- pasta and meatballs, omelette/ eggs of some sort, cheesy beans on toast, sausage, mash and carrots, soup with a toastie, wrap/ fajitas/ flatbread/ hummus.

We do normal dinner at home too.

Full meal. DD1 is in reception and she’s always starving when she gets home. She’s also lost weight since starting school so I’m assuming the portion sizes aren’t large (she used to have a massive lunch). She’s tiny and can’t really afford to lose any weight so I feed her up in the evening!

He has had dinner at school, so he only needs a sandwich and fruit plus yoghurt at home.

I do normal dinner at home. The kids eat what DH and I do (or some variation to cater to latest fussiness ) so it's not much more effort.

Usually a full hot dinner at 5.30pm, but this year DS1 has been having a match tea some days around 3pm that is like a second full lunch - they had hot dogs the other day!! So the days with a hot lunch AND a match tea he's not quite so hungry and we've been doing a picnic dinner (pick and mix finger foods like roast beef slices, cheese cubes, cherry toms, cucumber sticks), cheese and tomato on toast, scrambled eggs with smoked salmon, or dippy egg and soldiers.

Give them another proper meal. School dinners at primary school are notoriously tiny: you will hear about a lot this when they are in Yr 5/6 and still get the same amount as KS1. It's also good practice to eat proper meals 3x a day to avoid snacking/grazing.

Ok thanks - this is really helpful. We’ll carry on with full dinner then. She’s been pretty badly behaved over dinner of late and DH thought she might not be hungry...I suspect tiredness has more to do with it. Or she’s just starving by 5.30!

DGS has hot lunch in school and is starving for his dinner by 5pm and eats the lot. He's slim and healthy.

Dd2 is in reception & dd1 yr3 & eats like a horse, neither would last until 5:30pm for dinner & both generally eat all of school lunch. A snack at school ( as they are too hungry to walk 10mins home) and once home. Could you move her meal forwards?