Do you eat meals with your dc?

[CloudAtlas]

Mine are still very small, oldest is 2.2, and I don't normally eat meals with them during the week. I don't fancy what they eat for lunch, and if they're having something like salmon, it seems a bit decadent for me to have the same iykwim. I tend to grab a cheese sandwich or toast when they go down for their sleep. They eat their dinner at 5pm, OH not back from work until much later so we eat together then.
Been thinking about it, and think I should make more of an effort to eat lunch with them.

What do you do?

well I guess every county is different.
There are no schools that start at 9am where I live

I'm being blinded by all the shiny halos on this thread

We always eat breakfast and dinner together as a family. I think that time together is way to important

I'm just amazed that so many people think that it's so weird to want to eat together as a family and to think that this is a good thing for families to do generally. Once upon a time eating as a family was just kind of normal. It's hardly ground breaking or onerous or even inconvenient. Anyone would think that they were being told to eat only what they grew themselves or something! I don't think I'm morally superior because I want to eat with my family just someone with a bit of common sense who wants the best for my family and likes spending time with them.

Am I the only person whose child (age 2) eats barely anything if we are all together, and loads if he is more or less left to himself? I usually sit with him but he really eats better with no attention or company! Also, he is ravenous by 5pm (possibly due to getting up at 5.30 am...) and we can't have dinner til 6, at the earliest. But I hope it'll change soon. We do have lunch together.

Who the hell are you, Anna, to tell anyone they put their child to bed too early! Ha ha - what a laugh!

'It's incredibly important that children eat their evening meal with both their parents wherever possible.' - I think you missed off 'in my opinion'?

We eat with our children at weekends and we don't during the week. IN MY OPINION and IN MY EXPERIENCE, my children DO need to be in bed between 7 and 7.30 in order to function properly at school the next day - is that OK with you? DH comes in at 7pm and therefore there is not time to eat together as a family during the week.

DESPITE this, I have one child who hoovers the plate and asks for more, one that eats much, much less and one that eats an amount somewhere in the middle. DESPITE only eating an evening meal with them two nights out of seven in a week, the last time we took them to a restaurant an older couple came over to our table to tell us what happy and well behaved children we have.

So hey, don't stress it and don't kid yourself it's the be all and end all, because it's clearly not.

Oh - and why have children if you don't want to spend time with them? Is that aimed at every parent that works during the day too?

Isn't it odd which anodine-looking threads kick off into an almighty barney with no warning?

As far as I'm concerned, is that if we all do our level best by our children, which will obviously entail extreme tiredness, anger and lack of objectivity at times as we attempt to civilise the little blighters.

Bottom line imo is: they are humans, they have to learn to behave like human grown-ups bit by bit, they learn by example. Childhood is not a different state or species, it is a learning time, a pathway to adulthood and independent living. Nobody has yet discovered a better way of teaching stuff than demonstrating and encouraging child to do same. Has worked for millenia, and it's the way we're wired.

When my dd was two we had trouble getting her to eat with us. We just persevered instead of giving up and now she eats with us fine and mostly eats what we do. If she doesn't eat her dinner she doesn't get anything else.

I haven't noticed anyone on this thread say that it was weird for families to eat together. It seems that when they don't it is because it is impossible to find a weekday evening meal time when everyone can be at home and not too tired to enjoy their food.

I think it is very different when you have more than one child.
Anna, my DD who is similar age to yours (3.1) also starts school at 9am too but I wake both DCs at 7 as have to have coats and shoes on at 8.15 in order to catch older brother's bus. We try to get her in bed by 7.30 so that she gets enough sleep.

Similarly getting several children to bed takes longer hence earlier mealtimes become necessary. Some of the people who have posted whose children have early evening meal separate from parents have 3 or more children.

fark what a smug lot some of you are on this thread preaching to all and sundry about bedtimes and mealtimes etc etc
I only wish I could be such a perfect parent
off to defrost the turkey twizzlers for tomorrows feeding fest for me

I think I've been lucky. My kids very rarely ate with us as small children, their bedtime was 6.00pm therefore supper was at 5.00pm. They always woke up at 6.30am regardless of bedtime so I soon worked out it was early bed and cheerful children or the reverse. DH was not home until 8.00 so no chance of eating with kids. I would rather eat with him as our relationship was just as important to the whole family. We had our periods of fussy eating but my response always was 'well there's nothing else'. I now have kids ( 11,14 and 15) who will eat most things, to the point where last year on holiday in France we were asked by the waitress if we were french as they tucked into snails followed by duck, steak fish and salad! Just relax and go with the flow without turning yourself into a short order cook!

oh dear. i am a failure. i rarely eat breakfast or rather i do but not sitting down but whilst making d sons breakfast. ds 27 mos eats cereal watching cbeebies whilst i give ds2 5 mos a bottle. lunch is at 12 which feels really early and supper is at 530. dh gets in about 730 so if he is lucky ds1 is up for a story but more often he isn't... i am holding on for ds2 to be eating meals together with ds1 and somehow it be easier to do the whole eating together thing. is is me being lazy or is it just quite difficult when kids are so little and at such a different stage? oh - and do we eat different things???? er yes. ds 1 doesn't really eat veg unless peas or possibly carrots or well camo'ed in sauces.i am trying though

There are often three children to get to bed in this household - all of whom go to different schools in different directions with different starting times (through absolutely no fault of our own, there is no way we could improve on this). So we do have quite a lot of logistics at the end and beginning of the day.

However, everyone except me is able to get up, washed, dressed and fed in 30 minutes. I suppose bedtime (and hence dinner time) is also dependent on how long children take to get ready in the morning.

I was thinking about this thread last night (not good for my blood pressure) and trying to identify why it's got me so riled.

I think it's the concept that any faults in our children can be put down to bad parenting and if only we tried harder, our children would be perfect e.g if I sit and eat with my children for every meal and keep on presenting the foods they don't like, they will eventually eat them. Or if I have more than one child and the second or third are a fussy eater, it's totally down to attention seeking behavioural issues. This is such a big pile of cr*p that I don't even know where to start.

We do our best with the hand we've been dealt (presumably the children of shift workers have such appalling table manners that they can never eat outside of the house ). I'm glad for all of you whose children eat everything happily, have great manners, only need 8 hours sleep a night, can get up and ready in 30 minutes etc etc. That's great for you. I would like to think that you weren't looking down your noses at the rest of us who muddle through from day to day, thinking that only if we tried harder, we could be just like you.

2/3 of mine eat everything and anything, but have the manners of pigs at home. Don't know how many more years it'll take, but we're running out of time here.

Bizarrely though, people sometimes comment on how good their table manners are when they go out to tea.

My second child has good manners, but is and always has been very picky. I did always insist that she try things several times, and eat at least some of her bug food every time she had it in front of her. There were tears, sullen half hour impasses, re-servings of old meals at breakfast etc.. (mean, horrible mother that I am)

Since she turned 11, she's started eating more overall, and has suddenly found that she actually likes quite a lot of the things that used to refuse to eat (eg tomatoes! hooray). Frankly I'd much rather have spent that time between the ages of 3 and 10, convincing her to try new things and insisting that she eat a balanced diet, than have a child like my friends', who at 13 would physically gag even when out if required to eat a piece of carrot, and consume only the tiniest bits of foods that were not breaded unable to hide his disgust. That, frankly, is both limiting and embarrassing for him and his parents.

Great post Zog!

Duchesse - I'm curious - what's the rationale for insisting children eat things they don't like?

Back to the point in question! My husband, three year old and I eat dinner together, at the table every night, my 2 month old baby sits in his chair beside us. We use this time not just to eat together but to discuss the days news, we actively encourage our son to tell us what he has been doing with his day (although I am fortune enough to be a stay at home mum so know it all already). The theory behind it is if he has a problem when older he will be open and confident enough to tell us, if it will work or not is another story. At lunchtime we are normally so busy that it's either a packed lunch or a sandwich but we eat together. At weekends, when my husband is off we eat every meal together and go out for dinner every Saturday. As a result my ds behaves extremely well at the table. The only drawback, dare I say it, is that mealtimes can be very long and sometimes if we have plans for the evening it can be hard to get there on time but generally all three of us enjoy this time together.

Overcoming irrational fears. I reckon that if they taste things often enough, they will develop a liking for them eventually. I also think that many of my daughter's reactions to food were due to her unwillingness to try new things. I would prefer her to be more adventurous, so encouraged her to eat things even if they seemed horrible to her.

Ah.

I'd rather our children just saw us getting enjoyment and pleasure out of eating/doing new things, and wanted to try them out too just because enjoyment is contagious.

I never insist the children eat anything, unless their diet is totally out of balance (and then they usually have to eat extra fruit to compensate for uneaten vegetables).

Bit of an aside here but wow Anna, 30 minutes to get ready! We spend about 30 minutes at the breakfast table. Mostly because DS (4) usually eats 1 bowl of ceral and then 2 rounds of toast or 2 bowls of cereal and 1 round of toast. He also sometimes has a yoghurt or fruit afterwards. And we chat as well.

Everyone here is very silent in the morning - even at the weekends all of use mooch around silently before having breakfast together an hour or so after getting up (by which time we are awake and able to chat in a civilised way). So I suppose we are not morning people, and might as well get the morning stuff expedited and enjoy our evenings instead.

We also insist on trying foods, and not just the once. DD knows that we try all food seeral times (she thinks 20 times is a good number; we don't always stick to that, lol) before deciding if we really don't like something or not. It seems to work for us, or rather for DD.

For example at school there is chicken curry on the menu. First day DD says she didn't like it but tred it. Chicken curry came up on menu every fortnight, she kepts trying it and now she eats it happily. Mind you, if she doesn't then she goes hungry and there is no alternative options at school.

DD will try almost anything. She has tried alligator and snails, and discovered that she loves mussels - simply by giving it a go and trying things more than once.

Dh is far more fussy than DD!