Do you cook separate meals for you/dh and the kids?

[pinkwhistle]

Just wondering how many mumsnetters cook something for their children different to what the "grown ups" are having?

I know it is sometimes necessary to modify meals for very little ones, but ds is a bit fussy and also dd has certain allergies I have to be careful of, so I sometimes make one thing for them and something else for us! Maybe about twice a week...

I have a friend with a 6 yr old dd and 2 teenage ds's, and she regularly cooks 3 different things - one for her, one for dd and one for the boys!

Anyone else?

elliott the answer to your question is that it's mummy who cooks in most cases i suspect....
although, yes, on one day a week it's me who's late home (still have to cook tho)

I always eat with my children and have grown accustomed to eating at 5 o'clock sometimes evern though I used to eat at 8. Dh eats alone when he gets home although even then he sometimes manages to combine it with when the children are having their bedtime milk and chocolate. {shock] yes my children have choclate before bed (if they have eaten their meals properly throughout the day and have behaved well). I did not know until I read it somewhere recently on Mumsnet that chocolate is not conducive to sleep: it doesn't seem to have interfered with our children's sleep.

Lonelymum: Hot milk and chocolate probably isn't that different to having hot chocolate before bed I suppose?

Wish you were MY mum!

I wish. I eat low fat, DP eats atkins, nanny only eats chocolate, DSS only eats yorkshire puddings and sausages. DD (2) is the only one who eats normally! The only time we all eat together is on a Sunday with a roast dinner.

no I wasn't trying to get at anyone, just a bit puzzled about the assumptions made - i.e. that it all hinged on when dh got home and also genuinely wondering when you working mums get home - I don't really understand why dads should be getting home so much later than mums if they are both working - am I missing something?

morningpaper, don't know how old you are but I am not sure I am flattered by that wish!

This is so interesting. Enid, yes, we did all eat together as children, it was awful. Mainly because our step father was (and is) a control freak and we weren't allowed to start eating until he sat down. He'd be sitting on his arse reading the paper until the food was ready and then he'd faff about for ages while 3 hungry children and their mother (my mother) stared ravenously at the food on the table and watched it get cold. We were only allowed to eat once he sat down. And we got what we were given, no choices. I think my mother was very wrong to let this happen and he was a tosser for doing it so no, no happy memories of eating en famille here!

elliot - the nature of my dh's job (IT consultant) means that some days he works at home, some days he's home around 7.30pm and some days he doesn't come home at all. When I was working I needed to have a 9 - 5 job so that I could take and collect the children from childcare.
I guess a lot of men in well-paid jobs have to work long hours, so the choice is sacrifice the woman's career, or get a live in nanny or get dh to take a much lower paid job with regular hours. This of couse applies vice versa ie well paid women and men sacrificing their career etc.

We all eat together most nights (me, dh, ds1 - 4.5 and ds2 - 2.5.) We eat at about 7pm with the kids already bathed and in their pyjamas, then do teeth and books afterwards. They're in bed by 8.15pm.

We've only been doing this for the last couple of months. Before then ds1 and ds2 used to eat at 6pm, we would do the whole bath and story thing and be finished by 8pm. Then dh and I would come downstairs and start cooking our (completely different from the kids) food, eating at about 9pm.

We changed for two reasons:

1. We went away for 6 weeks and realised it was much more fun to have the kids around with us in the evening while we ate.
2. Ds1 started school in Jan so I realised he was going to need a proper meal in the evening (packed lunch at school) as opposed to the simpler snacky type food he used to have at 6pm after nursery. There was no way I was going to cook twice an evening.

I definitely prefer us all eating together and the whole thing being over and done with for everyone by just after 8pm. All of a sudden dh and I find we have an awful lot more time to relax in the evenings.

Maybe I should add that I work at home and dh is normally here by 6.30pm. If he's going to be later than 7pm I still feed the kids first, probably something different from us.

www what a horrible man...
Is he still around and doing this sort of thing. if he is,I'd make him wait for ME in MY house!

We do usually eat together- of course it helps that I am a SAHM now. DH leaves the office at 5.15 to get home for 6:15. We eat at 6.30, then bath and bed. Dh then works for a couple of hours in the evening from home. I suppose he's lucky that he can work his 60 hour week flexibly.

My kids can both last until 6.30 for their dinner because we always have a snack at 4.30ish - pancakes, fruit, potato cakes, cheese and biscuits or the like.
When I worked we usually ate together as well - I would often prepare dinner the evening before - marinading fish/chicken so it could just be grilled, cleaning veg, making a stew type thing/pasta sauce that could just be heated up. Or batch cooking stuff that could be frozen at weekends, then leaving in the fridge overnight so it could just go into the oven as soon as we got home.

We usually have the same thing. Maybe once a week ds will have frozen cubes of leftovers because we are having something I think he's not ready for yet (he's only 9 months). DD eats anything we do, and if she doesn't want it she can starve. That might seem cruel, but as there is always something that I know she will eat, (plain pasta/rice, bread) I figure that if she is really hungry she will eat.

Having said all that, once a week I try to give the kids tea at 5.30, and get them to bed 30 mins early so that dh and I can sit down and have a nice dinner together and actually talk

We got into the habit of eating seperately when DH worked an hours drive away and was rarely home before 8pm. Kids eat 5.30-6.30 ish, depending on what time they come home from school (all together though), sit at table in kitchen but are allowed tv, dont mind as if they havent got in from school till 6.30, I see this as their chance to unwind as after tea will be bath/prep etc. DS1 is pathologically fussy and 4 out of 5 days will have had nothing since breakfast as wont have touched school food (not allowed packed lunch) so I have to feed him something he will eat or he really would starve. Usually they have something simple and adaptable for ds1 eg wholemeal pitta bread with tuna (others have grated carrot and cheese too) or homemade chicken goujons and fruit. DH and I then eat 8-9ish once bed/baths/books done.
Dh now works from home and I think I am going to try to rejig routine so that on at least some nights a week, we can eat together. Will be better for dd and ds2 as they will get more chance to try "normal" food and I find it a bit less stressful ,if it takes ages to get dd to bed,that I dont have to worry about making dinner afterwards. I work late one or two nights at week though so still wont be every night.
Will still have to cook seperate meal for dd1 though as just doesnt eat enough variety to allow him to "pick" things from our meal. This weekend for example we had 2 family meals. One was spag bog with bowls of spaghetti/sauce and grated cheese on table-dd eats all of that, ds2 eats spag and cheese, ds1-wont touch any of those. Second meal, chinese spring rolls, peking duck with pancakes etc and plain rice. DS2 eats everything, dd eats duck meat and rice, ds1-wont touch any of that.

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We eat altogether, at about 6.30 or 7.00. I'm a SAHM and dp usually gets home early (works in schools). Dd (3) and Ds (17 months) are not the best eaters quantity wise but will attempt most things (largely because if they don't like it, tough, there is nothing else!). Sometimes one or both will not eat very much, or nothing at all, but as others have said, this is often because they are not feeling well / have eaten big or late lunch or just don't like what's on offer. I too do not give pudding unless a reasonable amount has been eaten.
As children, we (3 kids) ate separately from our parents until one fateful day that I will NEVER forget when it all changed. It was horrible and miserable and we hated eating with the grown ups for ages. My decision to eat all together is based on this (even as babies, my two would sit down with the adults and eat whatever mush they were having - usually yesterday's leftovers) and also because I couldn't BEAR to cook two meals in the evening!
My two have been exposed to West Indian, Thai, Indian as well as the usual pasta etc. Although they certainly are not fond of some things, I think eventually they will be 'rounded' eaters. [hopeful icon]. Well, it's either that or starve...

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When DD was very small and eating baby food, we would feed her at about 5.30 and then cook afterwards. However, we wanted to eat all together and we also wanted her to eat what we eat. We thought this would broaden her diet and that it would be healthier. Since she was about one have have almost always eaten together at about 6.30. It's possible only because:

1. We are both academics. I am on a 50% contract. I do more than this, but I can work at home when she is asleep at the weekend, or DH looks after her.
2. On the days I work, DH brings DD home by 6. On the other days, he still gets home by 6.30 and then works all evening.

I don't see how people can do it when both partners work full-time. I think this is a real pity, as children get a lot of social benefits from eating with adults. The decline of family meals is an effect of our long-hours work culture, but no politician lecturing us about parenting practices is honest enough to make the link.

DP does most of the cooking in our house and we usually eat together, mostly at the table but sometimes (like yesterday) picnic style on the floor in the front room and no the tele wasnt on just that we couldnt be arsed setting the table. DD loves having picnics as does dss when he is round, its adds to the fun of mealtimes. But not everyday mind.

Incase anyone wanted to try it out, this is how DD's nursery deals with meal time, which seems to work well with all children there.

No choice of food given but they start ny giving all children a half portion of their meal. The child then gets to say if they want any more. They then do the same with dessert, regardless of how much or how little the child has eaten of the main course. Have to say it does seem to work really well. The simple idea of giving the child a choice (albeit very limited) seems to be an incentive for some children.

Similar we found that one of DD's friends (who is more fussy about food) ate more when we left food in serving bowsl - think it's already suggested further down too - and then let the children choose to serve themselves from them. I know DD really enjoys being able to do that. Gives her a sense of having more indepedence I guess.

Yes -I usually do cook different meals for dd and for dh & I. In many ways I would love us to all eat together but dd is hungry by 5.30-6.00pm and dh doesn't get home until 6.30pm at the earliest, and neither of us is really ready to eat as soon as he gets through the door. DD goes for a bath at 7pm so also she needs to eat earlier so that she's not going straight from dinner to bed. Also, dd is quite fussy - generally prefers bland foods whereas dh and I like highly flavoured foods - one exception is Spag Bol which she loves (this is one of the only occasions that I don't cook something different for her). Having said that, we always have Saturday and Sunday lunches together and all eat the same thing (dd loves roast lunch and will eat most of what we do, including the veg).
When I was a child the whole family ate together, and always the same meal but I was a VERY fussy eater and have memories of miserable meal times, sometimes being made to sit at the table after everyone else had left it, with a plate of picked-at, rapidly cooling food in front of me.
I do feel that I ought to give her a wider variety of foods to try and go through phases of attempting to get her to try new things (we even started a star chart but it didn't last!). Tbh though I most often take the easy option of giving her what I know she will like.
Have to admit as well that dh and I enjoy having a "grown-up" meal together after she has gone to bed!

That silly tip for today about using ketchup to make smiley faces demonstrates so many things that are wrong with our eating habits today.
Something is amiss with the foods we are offering our children if we have to pretend that they are in effect something else.
Food is to be respected and savoured,not disguised and made into a ludicrous game.
In the same vein, I have never palyed 'aeroplanes/trains' with spoonfuls of food and very young children and will not allow anyone else to do so.
If they want it they'll eat it. If they don't they won't. Simple as that.

As a result of this thread I made similar-ish meals for me, ds and dd: carrots, peas, green beans with organic mini pizzas for them, fish fingers for me and left a plate of veg for dp, who added last nights veggie bolognase to his. And I sat with the 2 children while we ate, which was really nice, I'm going to carry on doing it I think. We talked about food while we ate and ds informed me that ALL his school friends have crisps and chocolate and biscuits in their lunch and he is the only one who doesn't. I won't buy crisps but have agreed that I'll get some organic nice chocolate and he can have some sometimes IF he makes sure he eats all the fruit and nuts in there too.

I'm still interested in your horrid stepfather and if he's still with us www.
I have spent about 5 or 6 summers over the last 13 working at a children's summer camp in the States, one of the main reasons being that I really like their philosophy, namely no junkfood,sweets,tv,ready made entertainment etc.

There is a farm, a mill and a fishpond at camp so all the children get a chance to pick vegetables,milk goats and cows,grind corn,build fires,basically do all the stuff that we are so out of touch with.
It is truly amazing how enthusiastic the kids (even the moist horribly spoilt urban monsters who have probably never walked barefoot in their lives)are about vegetables in particular when they have watched them grow and picked them, and when their harvest has been weighed and recorded. To see a picky eater bragging about how many pounds of carrots he has picked and tucking proudly into said vegetables that same night is a sight to gladden the heart.

I had a group one time and we set ourself the challenge of only eating food which came from the camp which we had prepared ourselves. We made (amongst other things) curd cheese with fresh herbs and butter to put on the cornbread we had cooked. Great fun!

I'll be going back with my kids when they're old enough.

We all eat exactly the same. My mum refused point blank to feed us different meals, her philosophy being you ate what you would on the plate or go hungry, but always maintained no food after that (in between ). I'm the same except I do allow fruit after a meal where they haven't eaten much. I believe that this way my children get to eat a wider variety of things & they aren't fussy eaters because of that.
Mind you they rarely get junk food, maybe that contributes to it. Also every meal is at the dinner table together so it would look weird if there were different meals on different dishes.

I have been following this thread with interest - seems I have started a bit of a debate here about food and eating habits! which was not my intent at all.

But I can't let moondog's comment about the smiley ketchup face go without giving my opinion...which is, what's wrong with making food fun? Let's face it, sitting at a table can be a boring alternative to playing. Eating should be as enjoyable and interesting as possible. It doesn't mean you are "bribing" or making it out to be something it's not - children are smart enough to figure that out.

Alright, so ketchup/sauce may not be the most healthy food choice around but if it means a child will eat their daily requirement of veg in a day then why not? There are low salt/sugar brands available.

I recently made a face for my children with salad (it is summer here), with whole baby beets eyes, carrot stick eyebrows, shredded lettuce hair, cheese triangle nose, half cucumber slice ears, and a sausage (yes I know but it was low fat, GM free, natural skins etc) split longwise with corn niblets as teeth. They were delighted and ate the lot. May I add this was on a weekend and I was feeling esp creative!

Funny pasta shapes, cheese dips, kebabs, and build-your-own food like burritos, tacos or homemade pizzas (I use frozen pizza bases)...it doesn't have to be complicated or time-consuming.

And it means the whole family can then eat the same thing!