If your child has school dinners, what do you give them for tea?

[Lovecat]

Just wondering, because I need inspiration!

DD's school policy is that everyone must have school dinner. The school has a healthy eating policy so chips are never on the menu and fruit/yoghurt is the pudding most days.

She's 4, nearly 5 and is not particularly reliable at remembering what she's eaten, but her reception teacher says she makes sure they all get a helping of veg with whatever they choose - from the odd snippet I get, it seems she has pasta with sauce, roast dinner when it's on, or pizza most days.

She's quite happy to have a sandwich when she gets home, but as she only likes ham or cheese, I'd like to put a bit more variety into her tea. I give her cucumber, tomatoes and carrot sticks too, but there's very little else she wants - although I'm wondering if I'm right to let her have what she wants, iyswim?

Also, as she gets older and stays up later, I'd like us to all have our tea together, but DH and I tend to have a cooked meal in the evening...(this may be my own personal weirdness but I feel giving her two dinners a day is just... well, wrong! I don't want to overfeed her, she's not fat but she is solid...). At weekends we all eat together and she'll have a sandwich for lunch and a hot dinner with us.

So I'd be very interested to hear what others in this situation do?

Mine have a hot tea whether they have had school dinners or packed lunch. They need it and eat it.

I also take a snack when I pick them up from school.

Snack when he gets home and then a proper cooked tea. We get a copy of the weekly menu so it's easy to cook something 'different' for his tea. We don't give him an adult portion obviously and he eats however much (or little depending on his mood) of the serving as he wants.

DS has a full school lunch, after school snack followed by a normal cooked dinner. He's always starving.

Mine usually have a snack after school and then a cooked meal at 7. But we are Italian, so different food traditions... meals are usually cooked here, both at lunch and dinner. If they have meat at school I usually make pasta or rice etc for dinner.

When ds was little (say 5 or 6) I used to hand a little something to him on the way home but we had a longer journey then. We're all of 5 minutes away now. These days he has a sarnie or similar when he gets in, or at afterschool club, and then has dinner with us later at about 7 or so.

We do try and take the school menu into consideration but there have been times when he's had pasta bolognese for lunch and then again at home for dinner. He's got over it though

My DD has an exceptionally healthy appetite and I know she eats her lunch every day at school.She doesn't get out till 4pm so we get home and she will have yoghurt,fruit and maybe a wrap with ham in and some cucumber strips.
She is 4.5 and very prone to putting on weight so I am a little cautious.As a LP,I don't eat till late (if at all) so we don't share an evening meal.
She is hale and hearty and only one hot meal a day soesn't seem to have done her any harm.

That said,when really cold,I will do her soup or boiled eggs etc (she hatets baked beans otherwise these on toast would be an option)

depends on the weather tbh

in the summer DD usually has sandwiches or tapst and pate or salad , kebab sticks - that kind of thing
In winter she has baked potato and tuna, pasta based meals (carbonara is a fav), fish fingers and chips, soup and rolls etc

she is 7 but eats like a horse and fit as anything. She NEEDS fuel so i feed her.

Good meals, as long as the potions are not humungus, don't make active children fat.

Getting her to eat supper during the week is not going to happen, we eat around 7.30 - 8.00 so we eat all our meals attheweekend together . so a bit of both really.

I found if i ytried to make her eat late of a school night she couldn't do it and got crabby and then sleepy

School dinners are not huge portions. I've always given ours another cooked meal in the evening, a sandwich wouldn't sustain them from an early lunch time til the next morning. Now they are older, they come in from school and have a sandwich or similar, then have a cooked meal later. Neither are at all fat.

DD has a cooked two course meal every lunch time at school. She loves her school dinners but from experience I know portion sizes are pretty small.

On a night where she has a later activity, such as Brownies, DD eats on her own, but it will be often the same as what me and DH will have later, so a proper dinner. If not an activity night she eats with me and DH at 6:30pm.

If she has a friend round I do them dinner earlier. I often do pasta, sausages or a big platter of cooked meat, salad sticks, fruit, hmmous, bread, cheese, etc.

Despite having school dinners, mine all have a cooked healthy dinner in the evening - we eat as a family. We also eat late because we got used to it when DH was not home from work til 7.30, so DC also have a substantial snack after school. They are all active and normal-sized.

Haven't read whole thread, but just wanted to add that school dinner portions are small( perfectly adequate for lunchtime) - but certainly not the equivalent to a cooked dinner portion at home imho... if this makes any difference to your discussions.

we have a cooked dinner of some description every night - regardless of whether ds has had school dinner.

Dd (nearly 6) has breakfast, then a mug of soup mid morning (school healthly eating plan), lunch - fantastic variety with yoghurt fruit for pudding. At 4pm at the afterschool club, I send her with fruit and a biscuit.

Once home (about 6pm) she has a sandwich/ bowl of pasta/hotdogs/crumpets followed by pudding of some kind - more fruit or a fromage frais. She usually has a hot choc/pink milk with a biscuit before bed.

She rarely wants a big meal in the evening. DH and I tend to eat later but if she really didn't like lunch (rare) I might make her something more substantial.

When I'm at home, my dc have toast or some kind of snack after school, then dinner with us at around 6pm.

When I'm at work they go to the childminder who doesn't give them a snack, but an early tea of mince beef & potatoes, sausages, chips, whatever she's making the other mindees.

My two just have school meals twice a week though, but whether they have lunch or dinner they always eat a cooked meal at night too.

DD probably is a bit on the chubby side, but ds is a total bean pole.

i can't see how a healthy home cooked meal would pose a greater risk of obesity than almost any quick snack - surely they would require a larger portion of the latter to sustain them and it is most likely to be nutritionally inferior

DD doesn't eat a lot in the evenings, she will have a sandwich, beans on toast, pasta of some sort. DS will eat and eat if I let him, he likes soup.

Thank you all again for the replies.

After all that DD is home today with a D&V bug she's picked up from school, so it's all a bit academic atm, however, a few thoughts...

I work a full day 3 days a week and on those days she's in an afterschool club. They give them a snack of fruit, digestive biscuits and water at about 4pm (I know, because I've arrived early on occasion and got very short shrift from DD for interrupting her fruit!)

On the 2 days I pick her up at 3.15, she's ravenous and wants food NOW so I tend to make her a sandwich there and then - one of those days is swimming, so she gets something small straight away and has a sandwich for afterwards, as otherwise she'd be waiting til 8pm to eat (and bed time is 7.30!).

I think, reading that back, I need to get organised better and have the slow-cooker on ready for swimming night and be better prepped on full working days, as it's become habit with me to make her a sandwich as soon as we get in, then play with her/do reading etc til bedtime, and only then come down and cook for DH and me, so we end up eating at about 8.30, 9ish - which probably doesn't do us any good!

Thanks again, it's been really interesting and useful to read what other people do.

Re. the weight thing - DH and I are both overweight, DH obesely so, and I suppose I'm a little paranoid that DD will follow in our footsteps. She's not overweight (I think! I don't have scales at home) but always feels solid compared to other kids her age and height, so yes, it's probably my paranoia, but having watched Generation XXL last night I'm thinking, shit, am I like that Geordie mum who just couldn't see or admit that her kid was fat?

I'm actually not obsessive about it (I'm not Bonsoir under an alias, honest) and would never say anything to DD's face, but I'm feeling vaguely that she could probably be eating better than she does, if that makes sense?

IMHO eating better would be 2 x hot meals/ day! Too much reliance on bread isn't good for anyone. Good snacks are essential for children, so I meet mine from school and they have a snack immediately (ds eats all school lunch, then plays football for 45 mins so needs fuel!). Mine have school dinner, snack after school and a hot dinner. And a bed-time snack! But all v healthy weight.

LovecatI think your dd is too young to wait for you and dh, so she'll need to eat on her own for a good few years yet! My dc only eat with us at the weekend.

Lovecat - statistically you are right to be aware of your family health history, and it sounds like you are doing your best.

But remember that a snack should be just that - a couple of biscuits or a piece of fruit or a yogurt - NOT a full sandwich - in our house that would be a meal.

And there's nothing wrong with a cold meal on your swimming night - salad or leftovers! - give yourself a break!

Incidentally, those of my frends who cook and eat for the adults seperately from the children are those who struggle most with their weight. Can you completely say with a straight face, no fibs, that you don't snack when you are feeding your daughter then go and eat a whole dinner later with your dh? I believe in eating with my dc's to set the example. Dh eats later when he comes in from work.

only vaguely related as to do with packed lunches, but interesting article nonetheless

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/health/article6984385.ece

tispity that's an interesting article, thanks.

When DS first started taking packed lunches to pre-school I fretted about the healthy eating policy until the pre-school owner let it slip one day that a particular child only took chocolate in his lunchbox .

Once DS started school he has had school dinners but we just haven't given him the option of a packed lunch mainly because he would only ever want cheese sandwiches. At least with school meals he has a little more variety in his diet.

I heard that the government had been piloting free school meals for all primary children in some areas and were thinking of making it national. Has anyone else heard this?

I do a cooked tea every night for my dd because I don't believe a word she tells me about what she's eaten.

Where’s on earth have you got this information from?? Calorie intake for 4-8 year old girls is 1200! You are suggesting over 600 more calories!! That’s 2 meals worth 🙈🙈

My dcs eat whatever we eat - dinner.