Dinner after Nursery

[XMummyX]

Hello,

I would love to hear what everyone feeds their child after Nursery. DD is around 18 months and has a big appetite. Where milk is less of a thing she’s hungrier. Nursery offer lunch with pudding at 11:30 and Tea ( snack - bagel/ crumpet etc) at 3:30. Wondering if people make a full meal at dinner for thier children or more snacks things. Really curious and looking for ideas!

Neither of my kids were particularly hungry after a full day at nursery. They were both usually collected around 5pm.
More often than not they would just have something a little snacky, weetabix with hot milk and fruit on top, some porridge, cheese sarnie. Sometimes nothing at all.

Ours did hot meals at 12 and 4. We always did a full dinner as a family at about 6:30 - depending on the day and the dinner they'd eat loads or feck all.

Mine would definitely need another big meal after a bagel or crumpet at 3:30, definitely not enough to see them through to bedtime.

Mine has porridge or a little bit of whatever we’re making for our dinner.

Is it always only snacks for tea? Ours is soups and jacket potatoes.

Completely variable for our 2 year old! I offer the choice of some of what we are having around 6pm or weetabix/ yoghurt and fruit. Sometimes eats a huge portion of curry, sometimes just a few berries!

It depended if she was going through a hungry/growth spell and what we were having for dinner.

Less hungry days would be things like - bits of ours; weetabix or porridge; cheese, crackers and veg sticks; a scrambled egg and toast; homemade soup.

Hungry days would be relatively full meals and we kept small portions of things like mac and cheese, meat or veggie chilli, bolognese, veggie pasta sauce, keema, chicken casserole etc in case we were eating later or eating something unsuitable.

If she's having a bagel at 330 I'd class that as a snack and do her a tea.

A crumpet at 3.30 definitely warrants a full meal, that’s a snack to a ‘tea’. DD’s daycare did similar and she always had a normal dinner at 6pm.

I tend to offer a variety of things - cheese and crackers, banana, apple, biscuit or toast. As she gets older it’s moving more towards wanting a dinner with us but she’s too tired for that at the moment.

Ours has similar snacks (bagels, pitta bread or they may have baked potato or pasta but a smaller portion) around 3ish and we always have a tea at around 6 when we get home and my son always has what we have followed by fruit and yoghurt. Most times he eats it, sometimes not but for me it's important to sit together as a family at the end of the day to reconnect and spend time together and I can tell my son enjoys sitting and chatting with us!

My two get toast before pickup at 3:30, then eat a full dinner with us at 5. They both have quite big appetites.

Pick up at 6:10. Home by 7pm, quick seafood pasta, tofu noodles with eggs and bed by 8:30pm.

When DS was smaller, I was at home to do dinner every evening so he just had a child size portion of whatever we were having.

Now I'm back at work longer hours, he has an easy, lighter meal- jacket potato, sandwiches, soup, beans on toast etc. Essentially a repeat of the kind of things he has at nursery for “light tea” at 3pm (I don’t literally give him the same as he’s had at nursery, but it’s similar things in the rotation). There's only an hour and a half between us getting him home and starting the bedtime routine, so I don't really want to cook a full meal on those days and he's happy with something lighter.

I’ll offer my 2 year old a bit of what we’re having but if he turns his nose up, I’ll make him some weetabix or do him a little plate of cheese, crackers and fruit. He eats so much in nursery so I’m not overly concerned on the nights after nursery.

This is so good to read, we've been struggling with our son and dinnertime lately but I can see he's tired... pick him up at 5.30 and his usual bedtime routine starts at 6/6.30. So, on creche nights its usually toast with peanut butter and banana, milk and strawberries while watching some TV.

Weekends he always eats dinner with us at the table as we have it a little earlier in the day maybe 4.30/5 so hes in better form. Totally depends on the child and the stage they are at developmentally I think - ours has recently stopped napping so you can understand why he would be cranky!!😴

Both my boys could eat a full meal after nursery, despite having morning snack/ lunch/ afternoon snack/ dinner there. I used to cook but I have tapered it back to sandwiches now as they’ve already had a hot meal!

We have dinner as a family after nursery at around 5:45. If the DC have eaten loads at nursery (tea around 3:30 - normally a hot meal but lighter than nursery lunch) they might not eat so much, but sometimes they eat more than we do! We all eat together, so it doesn't matter if they're not that hungry as we haven't cooked a separate meal specially for them.