Tea-time at Nursery - when is it?

[VeryHungryKatypillar]

DD's new nursery gives them tea at 3/3.30 which seems really early to me. I can imagine will need to give her something small when we get home. As she has a bottle at about 2.30 at the moment I don't think she'll eat much anyway.

Is this common?

3:45 - 4pm. Early for DD too, and she usually has another 'tea' when she gets home !

You mean their evening meal? 4.30 at our nursery. What time are they giving them lunch then?

Having said all that, dd is still famished when she comes out at 5.30pm. Hungry work, all that playing!

I think they do it early to get it done before any parents who finish work at around 4pm come to do pick-up. Otherwise the pick-ups are too disruptive, and I guess people might feel that they weren't getting their money's worth.

At DDs nursery, tea is only fairly snackish anyway, so she often has something else small-toast and marmite, or some scrambled egg-when we get home.

DS has always had it at 3.30 - they do it when the afterschool lot arrive, but so that the children are finished by 4 when a lot of parents start to arrive to pick up. They have lunch at 11.30 so that they are done by the time that morning children are picked up, and that most have had their nap before the afternoon attenders start arriving

DS only really wants a snack when he gets home - he has toast and fruit or similar around 6.

3.30pm

yes same here. works for us cos dd'd picked up at 4.30, just as she's finished tea and had story time.

then she has another tea at home.

IME they also have lunch v early (11.30 or so) otheriwse they end up falling asleep before eating and would wake up ravenou sat 2pm

tea is only small though, so dd has 'supper' at 5.30 or 6

3.30 at DS's nursery too. They get a hot meal at about 11.30 for lunch, then a sandwich/something on toast kind of tea at 3.30.
When we get home at about 5.15 I give him a snack too - rice cakes, cheese and fruit usually.

Ours is 3/3:30 too and somewhere between a proper meal and a snack. E.g. they will have veg sticks and dips and a yoghurt. I'm not quite sure whether they intend it to be a proper evening meal as it's never anything cooked. It's very annoying. If I don't give her dinner when she gets home it's 16 hrs between tea and breakfast so she tends to wake up early and hungry. However, she's not desperately hungry at 5/5:30 either so we tend to give her a smaller dinner at about 6 althouh that means that she goes to bed a bit late. Last night she was complaining that her tummy hurt so I think she'd had too much all told. I'd really prefer them just to offer a snack at that time e.g. a piece of fruit, that's what I do on our days at home. I guess that doesn't suit people who pick them up late....

3pm at our nursery too, lunch at 11.30. I give the boys another 'tea' when we get in 5.45 - 6.00pm as they are usually ravenous.

Blardy hell that was quick! Thanks everyone. So it seems fairly common then. Yes, they have an early lunch at about 11.30ish I think (which does coincide with when DD would normally want lunch anyway).

I think we'll just have enough time for a bit of a snack before we start bath and bed routine at 6.

or breadsticks in the car... [slattern]

Starting somewhere between 4pm (for the littlest) and 4.30pm (for the biggest). Then they have snacks (breadsticks or rice cakes, normally) around 6pm for those who are still there.

how old is DD, could u move bedtime routine back a bit, so she not full of food when in the bath?

We moved ours to 6.45 (after Little Bear Stories on Nick Jr!), so that they could enjoy tea and also a lovely cuddle on the sofa with pregnant fat mummy while we wound down ready for bed.....

In the many nurseries i have experienced, they give tea at 3.30pm or 4pm. Some nurseries offer a fair amount of tea but stil say children should have something when they get home, in other nurseries it is more like a snack (somowhere one day did 1 small slice of garlic bread each)therefore the children needed proper tea at home.

In the many nurseries i have experienced, they give tea at 3.30pm or 4pm. Some nurseries offer a fair amount of tea but stil say children should have something when they get home, in other nurseries it is more like a snack (somowhere one day did 1 small slice of garlic bread each)therefore the children needed proper tea at home.

My DS's old nursery used to do lunch at 12.30, tea at 3.45pm

tea in our nursery is 3.30 but is just a snack and not a proper meal, it is just to tide them over till they get home

Our nursery also do snack in the morning 9.30, lunch 11.30 and then snack in the afternoon. (3ish) Mind you some children are still having breakfast when I drop off ds2 at 9ish. Only ever seen a couple of them having tea after 4.30/5ish. As we bring our own food in (except snacks) I can only assume their parents want them to eat their tea at nursery.

We don't serve tea in our nursery unless parents send in a packed lunch. They have a snack of toast/crumpet at 9.30am, lunch at 11.10am and afternoon snack at 2.30pm (breadsticks, fruit, garlic bread or something relatively small)

Ours does lunch at 12 and tea at 3.30. Lunch is a proper hot meal. Tea is sometimes hot - something on toast for example and sometimes more picnic sandwich type thing. When we all get in at 6 B has a smallsnack but she never seems hungry then she has milk before bed.