Eat with kids vs eat with DP??

[zazas]

OK so do you eat with the kids so you have a 'family' meal together and install 'table manners' and make sure they eat etc OR do you wait until DP comes home and eat around 7.30pm so you two can have quality time together??????? By the way if I sit with them and don't eat - I ALWAYS eat some of theirs which is doing the waist no good!

depends what time dh is home - if he is always home at 7.30, I'd wait and eat with him.

I try to do at least 2 weekday meals with the children and generally saturday and sunday. If I know for definate that dh won't be home for supper I'll eat with the children.

Never really before 7pm except once a week. Feel I should wait but get hungry when the kids are eating at 6pm! Plus if I am not eating always seem to start doing something else instead of sitting with them. Then all hell breaks loose!!!!

I have been eating with the lo's (2 and 3.10) but together they conspire to make meal time so bloody miserable for me (complaining about the food, asking for a glass of water then I just sit down and then they want me to get up and fetch a slice of bread etc, etc) that I barely taste my food and become irritated and cross.....the trials of small children.

So I've decided to eat later so they can't ruin my dinner. I shall watch them eating with a benevolent smile on my face from the comfort of the nearby sofa (we have long kitchen with a sofa at one end), issuing the odd instruction on table manners here and there.

We eat together a lot - but then dh is self-employed, works funny hours, and is often home for lunch (and nearly always here for breakfast) as well as most evening meals. The nights he comes home late (8.30pm+) I eat with dd, and then maybe have my dessert while dh eats - or just a cup of tea. We get the quality time, just not necessarily over a plate of food.

Forgot to say, dd is 2.5 and a good eater - we let her get down when she's finished, and grab a bit of us time then too!

I eat later, when H is home. We don't have a big table that we can all sit round - the boys have a little table & chairs & there is a breakfast bar with 2 stools in our house.
I make the boys tea at around 5pm & I tend to eat at around 7.30 - 8pm.

we eat together as a family. Dh works locally and so we can normally eat by 6pm. ds is 5 and dd is 3. They have a snack after school to keep them going and then it's straight to bed after tea.
The few times that dh is late I feed them first and eat with jim later (unless I'm really hungry ).

him - he is not called Jim.

I Know what you mean HMC - I get indigestion eating with mine with all their 'needs'! But being the Queen of Guilt, I worry about not eating with them and worry aout not eating with DP. Prob is he says he will be home in 20 mins and 50 mins later....! Plus I hate cooking 2 meals or eating food I have to warm up.

I tend to think mental sanity is more important Kama . You'll have to see if you feel the same way when she is old enough to be arsey and dilerately obstreperous over meal times.....

I only eat with the kids if dh is going to be home after say 9ish (so prob 3-4 nights a week).

The problem with eating with the kids at 5pm is that by 8-9pm you need a top up meal to keep you going . Either way, it's not good for the waistline!

we eat at about 5 - 5.30 as DP leaves for work at 6pm. DD, DP and i sit at the kitchen table (unless it's chips or something like filled baguette).

If your partner is not home by 6.30pm ish it is all a bit a tricky isn't it!!! I have tried and make the kids eat later with us but then they are over tired and so just pick at their meals. Think maybe the way to go for 'us' is during week I eat with DP when he gets home and the one a week day and Fri / Sat / Sun we eat together! 4 out of 7 eating with kids has to be OK!

I'm trying to lose weight atm and am finding I'm hungry by kids teatime and if I don't eat then, I'm more likely to snack on rubbish before dh gets home.

Tonight I've cooked a family meal which can be re-heated when dh gets in. I was hungry, so ate a small bowl of dinner with the kids and will have another small bowl when dh gets in, while he has a normal adult portion - best of both worlds and hopefully I won't get too hungry during the course of the evening. If this experiment works, then I'll keep it up, although more tricky if we are eating different things.

we all eat together if dh gets home on time and if hes late we go ahead without him, we do have the odd day which we treat ourselves to a take-a-way so I feed dd and then we eat later

Generaly eat "with" ds at 5 pm - as ds won't eat I feel someone ought to do some eating at "tea" time.
Then eat again with dh in the evening - weekdays he tends to go training or play scrabble or pub it so that's generally at 10 pm-ish so I'd never last from lunch anyway.
At w/ends dh hates having to eat with ds ('cause it's generally one big stress-out) so we tend to do the same.

know how you feel zazas DH doesn't get in until 6.30-7 ish and that's too late to eat. Would prefer it if we all eat together but it's not really possible. What I try to do is cook the DSs main meal at lunchtime and have a Slimming World version of what they're having with them (!) and then a cup of tea at 5pm when they have their tea and then cook for DH and I after they've gone to bed. Weekends we all eat at lunchtime together. It's not ideal but is OK for now. Will have to rethink when DS1 goes to school in September and hopefully just cook once and DH can have his on his own later.
It's all a bit of a muddle really especially with the stress of eating with non-eating DSs anyway! It really makes me cross when people think that the be all and end all of meal time trauma could be sorted out by the whole family eating together when, most of the time, it simply isn't possible.

Reading posts, I think we get to eat together because dd (2.5) is not yet at school/nursery...think we are on a sort of continental timetable: up at 8ish, she naps for an hour in the afternoon, and goes to bed at 8.30 or 9pm. Plenty of time for supper...

I eat with the kids, I would be eating at 10pm if I waited for DH!

My boys have tea at 4.30pm as I like to get ds2 in bed by about half 5. Dh gets home around 7 so I generally eat with him about half 8 :)