Family mealtimes - how and when to start?

[3ormorecharacters]

Growing up we always had meals round the table as a family, and I really believe in the benefits of this in terms of eating habits, social and language development, family relationships etc. It's something I'd really like to replicate with my own family.

My DH did not have family mealtimes as a child. Since the start of our relationship we have eaten dinner late (8-9pm) in front of the TV. He says he's happy to give the family mealtimes thing a go a few days a week, though get the feeling he's just humouring me.

DD is now 6 months and weaning. She obviously still needs a lot of help with eating and has dinner very early (about 5.30pm) so I'm not sure how to make that work for me and DH. How and when have others made family dinners work with a young child, especially with a DH who's maybe not 100% into the idea and is used to eating much later?

I would start now with Sunday dinner as a family and ideally family breakfast/lunch both days too (once she is eating more meals).

When my DS was weaning we would have a family breakfast and/or lunch at the weekends where we all had a plate of the same, baby-friendly food. Continued this as much as possible, adding in other breakfasts and lunches and on holidays we would all eat an early supper. DS was definitely more inclined to try things if we were eating them too.

Now DS is 2 and Sunday-Thursday we have a 6/6.30pm supper all together and Friday and Saturday the adults eat later, often things DS won't eat. We still have family breakfasts and lunches at the weekends.

I think getting into the habit of eating all together is more important than the specific meal you eat together or at what time. But for me this has been quite easy as my DP grew up eating almost all his meals as family meals.

We have a similar situation to you, DD is 8 months and we usually eat dinner when she's in bed. It can be difficult during the week with work, and also hard to relax and eat dinner when you're helping feed her

Second the PP, weekends are good for it - we often do breakfast/lunch all together at the weekends. One of us will usually have breakfast with her in the week too. I figure when she's more able to feed herself with a knife and fork it'll be easier to eat together more often!

Try not to worry though, plenty of time to build positive habits like that as she grows!

Same as others here, we have a 2 year old DD and since she was weaned, we have done breakfast and lunch together (lunch is now earlier at midday) and we have a snack when she eats her dinner at 5pm.

I suspect we will not do dinners together until she is at school and we can move it to 6pm or a bit later.

I personally would wait a bit. Your baby is still very little and mealtimes aren't really proper mealtimes yet (as in, too much faffing about for you to really eat). With our first, we started eating all together sometime around 18 months (for dinner, obviously we ate together other times when we weren't in such a rush for bedtime). The second one just slotted in to mealtimes because bath and bedtime were late anyway as we had a primary age child and busy work lives, so couldn't be asked to do an earlier meal.

I wouldn't eat early necessarily, I'd push dinner time for your dc later so that it fits in with family life (6-7pm, not so late as 8-9 but not as ridiculously early as 5). But you don't absolutely have to do it just as they start weaning and weaning is a massive PITA anyway, so I'd give yourself some time to get used to everything first.

I'm like your DH, I like to eat dinner late and preferably alone while watching tv!
it's how I relax.

before kids DH & I would eat dinner together and I get my tv dinner fix when he was away during the week. I think we'd usually eat all meals together at the weekend too, but not breakfast - I don't eat breakfast as early as he needs.

when I started weaning DS1 I'd always join him - I'd either eat at the same time as feeding him or at least have a cuppa or glass of water, so that he would get used to the idea of shared mealtimes.
also it was practical for me, I thought if I sit there for 20 mins I might as well eat too!

I did that for each of the kids. as they grew and needed food at different times I'd cater for that, but made sure that at least the kids ate the main meals together even if DH and/or I couldn't eat at the same time (often we'd eat once they were in bed).

hope this helps