Do you give hot dinner after a day at nursery?

[TBC45678]

Just that really. I've always given my two a hot dinner after nursery at 5.30/6, but after talking to a couple of friends I realised maybe I shouldn't bother! It's obviously quite a hassle and means my few hours with them before bed is spent cooking and feeding them (sometimes a battle when they're tired or grumpy etc).

They have breakfast at home, then cooked lunch at nursery (something like shepherd's pie, curry etc) at 11.30, then they do tea at 3.30 which is something like fish finger wraps, soup and garlic bread, tuna pasta etc.

This is 3 meals, so maybe I don't need to worry about a proper cooked dinner at home? They obviously couldn't go from 3.30 until bedtime with no food, but maybe I could just do sandwiches or hummus + veg etc...

What do other people do?

DD has:
Breakfast at home
Breakfast at nursery
Snack at nursery
Hot lunch at nursery (and pudding of sorts)
Snack at nursery
A lighter tea at nursery (and a pudding of sorts) which is at 16.00-16.30.

Then she goes to bed. Very rarely she will have something at home after nursery.

We all eat together around 5.30/6 so yes, often a cooked meal but sometimes not if short on time.

Absolutely is and always has been a full cooked hot family dinner for them both with us around the table. They eat lots at this meal. Both were born on 25th febrile weight and 50th height and continue to track this line at age 3 and 7.

It's so important to eat as a family, its how children learn table manners, allows them to discuss their day, discuss feelings and talk more generally about the world. We ate as a family from about 8 months old. Obviously it's sometimes impossible but sim as much as possible. Plus have rented space to a nursery in my building at work, the food was not very varied, children need variety young to help with food fussiness

Nope, never done hot dinner on weekdays, even now eldest is in school. They get home around 5 and have a substantial snack tea - sandwich/cheese and crackers/cocktail sausages/cheese cubes/fruit/cake/yogurt etc. They both get a hot lunch at school/nursery. On the weekend they get one hot meal and one sandwich/snack/soup meal just the same.

We do, but just for the habit of us all sitting together for dinner and because we have zero desire to cook a dinner for ourselves after we get them down.

They both eat all before them at nursery, so sometimes they don't touch the dinner and others they devour it. We don't make a big deal either way, sometimes they decide to just have fruit and that's fine.

We just offer some of our dinner, same as every night - life is hard enough without cooking different things for everything. Nursery tea is at 3.45pm so they definitely need something and often eat a whole portion

I tried to offer mine just a snack after nursery/school but they wouldn't stop demanding a proper dinner! To be fair though on my work days it is something either pre cooked and warmed up or very simple pasta and cheese etc. I am often surprised at how much they eat but they are both a very healthy weight. My youngest calls her meals at nursery "my first lunch then my second lunch" 😂

No, they have a sandwich with some salad veg on the side, maybe some fruit, maybe a biscuit or crisps. I'd do something like baked beans on toast if they were really hungry but that's rare. They usually have two hot meals a day at nursery and school/after school club, they don't need three.

We don't normally get home till 5.45pm and DH doesn't get back till 7pm so it's just not feasible for us. We eat breakfast together every day and all meals at the weekend.