HOW do you manage to all eat together, as a family?!?!

[tryingforbaba]

Me & DP have 1 x 18 month old daughter and another baby on the way.

One of my intentions as a parent is to all sit down together for family dinners. I think it's an important bonding time and important for building a healthy relationship with food.

Ideally I'd like to start this as early as now but it just doesn't seem to work out.

DD goes to bed at 7 and so has food around 530/6. Partner isn't home from work by then and if he is, he's not hungry.

I'm not either really but I try to sometimes sit down and eat with her.

Also DP likes to cooks for himself (very picky) and I don't always like the stuff he has.... it all just feels discombobulated. I also take work calls in the evening from 7-9 so reality of me cooking for everyone later (even if he'd eat it) would be unrealistic.

I am just wondering how your family makes it work .... when did you all start eating as a family? Do you think it's important at baby: toddler age?

Ps- I will generally cook at weekend something we all like and make sure that we have a family meal on a Sunday.

It can be.

For very young children insisting on sitting at the table can mean they don’t eat much. They often don’t want to stay there for long so a few mouthfuls then on their way.

It can also mean it’s very pressured and stressful for the child. I’m not saying it is, but jt can be.

@MoreDangerousThanAWomanScorned haha yes if we were having something fancy then I used to do the kids a quick dinner at 5! The older ones are teens now though and I can't get away with not letting them have steaks or a takeaway too unless they are out themselves!

It never worked for us either due to work hours etc when they were young. Also my DH likes to eat later (around 9). I used to think it was really important to eat together but I don't care now. I join them sometimes and other times I dont. My eldest has that thing where the sound of other people eating is awful to them so every meal ends up with either a fight or my ds upset. We tried music but it didn't help. Wasn't really quality time.

We now do it only for special occasions. Was every Sunday but the kids have sports now so that doesn't happen.

I am not going to beat myself up on it. They have table manners as I made sure I taught them. I also carve out other quality time with them especially night times and we do stuff like play family boardgames or go for walks together.

I say just do what works best for you.

We do our best to eat together but it's not easy. My daughter is allergic to dairy soya, eggs, beef, fish, tomatoes/peppers/aubergine, onions/garlic and a bunch of others things.

She didn't engage with weaning until 13 months and it was closer to 2 when she would eat enough to sustain herself. She didn't eat after nursery until 3. She goes through phases of only eating plain pasta and frozen peas. During the week she now sits at the table with us and she has some pasta/rice/ toast whilst we eat a meal. On my day off she often has the same meal as us depending on if she has a snack after swimming. If she doesn't want it she needs and early dinner if she does she can wait for dad to get home. We do our best at the weekend to eat meals where it's easy to split hers out and add prohibited items to ours at the end so it looks the same but ours has a bit more flavour. We do notice the lack of onions, garlic and chilli in foods for example!

Wait until the child is older but you can model sitting and eating some food with your baby.
Make the most of a couple of midday meals on the weekend.

I think your situation with your husband's picky, late eating will be the most tricky to traverse.

During the week I cooked and ate with the children as soon as I got home from work (6pm). My husband did his own thing later in the evening. At weekends we all ate together.

It worked well for us because my husband is an extremely fussy eater and eats a very limited diet which includes hardly any vegetables. I didn't want the children to wonder why they were having to eat broccoli and sprouts when their father wasn't. Fortunately they both love vegetables so it didn't turn into an issue.

At that age we just did the best we could. When DD was in nursery she would have tea there and supper with us but that only worked because she could stay up later. In fact hated sleep so we had more time to work with!
we are together at breakfast and on weekends.
she’s nearly 11 and we now sit down to dinner most nights except Friday which is sofa dinner night as she has gymnastics training til late!

I cook for DD earlier and I sit with her when she eats. DP and I eat later and we all eat together at the weekend.

Now she's older it's a really good time to spend just the two of us. She talks about her day, friendships, and problems she's having, before retreating off to her room later on. I don't think all eating together is necessary if it doesn't work time wise, but sitting at the table and chatting is worth doing

Dont have kids yet but DH and I always eat together for a start, seems a bit off your DP eats different meals to you. I wouldn’t worry with an 18 month old, in the week; maybe you sit with her whilst she eats and have a cup of tea, then eat together at weekends

We eat at 4pm. Especially for children who need to attend extra curricular clubs after school.

I think at 18 months you have some time to adjust and plan. At the moment I suggest that you sit down and eat your evening meal at 6pm with your daughter and, soon, your baby. Just getting children into the routine of sitting and eating together at a table, enjoying food and conversation is enough.

Beyond that, I wonder why so much stress is laid on your partner's needs? I can't imagine being married to someone who is so fussy they can't eat en famille. I'm sure you're compromising in order to give your child the best start in life. There's surely got to be some compromise from him?

We always have (DDs are 4.5, and 20 months) but we work from home and finish at 5 so eat around 5:30/6ish. We always cook from scratch so sometimes one of us will have a short lunch break so we can start on dinner a bit earlier.

If we were both in the office until half 5, it wouldn't be feasible at these ages as bedtime would end up being far too late.

I agree I wouldn't worry as you have weekends/holidays/days off to have meals together. My baby is 1 and I've just returned to work, before then we'd always have meals together and it's no problem cooking tea early as my partner works from home and finishes around 5pm so we'd eat around 5.30-6pm
But now I've returned to work, if I'm on an early I get home around 5pm so I'll start cooking as soon as I get in (the meals I make are mostly from a family cook book/baby weaning for all the family type thing and most are fairly quick) and we'll still all eat together, when I'm on a late I don't get home till 6.30ish so I try and get my partner to cook quick teas when he finishes just after 5, if I have to join the meal later then that's fine. But he says oh she was too upset in her chair, he didn't have the time etc.. so those days can be a late one!

We've always eaten together. When DH was in the office, he'd go in early and be back by 5.30, when we'd eat. We have breakfast together as well, I really like all sitting down around the table at the same eye level and not being distracted by phones/toys/whatever.

It doesn't sound like your DH is quite on the same page with the importance of eating together. It does take compromise and a fair bit of effort (more as time goes on tbh and DC get more vocal about what they don't like and fussy). You need to find meals you will all eat.

For us, that has meant compromising a bit on what we have and food is plainer and less fancy than what we had pre-children - spag bol, jacket potatoes etc rather than interesting curries. That's life. I have a bit of a system going where eg we might all eat the same pasta but DH and I have fish with lime and ginger with it while DC have fish fingers or tinned tuna.

We’ve always eaten together, breakfast and dinner every day. We eat at 5.15pm and eat our lunch at midday to make sure we’re not too full and then want dinner later.

It’s worth adjusting your appetite and schedule imo because the evenings are so much longer not having to do a second sitting. Also my kids always sit in restaurants without toys or tablets (providing it’s at usual meal times.)

A key factor is that we work from home though and are available to cook / eat as soon as we finish work.

I had the same goal but it didn't work for ages.
I just made sure that there was always a parent sitting with the children while they ate. Have a cup of tea or a glass of wine to make it a social event. Full family meals can wait.

We do eat together and we do prioritise it, but that's because we have flexible jobs and so we can. If you can't physically manage to have dinner together, don't stress about it.

We all have breakfast together. We get home shortly after 5, prep the veg etc and then collect the DC. We're usually eating around 6:30 and while I'm glad we eat together, the DC go pretty much from the table to bed some days which isn't ideal either.

Eat together when you can, and when you can't, just sit down with your toddler and eat something. We do this on a Saturday - we each have a small plate of the veg from their dinner and maybe a couple of chips, then have a takeaway once they're asleep.

I have a 1 year old, 2 year old and a teen. We eat between 5.30 - 6pm during the week and the small ones have pretty much always joined us once they have been up and awake. No phones allowed at the table. I find the toddlers will try things from our plates that is ‘yummy’ on their own plates.
I am a start as you mean to go on type person. My DH thinks eating together as a family is important and it does model good behaviour regarding sitting at table etc. You both have to be on board for it though.

We didn't at that age - DH didn't get back until 630/7 so it just wasn't an option. We did try to eat together at weekends though.

As the DC got older (now 14, 12 and 9) and we both started to work from home more, we gradually got into the situation where we eat dinner together the vast majority of the time - it is probably my favourite time of day and I don't think suffered from not being able to do that when the DC were smaller.

At that age and stage I ate with the children and DH ate when he got home, which was late.
I really really wanted them to learn nice table manners by osmosis, so to speak. We all ate together at weekends.
You have to do times that work for the kids when so young cos they can't be flexible. I got used to eating early so did have an appetite then.

Gradually as the kids got older we were able to bring the timings together more. Now they're 11&13 we almost always eat together.

I had friends who served dinner for the kids and preferred to eat with dp later, which I can understand, dining with children that young isn't relaxing. But their kids also had rubbish table manners as they never saw good behaviour modelled.
I daresay it levels out eventually, so you kinda just choose your least worst option based on your priorities at that age.

we’re just about to introduce it now my dc is 3 and going to school in September, and we have a baby who will start weaning in a couple of months. My plan is to make a family dinner for about 6pm, then kids bedtime at 7.30pm.

We sucked it up and eat together ( me dh and 17m old) at around 17.15/30. I’m not always hungry then either but I’m eating smaller portions and not going to bed on a full tummy so it’s working out ok. We’ve done it since perhaps 11m old. I noticed that when we started doing it he became super interested in his meals and more independent at eating.

We didn’t start til DD was school age, prior to that we just ate when she was in bed. Now we have two kids so 6mo DS sits with us every night as well

It's important enough to us that we work our schedule around it. That's not possible for everyone though - it isn't always easy to switch working hours.

If you and DP could work out a way to eat what each other cooks that would be helpful. Maybe you could agree 20 recipes that you both like as a starting point and try to add a new one each week? Or just some principles.

I don't know of any children with a parent who's a picky eater who haven't turned out to be picky eaters themselves!

And there's still breakfast every day, and 6 meals at the weekend which you could eat together. That's 11/28 meals which isn't so bad!

We have a "proper" breakfast each morning together. It takes a bit longer but it's healthier as well as being a happy start to the day. Everything's homemade and mostly in advance, and all our clothes and bags are out ready to save time. Clothes out and breakfast prepared (albeit not cooked) takes less than ten minutes in an evening but saves much more than that in the morning!
Sun: full English
Mon: porridge with lots of fruit
Tue: eggy bread with chutney
Wed: overnight oats with lots of fruit
Thur: fruit smoothie & fruity breakfast bars/muffins
Fri: semolina (or another non-oat 'porridge') with lots of fruit
Sat: pancakes with either fruit or chutney.

Road trips: bacon sandwiches
Celebration days: cinnamon buns or other pastries

We usually eat together but my toddler doesn't go to bed until 9pm and my husband is usually home from work at 4pm so it just works out that we're all ready to have dinner at the same time. I don't find it to be a particularly special bonding time or anything to be honest, usually he gets bored really fast. We communicate more when we're having fun playing, reading books or doing other activities throughout the day.