Evening meals when you work and DC go to nursery?

[Greywarden]

Hi everyone, first-time mum here to a DC who is about 16 months.

My DC is in nursery 4.5 days a week - I have an afternoon off with them every Monday in exchange for one evening a week working late. Most nursery days are 9am-5.30pm. Neither me nor DH can get there in time for an earlier pickup on our current work schedules.

Up until this point, our evening routine has involved one of us picking DC up, getting them home by about 5.40 and whipping up dinner quickly (usually a matter of heating up a batch-cooked meal portion and boiling / steaming veg). DC eats by 6 most nights. We tend to eat with DC as a family although don't always manage it.

However, we've noticed DC getting very cranky and desperate for food so that even with this short wait it's difficult to contain / distract them. I sometimes resort to a pre-dinner fruit snack but that doesn't seem ideal really. Their nursery key worker also tells me my DC is getting upset when the other kids have dinner (about 4.30/5pm) as they want to eat then too.

DC already has lunch and 2 healthy snacks a day provided by nursery. If they had dinner there too it would cost us very little financially and would save us the rushing around... but we would lose out on the family dinner time. I suppose I also like to know DC is having a dinner that I can oversee and where I can ensure the veggies are prominent.

What do you all do about dinner if you work and have a DC in nursery? What should I do?

Let them have dinner/tea, whatever you want to call it, at nursery. Then they can have something light with you in the evening, even if it's just toast. You can't expect them to sit and watch other children eating and not have any themselves.

Let him eat at nursery and take the pressure off yourself. Plenty of time for family meal times when he starts school

I’d let them have dinner at nursery but still eat together at home. Except when very little, mine always came home from nursery at 5:30 ish and had a snack (had already had ‘tea’ which was like fruit and toast at nursery around 4) and then I cooked dinner and we still ate together at home maybe 6:30pm. I’ve never subscribed to the whole dinner at 5pm and in bed at 6:30 thing. It’s just not practical if you’re a working parent.

Tea at nursery will be beneficial for a number of reasons. He won't be as hungry, he'll be joining in with the "activity" at nursery (when my DC were there, they always had to help set the table and that sort of thing from when they could toddle), it's another opportunity for them to eat what they see their friends eating and to reinforce table manners.
Mine always needed more food when they got home so they'd have some toast, fruit, cheese and things whilst I sat down and had a cup of tea with them and we chatted about our days. Then we did bath and bed and then DH and I ate.

Absolutely needs to eat at nursery. Most nurseries feed the main meal at lunchtime and this is usually served at midday or even earlier. No wonder your DC is starving at pickup.
Most nursery teas are fairly light so let them eat there, then they can have a small portion of your dinner or some porridge with fruit etc at home as a supper before bed.

Its tough when you have to work certain hours and then you feel like you have to make up for it in other ways- all this does is put more pressure on you. I'm your situation I would have DC eat at nursery with the others he could perhaps eat something smaller (fruit/yoghurt/toast) with you at the dinner table when you eat at 6. You still get the time at the table with DC, but everyone is ALOT less stressed.

This.
Or even a small portion of what you are eating.

Another option for being able to eat a decent meal quite soon after you get in, is to use a slow cooker. Do all the prep the night before and chuck in, in the morning. Either something on low for all the time you are out, or using a timer to come on later.

We always did both. Sometimes they didn't eat much at home, sometimes they ate loads. But good to have dinner together as you say anyway.

I think going from nursery lunchtime (probably really early, I think ours have lunch at 12 or even before that in the baby rooms) to dinner at home at 6 is far too long.

My children always had supper about 5pm until aged about 7. They were so hungry after school ,so they had fruit and then main meal.
Pre school they were in bed by about 630 because they needed their sleep.
Cannot imagine how I would have kept them going to eat at 630 and then bedtime about 730 .
As they got older and started after school clubs which I restricted to swimming and football club they then gradually started to eat and go to bed later.
So OP I would suggest supper at nursery ,maybe snack then before bedtime.

At our nursery it's a main meal at 11.30 for lunch then afternoon snack before tea at 3.30. Tea is sandwiches or jacket potato, pitta pizza or veggie pasta. I give DS some combination of toast cereal fruit yoghurt for his dinner at 5.45 and some days he'd eat everything sometimes nothing, he's 2.5 now.

Thanks so much for all the advice and experience-sharing here. I can see that eating at 6 has been too late. Feeling very much like a failure as it's like I've been almost cruel to DC trying to make them wait for a family meal. I have no mum friends and have lost my own mum so feel very isolated and inept with these sorts of decisions. Until the nursery key worker mentioned about my DC being unhappy when the other kids were eating, I'll admit it hadn't even occurred to me that this was an issue (DC has been at this nursery almost full time since they were 4 months old and for all I know I've left them hungry and miserable for all that time).

I thought homemade meals would be sort of one small way of showing care and doing right by my DC but worry that actually it was just a way of me deluding myself and performing what i imagine a good mum to do when the reality is I'm not around enough for them and nothing can make up for that.

Urgh. Down tonight. And ashamed.

Don't beat yourself up, you're doing the best you can and if you make a change now then the past will be forgotten quickly I'm sure. There is definitely something in terms of peer pressure at nursery like competitive eating to clear plates, wanting the same as another child so I do think it makes sense to go with the flow there and let your DC join in as much as possible. For what it's worth this isn't the sort of thing I'd ask my mum about, I do think having other mums with similar aged children to ask is useful though and I've found helpful advice on Mumsnet where friends in real life haven't been able to help.

Why on earth would you feel down or ashamed? Your routine will change many times over the years and it'll be trial and error to figure out what works for your family - which won't always be what works for other families.

Home cooked meals with all the family together is a great thing to prioritise - like I said we do it every day, just sometimes the kids don't eat it.

You're doing just fine.

@BarbaraHoward and @ringmybe11 , thank you both. ❤

You obviously adore him and are doing your best. If it had been a problem a long time then nursery would’ve let you know sooner. Please don’t feel bad about it!!

Please don’t feel down about this. There is so much guilt we feel about everything, when in reality you’re working to provide for your child and doing the best for them. For what it’s worth, I work part time and even then we don’t always eat together. There are various clubs throughout the week, so DS needs to eat earlier, times when he’s starving and just needs to be fed before us.
I make an effort at the weekend for us to eat together when there is more time.
Maybe your dc could have a snack while you eat dinner together? Or maybe you could introduce a more relaxed bedtime routine seeing as you’re not trying to get a meal on the table by a certain time? Ultimately don’t worry about it, and if eating at nursery makes your dc happier then you’ve made a good choice.

Thee is more than one way to raise a child OP, and at 16 months his needs and wants are ever changing. I have a 15month old who has a main meal at lunch time at nursery, we collect him at 4.30 which is before they serve tea, and we don’t have a family meal until 7pm or even later most nights. He has some snacks whilst waiting. Sometimes he’s obviously hungry and I’ll do something quick and other times he’s fine. By my MIL a 7pm dinner is downright cruel, by my own family it is a normal time for everyone to eat - and like you we prioritise eating together.

@Greywarden this won't have been going on since they were 4 months for a start. If I remember correctly (and it's been a while) it was only really after DD dropped bottles that meal times became more routine driven so at most a couple of months and you'd hope that nursery would have flagged it pretty quickly as the onus is on them to let you know if they are seeing issues.

Besides that it's a teeny tiny thing, he was a bit peckish for a couple of hours, he wasn't starving hungry and malnourished.

Over the next few years you'll have changes in when and how much he wants to eat fairly regularly, all you can do is your best. DD now likes a big hot breakfast, school dinner and would be perfectly happy with cheese and crackers for dinner as she doesn't feel hungry in the evening and hates having a full belly at bed time, they change and find what they are comfortable with.

My DD is 10 now and went to nursery full time from 9 months, she is a well adjusted, happy, bright, sociable, funny, increasingly sarcastic, starting to get a tad moody (yay hormones!), wonderful child.

She has not been irrevocably damaged by the fact that me and her dad had to work so our time together was limited during the week, in fact she has fond memories of nursery and still occasionally talks about her key worker and the friends she made there. I also don't have a mum and never have had many mum friends as I've always worked so didn't get much opportunity to meet people in the playground or at groups. It's fine.

Apple chopped in the car once his in maybe some milk or similar on the way home
just to help him through

DD has recently started school but was in nursery 4 days a week from the age of a year old and has always had two ‘dinners’ which has been pretty common among the other nursery families we know. She had tea at nursery around 4/4:30pm, then ate whatever she liked from a second (super quick & easy) dinner at home around 5:45/6pm. She’s always been on the lower end of the sleep need scale and went to bed around 7:30/8pm so we never had the worry about how to jenga all of the pieces in.

This.

He can still eat a bit with you.

I'm stunned that he's been made to sit there hungry watching other kids eat. What must he be thinking??

I would let nursery provide them with their evening meal and have a snack maybe with her when you eat. You can get evening meals time back when she is older

No no, it's just that he's moving from being a baby, who would not have particularly noticed or minded, into being a child. You haven't had a child before - suddenly you'll realise you do start thinking of things from their perspectives more.

Motherhood is guilt, but your guilt is entirely misplaced.

I've lost my mum too, I have a 7 and a 3 year old, I get what you're saying about missing having a mum to ask... I really leaned into the advice from nursery staff, who have lots of experience with so many little ones.

I am also a first-time mum to a 16-month old, and DS has his tea in nursery (also pick up at 17:30). We just offer him some pudding at home with us at the table (usually some greek yoghurt/banana, and a last bottle of milk) and he's absolutely fine. We're not eating at the same time, but it's much more relaxed this way.

There's still weekends to try and do more family meal times, and DH and I like that on weeknights we can spend a bit of calm time with him in the evening, and then one of us will be cooking our own evening meal while the other does bedtime, so we can eat together as a couple and enjoy a bit of our own time.

There's plenty of time for meals together to come, don't worry!

Please don't feel bad, we all tweak our schedules as children get older and change - mealtimes, naptimes, bedtimes all change.

Fwiw, our nursery does lunch at 11 (cooked meal) and tea at 3.30 (sandwiches, soup etc). Our older daughter has lunch at 11.30 at school and a snack at after-school club around 3.45. We eat our family meal at 5.30 (always with me, and usually DH but sometimes he gets home later). Nursery tea is usually small in my experience and they design it that way so it doesn't stop the kids eating a family meal at home.

By far the best thing about nursery days is that I don’t have to feed them!