Timing eating dinner with baby - how???

[gerbo]

I'm hoping to start BLW soon with my 5.5 month old daughter. She eats roughly every 4 hours, at 7, 11, 3, 630 and then a dream feed.

I'm tring to work out when we can all sit down and eat together as DH doesn't get home until 630ish then we eat at 730/8 after she's in bed.

Would sitting down to a snack together at 630 after her breastfeed be ok? Not a proper meal but an attempt to cfreate a 'family eating together' vibe??

How does everyone else do it - do their babies stay up later????

Sorry - sounds like a really unimportant question - just trying to get my head around how our day will work and not be too daunted by the whole weaning thing!!!

As soon as DD was weaning we decided we wanted a family meal time together. DH gets in from work at 6:30pm, so we have always had our family evening meal together then. I find that easier than snacking and eating again later.

We're the same as Hulababy. DD always had a feed around 6/6:30, so when we started giving her dinner we settled down at 6:30 (this went to 6:45 - 7pm when I returned to work). DS had a stint of eating at 5 - 5:30, but we finally got him onto "family time". DH gets home from work at 6:15.

Though TBH most of the friends of DC eat around 5 - 5:30 (ie before daddies get home).

ds2 eats with dd who is 5 at 5.30-6pm most days
He is bf on demand so he eats whenever he wants
He tends to eat most solids about an hour after a feed. And cannot take a bf until at least 45 mins after his solid food.
WE cannot eat as a family
Dp is never home til 8pm! I wait for him and ds1 13 eats with us too

Our latest effort ius to have a starter at 5pm which is when DS has his tea. I don't want him to eat later or go to bed later but 5 is really too hectic to have evrything ready for us all. So we all have soup for example and then while one of us is putting Ds to bed the other one can get the rest of the dinner together. DS is is now happily eating things like baked field mushrooms & chilli squid as well as a wide variety of soups!

Its not an unimportant question Gerbo! I have always had dinner with dp after ds has gone to bed at 7pm. We only eat dinner together if we go out to a restaurant and ds has a late night but having said that we always sit together for breakfast and when I am off work we have lunch together and I sit with him and nibble on something at tea time- when I am working he has lunch and dinner at nursery.
x

the kids have their dinner at 5/5.30pm and I eat with dh around 8pm as he gets in just in time for bedtime stories (7pm). I have breakfast and lunch with the kids and at the weekends we all eat together and we have our dinner at the same time as the kids (or sometimes a little later around 6pm)

Ooh good question as it is one I am trying to get my head round at the moment.

DS is 15 months old and we always eat breakfast and lunch (his main meal) with him at the table (on the days I am not working) - but he has a snack-type tea (sandwiches, cheese on toast etc) at about 5.

Me and Dh have always eaten late (after 8pm) and it just seems impractical to get tea cooked earlier. Plus, I love cooking so the time in the kitchen cooking tea after DS has gone to bed is 'my time', so to speak, and I am not sure I want to sacrifice it for quick, rushed cooking with DS at my feet demanding attention.

So I am confused about it all and we are just carrying on as we have been for the last 6 months until inspiration hits me about what to do. I am hoping that eating 2 meals a day with him is sufficient at the moment.

the only thing aobut eating later is that with my dd for the first few months of weaning if she ate past about 4.30pm she didn't drink her fill of milk and her sleep got mucked up. that was NOT a pleasant lesson to learn... start with lunchtime-ish and see how you get on. it's not for hunger in the beginning, at any rate.

Thanks everyone - lots of ideas to be thinking about.......I guess at first it's lunchtime eating only anyway. (And, Aitch, like you said, just to get used to the idea of new tastes). Just didn't want to not do the 'social' part of eating properly, but it seems there's no one right answer really. You'd think that would've sunk in by now about the whole baby/parenting thing!