Working parents - please tell me your timetable for feeding a baby and an older child when you get in from work.

[Tinker]

Please.

Am due back a week on Monday. Expect to back in the house at 17.00. The baby is usually fed at 17.00 atm. But 8 year old is also hungry at that time.

Please can you share any tips for the logistics. I just see stress, crap meals, tiredness, crying etc etc.

Who will be looking after baby during day and DD1 after school, Tink?

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dd1 was fed at childminder at 4.45 - use to make extra roast dinner on a sunday and freeze two portions for days at childminder inc a little tub of gravy! was warmed up for her. we collected at 5.30, got home played for 45mins, then bath, book , bed by 7 - dh and ate after, whover wasn't bathing cooked.

when go back in april - i will be bulk cooking for the days when at work at weekend. only because dh will be picking up at 4.30, so he'll reheat food for them or prepare a salad with summer coming. saying that i might give cm they're main hot meal to have at lunch so its only sarnies and yog in evening.

you've got me thinking now........

i'll be home at 630 for stories and bed down by 7, unless traffic bad.

its only two days, so although will have to be very long days for them and very regimented, we'll reap the benefits, hopefully.

Menu planning, freezing and the slow cooker. I SWEAR by these.

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Right well when DD was 5.5 months and I went back to work and DS was 3.8 it went something like this.

Both children fed at nursery at 4.30 pm. We would get home at 5.50 pm and I would have a meal for the four of us on the table by 6.15 pm. Since both children had had tea at nursery they only had small portions. Then DD milk at 7.30 pm.

Now DS is nearly 5 and DD is 20 months. DD still has tea at nursery, then small tea with us, then milk. DS is at school and has school dinner, then LEA fruit, then snack at childminder, then eats with us at 6-6.15 pm.

I think the key is to be really organised beforehand with what you are going to feed them both.

As expat says.... I cook double on the days I don't work.

Tinker, enid once said she puts a pan of water on to boil the minute she comes in, good tip I think. I don't do this juggling act atm but I did do it for a bit last year and dh does do it atm though dd is 2 and has been fed at nursery so a bit different. I think feed 8yo first or at least get it going, can that be done? And baby will have to wait 15 mins. Or can childcare for 8yo feed her too? Make sure you always have:
frozen veg, type she will eat, broccoli, sweetcorn, peas etc
pasta, obv and jars of pasta sauce. Cook pasta and throw veg in with it at last minute, then add jar pasta sauce (or made and frozen if you want to)
baked beans
jacket potatoes
omelette, you can put all sorts in it
baked potato, doesn't take long in microwave

amen, charliegirl! have to say, macdonald's has saved my ass a few times . . .

Marks & spencers kidz meals. TBH we eat later, bout 7pm. But I swear by these and they apparently don't have anything additives etc in them. I have to give DS something by 5.30 and we walk through the door at 5.20

Thanks all. My head is reeling from the organisational skills required for this.

charliegirl - you sound like me atm. Baby fed at 5, bath with he dad at 6 whilst I do meal for me, him and my 8 year old. Like teh idea of the baby eating with us but just don't see how I can do it.

Jan - childminder will have them, I'll pick them up 4.30 to 4.45 so they can't really have their meal there (she has other mindees, too much to request, I think)

Yes, have thought that a slow cooker may be a good solution. Will ponder.

WWW - good idea. At least lets me think whilst feeling I'm doing something.

could she have her main meal at lunchtime and just have snacky food at tea like sandwiches, breadsticks, cheesy toast fingers, scrambled egg etc?

Yes, think that's a good idea compo. Just wish she understood the concept of a "meal" first though

Tinker my childminder always gives DS a snack after school - toast/yoghurt/fruit - that kind of thing which helps to keep him going. Does DD1 have school dinners?

You have to be very organised IME.

Trying to remember how I did this, but I'm afraid your last sentence probably summarises it well In fact we still have stress, tiredness and crying at 2 and 4.....
I used to feed both boys together and never did anything that required more than 10 minutes prep time - I would arrive home at about 5.30 and they would be fed by 5.45! I think that I relied on freezered ice cubes for a very long time - there were a few things I did in batches in advance and froze (e.g. sauce for pasta, mince, cheese sauce, mashed potato). Stuff on toast also featured quite a lot. I think at the beginning they often got different meals (baby was only 7 months).
Its always been my worst time of the week and probably my low point of parenting (closely followed by bathing baby and older child on my own!)

LOL in a rueful kind of way Elliot. I always used to manage quite well but am finding it difficult now with a 4 (nearly 5) yo and a 1 yo. DS is tired and argumentative and dreaming up new strategies to wind us up. DD is asserting herself and the world falls apart because I have chopped her sausages up and not mine. Whereas DS would happily be spoonfed his whole meal but he is nearly 5.

Was easier when DD would happily be spoonfed slop with my right hand while I ate my own with my left hand and DS just got on with his.

I have never been in your situation, but this thread interested me. I wondered if you could plan lots of foods that are just as good served cold, and prepare them the night before? Pasta salad, cold new potatoes, omelette wedges, avocado, rice salad, cold sausages, hummus, pittas, bean salad etc? Being able to give them something the moment you walk in the door would be a real help for all of you. I keep meaning to do this for when ds and I get in late if we've been out shopping or something - it is the worst time of day and we are both hungry and tired - grabbing something straight away would avoid no end of tears.