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s/o eating: Do you eat dinner with LO?
This is something I planned wanted to do - have dinner (and other meals if possible) together with my family. However, with DS going to bed so early, and DH and I wanting to linger over our wine, etc and have "us time", that hasn't happened yet. Sooo... I'm wondering:
Do you eat dinner together as a family? Why or why not?
Did you eat dinner as a family every night, growing up?
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Re: s/o eating: Do you eat dinner with LO?
Do you eat dinner together as a family? Why or why not? We eat as a family an average of 3-4 days a week sometimes more sometimes less. Depending what time A gets home from work. Sometimes its nice just to feed logan, put him to bed and A and I have dinner alone. Sometimes its nice to eat as a family, but very stressful, I don't chew my food or relax at this point. I am really big on us eating as a family. Its something SO important to me.
Did you eat dinner as a family every night, growing up? We always ate together as a family. My parents were super strict and no matter what we all had to be home at dinner time no excuses.
Do you eat dinner together as a family? Why or why not? Yes, this is really important to us so we make a point of always eating together. We did as kids (dh's family didn't) and it was always a memorable thing, we'd talk about our days laugh, etc and it was the only time of day that we were all together as a family. I want that for my kids too, so we decided to start at a young age.
Did you eat dinner as a family every night, growing up? See above, but yes. My dad was a firefighter so there were lots of nights that he wasn't home but the remainder of the family ate together and when he was home we would all eat together.
We don't because my DH doesn't get home before she goes to bed. We do sometimes on the weekends and we do when we go out to eat (does that count?
We don't have room for a table in the kitchen, so our only option is the table in the dining room which is over an area rug (ie, a huge pain to clean when yogurt gets dumped on it).
We did eat dinner in my house when I was a kid, but I don't have good associations with it. My parents didn't get along, so it was nothing but tension filled and awkward.
I think the idea of having some time near the end of the day for reflection and togetherness as a family is so, so, so important, but dinner time isn't the only way/time to accomplish that.
Do you eat dinner together as a family? Why or why not? Yes. We eat dinner together every night, usually around 6:00. DH travels for work several nights a month so when he's gone E and I eat together. It's the one time of day that we all spend together. We each talk about our day and what's coming up the next day. I always look forward to it.
Did you eat dinner as a family every night, growing up? Almost always. My dad was out of town pretty often for work so when he was gone it was my mom, brother and I.
To answer my own poll:
We don't have dinner together, except when we're visiting my parents or going out to eat. We do have breakfast together and some lunches (DH works from home, so he is often here for that).
Yes, we always ate together and I do plan to continue it. I guess we just need to decide when we can give up our leisurely wine hour (that we have after DS goes to bed, while cooking... then we eat super late, which I don't like, but I also couldn't really enjoy a glass of wine while having dinner with DS at this stage).
Did you eat dinner as a family every night, growing up? Yes, my family ate dinner together every single night my parents were married. It looms large in my positive memories of childhood and is the one huge giant thing they did right. There are moments I'd like to forget (the night my mom forced me to stay at the table until I ate corned beef hash is legendary) but the good silly memories far outweight it.
Do you eat dinner together as a family? About 3 or 4 nights a week. Why or why not? We really enjoy it but I often get home too late for it to be feasible for us. I have a long commute and DS needs to get to bed early to get enough sleep so on most nights I'd prefer he eat before I get home so he can get to bed but that does not happen every night.
On weekends I make sure that all three of us eat 3 meals a day together. It's our time to be a family and my time to be DS 24/7 mom. I relish making him good meals I know he'll like and enjoying mealtime with him.
Did you eat dinner as a family every night, growing up? Yes.
We don't eat together right now, but I plan on us doing so eventually. Right now, DH gets home around 6:15 and Char goes down around 7, so the timing isn't right, especially with bathtime. I rather have them play together during that time. And I don't know if she could make it that late for dinner although the last week or so she has been going to bed later.
We try to eat most meals together on the weekends and last Friday just started family pizza night. (DH leaves early one night a week and I think we are going to switch it from Th to Fri so we can do this.)
We ate together growing up. It's also important that DH and I eat together. We went through a phase where we just ate in front of the tv but it's so important for us to have that time together.
We eat dinner as a family every night, usually ~6:30 PM. DH has wine most nights too, so you can still linger over wine. :-) And us time can still be had once the hooligans are put to bed. It's really important for both of us to have dinner as a family every night that we can so we make it a priority. Before we dinner, we all hold hands and pray. It is truly the highlight of my younger one's day when his older brother reaches out to hold his hand. My 3 year old has been wanting to say the prayer lately too which is the cutest thing ever. I totally want a video of it, but I know he wouldn't do it if I was filming.
Growing up, we didn't always eat dinner as a family. Sometimes yes, sometimes no.
No we don't. Andrew has always wanted to eat right around 4:30, trying to push it even to 5:30 is impossible so I just feed the kids when they are ready to eat and then DH and I either eat after they are in bed or eat cereal because we are too tired to care about making dinner.
We did eat as a family growing up but I have no idea if we did when my brother and I were as young as my kids. For now I'm not worried about it. When they are old enough to care and get something out it life will be easier for us to all eat together.
Do you eat dinner together as a family? Why or why not? We try to, the boys go to bed around 7-7:30pm so we've been an early-eating family. If we aren't hungry yet or not everyone's home at 5-5:30pm, the boys will eat and we'll have our dinner and they'll eat dessert with us.
Did you eat dinner as a family every night, growing up? For the most part, yes. But when I was younger my dad worked mostly nights or OOT so we didn't see him very often. Once we moved and all that went away, then we did eat together (unless sports or some other event got in the way).
I'm totally in the minority on my thinking here. I'd say we eat dinner together maybe 3 nights out of the week. I don't make it a priority. A lot of evenings I just don't have it in me to get dinner ready by 6 for all of us to sit down together. And while E does some pretty darn cute stuff during the 10 min she'll sit still to eat, most of the time her crying and whining to get down, then up, then down, then up just makes me want to pull my hair out. I honestly just can't do it every night.
When she and her baby brother get older, I'll make it a priority. For now, I'm a-ok with giving her dinner alone, putting her to bed, and enjoying some rare down-time with DH.
Yes, we ate together as a family growing up and some of my most favorite memories are from dinner-time (trying to make my sister laugh after she took a drink of milk, trying so hard with my sister not to laugh after getting yelled at by our dad, etc.). However, those memories are from when I was an older kid; not when I was two.
Do you eat dinner together as a family? Why or why not? Yes, we do. It's important to us to have dinner together each night; so while us pre-kids ate late, had wine or beer while making elaborate meals and talking about our day, it just doesn't work with the kiddo life now. So now we eat simple, fast meals and eat early - like at 6! Even if we go out. But that means she's down by 7 and we have our leisurely time after dinner now.
Did you eat dinner as a family every night, growing up? Yes we did. It was very important to my parents. DH's family did not. He and his brother most often ate alone.Ditto.
Do you eat dinner together as a family? Why or why not?
It was easy the first year cause dh got home at 5:30, now he gets home at 6:30 and its pushing Cameron's bedtime, but we pushed his bedtime to around 30 minutes later SO we could eat dinner together. Its worth it to me for us all to eat together !
Did you eat dinner as a family every night, growing up?
For the most part yes, and I feel as the kids get older its more important to our family then it is now. To catch up and talk about our day once the kids get older etc !
nope, right now he eats dinner at 4:45 and despite the fact that Dh and I eat ridiculously early that is a bit much even for us
We did eat as a family growing up every single night and I loved it. When he is a little older we will make it a priority.
Yes we do. We didn't before because we would feed DD earlier, but now that she's older and requests it we all eat together. I'd say in the past year or more we'd eat together. She loves it.
Growing up we ate as a family as well.
We eat together 4-5 nights a week. DH works two nights a week, so K and I have our little dinner time together those nights. We try to eat between 5:30 and 6:30 because bedtime is usually around 7 -7:30. It's easiest for me to make dinner once and have us all sit down at the same time. DH and I get our quiet time after K is in bed, and that's when the treats come out (we don't really give K dessert besides fruit).
Both our families ate dinners together most nights when we were kids. I know DH's dad had a similar schedule when DH was young, so they too had to work around dad working a few nights during the week. My dad came home at a reliable time, so my mom insisted that we all eat together. Since it was just part of what we did, neither my brother or I ever questioned or complained, even as we got older.
Double ditto.
We tried to do family dinners when I was on maternity leave and it was a big fat fail. DH works very long hours and now that I am back at work, there is no way I would be able to get dinner on the table for us before the kids needed to go to bed.
We will do family dinners when they are older, but for now it doesn't work for us.
I'm jealous your DH gets home so early from coaching basketball! My dh coaches too, and sometimes doesn't get home until 10 after an away game, and everynight its at least 6:30 because of practices.
Anyway - on to the point of this post.
Night that there aren't away games we we will all eat together as a family. I do have to give dd snacks around 4:30-5 too so that this works though. We are able to eat breakfast and most lunches all together too since we live right next to my dh's school and he can walk home for lunch and his first class doesn't start until 10:00 (though he always leaves for work by 8 to get other things done). Eating meals together has always been a huge priority for me/us. I grew up with a crazy family life and didn't even always live with my family, and most certainly did not have family dinners. I always loved being at friends houses whose parents were together and where they always had dinner together. I could always feel the love, and the warmth, and it was something I missed from my own family life, and swore that when I had a family of my own I would create that for my children too. So far, so good!
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Rarely. The timing just doesn't work right now. DH gets home at 7pm at the earliest and the boys are on different schedules. N is alseep for the night by 6pm, so O eats dinner while I put N to sleep.
We will once the kids can stay up a little later.
We did eat together growing up.