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Washington Babies
Easter 2011
What time do you fix/eat dinner?
We've got a bit of a problem here.
Since finding work - I have an hour commute home. Which gets me home at 6 pm.
We have always had family dinner/fed the kids at 5:30 (sometimes 6), and being home at 6 pm doesn't give me time to make dinner. For the last 6 months I've been either making casseroles or crockpot meals or having DH fix stuff (usually lke chicken nuggets)
The kids are starving and whining by 5:30, so I haven't had a meal with them in months (excl weekends) and we haven't sat down as a family since the Fall.
This habit is starting to concern me. I miss sitting with the family and even Rod just "eats over the sink" after making food for the kids. And I must say their meals are becoming less and less healthy because of the time contraint.
When do you eat - how do you juggle it? We have kids at schools and after school events/sports too so we're juggling those too....is this just the way it is now?
PS Bedtimes are 7:30 for Willow and 8:30 for Alex, so night time routine starts at 6:30 pm.
Easter 2011
This discussion has been closed.
Re: What time do you fix/eat dinner?
I do daycare pick up and don't get there before 6pm most days. So we aren't eating until 7 most nights. I hate it. We have no time to play at night.
It's worse now that it's nice outside we want to play outside all day and not have to come in to eat.
We eat dinner around 7:30pm. Mikayla has a later timeframe for her sleep - she wakes up about 9am or so and doesn't go to bed until about 9:30.
My husband gets home around 4pm and we usually go do something, the park if it's nice or just go run errands or go to a play area or something. We're not really much for staying at home all day, we get bored.
~ So by the time we get back from running around it's usually later. I love it, I feel like we'd never have time together if M went to bed before 8. 
Is Rod home earlier than you? Is there any way he can step up and be the cook most nights? Or if that's not practical, maybe do one of those premade Dinner's Ready type things?
My suggestion would be to try and move dinner time to 6. Is there any way that can have a later afternoon snack? It might be difficult at first, but I think they would get the hang of the new routine after awhile. It may not necessarily improve the health factor, but at least you would all be eating together. Can you cut night time routine into a 1/2 hour instead of an hour?
Good luck!
Rod does make dinners nearly every night - but I have to tell him what to make AND buy the food at the store AND make sure meat is defrosted etc.
He's great at making dinners - just not the prep of a week menu (he says I'm picking - but I'm not)
My bigger problem is we've lost a bunch of family time.
(PS plus I WISH to be out of the house - we are in so much it drives me nuts sometimes.)
Easter 2011
Obviously my kids are younger...
I am lucky to have a flexible schedule. I work 7 - 3:30 just for this various reason. My commute home is an hour. I get in at 4:30 and usually have dinner on the table by 5 - sometimes by 5:30. I double up nearly everything I do. Many times I prepare the following night's meal the night before so literally, all I have to do is heat it up.
When they get bigger, I plan on (and this obviously could change) but plan on limiting after school activities. I think we keep our kids too busy as a whole (I don't mean you, MLQ).
I usually get home at 6pm and we eat around 6:45ish. I make dinner usually grilled chicken and veggies, pasta, something very quick (healthy) and easy. I hate meal planning for the week, but I find if I don't do it, we eat crap and the week just feel like chaos. I have a menu on the fridge with exactly what we are eating. Often times DH will ask what he can do to get dinner started and I will finish up when I get home.
I buy a bunch of chicken breasts when they are on sale, bag them up and freeze them, then the night before I take the out of the freezer and marinate them ( I love Italian salad dressing as marinade) and by the time I get home, they are thawed and ready for the grill. Veggies are easy and I throw them on the BBQ as well. I usually make a side dish of some sort, pasta, rice, whatever.
After dinner we usually go play outside, take a walk as a family or head to the park for a bit. LO is usually in bed by 8pm.
DS and I eat without DH most nights because DS is too hungry to wait much longer than 5:30/6 to eat, even with an afternoon snack and DH isn't home until 6:30-7 most nights.
I work early hours (4am-2pm) so DS and I usually eat between 5-6 on the weekdays I work and we eat together as a family on the weekends when DH is home early enough for dinner.
I have found if I have a plan, I can get dinner the table pretty quick. DH does ALOT of the cooking, but lately, having a plan, I do it. I write the menu and have it hanging for the main dishes. Usually easy, fast things, but we always have a veggie too. Stock the freezer with Costco frozen bags of veggies and you can heat up just a bowl full in the microwave in 2 minutes.
we've found the kids eat better/more if we sit down with them, so we all sit together every night except Fridays where we eat pizza in front if the TV for movie night.
as soon as dinner is over, we do bedtime. Ryan is in bed around 8 and Audrey closer to 9. We do baths every other night to save time.
Same there. G gets a late snack at daycare around 5pm so he is good until then. He gets milk to tide him over when we get home (6pm) until I figure out what we're having. I plan "the week" for the most part (Menu Plan Monday) but depending on how we feel those days get moved around somewhat. G goes down around 9pm.