Dinner @ lunchtime?

[headoverfeet]

Does anyone give their children dinner at lunchtime?

I'm considering doing this after we move as DF will not be home some nights until 6:30pm and the kids eat dinner at 5pm, would probably not be an everyday thing. I imagine cooking at lunchtime makes the evening go smoother?

How does it work in your house?

Do you give the children saved food at lunchtime or do you cook them a fresh meal?

Do you cook 2 meals?

Or do you cook them a fresh meal and have saved food for dinner yourself?

Anything else?

[Entropy]

Not quite the same, but I used to do this when DD was little and in day care while I worked full time.

I would send a hot meal to day care for her to eat and then at night she could have a sandwich or vege sticks or something quick and easy. That way could spend some time with her and then get her to bed about 6.30pm. THEN would do dinner for DH and I.

Not sure it was LESS work for me, but it did make night time go a little smoother. I wasn't trying to do dinner and deal with cranky toddler, baths, pjs, stories etc etc at the same time.

Sometimes I would send left overs from our dinner for her lunch the next day, or otherwise I had a stock of pasta/mince or other freezable things I had pre-made for her to take to daycare.

[flicker]

hey babymaker,

when ds was just 2 we had a big struggle with food and he was not putting on enough weight. I was told to try lunch time meals. and it WORKED! he went from being the fussiest eater and dinner being a nightmare, to him trying everything at lunch times. sooo good. he put on over 1kg in a month which is more than he had in 10 months! He was less tired and it was much more pleasent. at night i could just give him a sandwich or some fruit yoghurt or a cruskit without feeling the worst mother in the world!

when i was doing this i would make extra at night for our dinner after he had gone to bed. Then i would feed him the leftovers for lunch the next day. He has since moved to a big meal at night but it is still too early for dh and i. so i still do the left over thing. it has saved my sanity and worked for us.

[Pregalicious]

When we are washing up at night i take out meat for tomorrows dinner. then in the morning it defrosted and i cook in the morning - i find that DS is most active in the morning and gets lost in the backyard and its a good chance to at least start dinner. So usually by lunch time dinner is ready anyway. If i think DS will have an early night i will give him an early dinner, and then when DH gets home the 2 of us have dinner together. This works best at our place on the days where we cant all sit down for a family dinner.

[LibranTwin]

I see no problem with it! It is actually much healthier to have your main meal at lunchtime and wear it off during the day, rather than fill your tummy up just before bed

[flicker]

I see no problem with it! It is actually much healthier to have your main meal at lunchtime and wear it off during the day, rather than fill your tummy up just before bed

it is actually what our bodies are designed to do

[mumof1andanother]

I did this when my now 8 year old was younger he was always to tired to eat at dinner time so i started giving him his dinner as his lunch and then dinner time he would have something light depending on what he felt like on the day but it meant i no longer had to stress about him not eating enough or eating his vegies.
I wouldnt cook a fresh dinner for him on the day i would make up a disk for him out of our dinner and keep it in the fridge till the next days lunch time.
It was something my mum suggested to me as i was so frustrated and she could see that i would have constant battles at dinner time with my son.

[Amara]

On my days off I often do the main meal at lunch time. It's just the two of us. He also gets a main meal at day care and I find he eats better at lunch time. The dishes get done while he naps and then we can have left overs or sangas or soup for dinner.

[gizmoduckus]

We don't do this but it is actually quite common in Europe. They all go home from work at lunch time and have large cooked meals and then they have something light, like rolls, at night time.

[peanutbutter&jelly]

We don't do dinner at lunch time, but we do have 2 very different dinner times.
DS, DD and I eat at 5 (normally, today we're running late , but at this time, DF is at work (afternoon/night shift, could be gone till 2.30 - 3am). So I normally make dinner something that doesn't reheat too badly and pop it in a tupperware container I bought specifically - one of the microwave ones, with 2 sections, designed for one persons meal - and leave it in the fridge. Otherwise, he has toast or something pre-frozen