How do people get dinner on the table by 6:00?
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Anonymous
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At the current stage in my life (two ES kids), 6:30 is the sweet spot for dinner in our house. They have some after school activities, so earlier wouldn't work, but much later and everyone would be ravenous ha! I cook M-Th, and we go out for pizza on Fridays.
I've tinkered with meal prepping on the weekend and later at night, and, honestly, I hated both. I wanted that time for spending with family, exercising, relaxing... But wonderful if it works for others! What works for me is having an arsenal -- I've built it up over the years -- of 30-minute weeknight meals that truly don't take me longer than that from start to finish. I don't start cooking them the moment I stop working, but rather I make them the half hour before we eat (for us, 6:00 to 6:30). They are not the most exciting and adventurous (we save that for weekend dinners) but they are reasonably healthy and actually pretty tasty. The internet is your friend here -- there are so many instagram accounts, for example, devoted to basically just this topic. And there are good convenience items in the grocery store, e.g., pre-washed salad greens, some pre-cut veggies, some steam in bag veggies, certain simmer sauces and marinades, certain TJ's frozen items and their pre-marinated meats... I also have a wonderful veggie chopper, air fryer, and some others that help save time too. Like I said, you try different stuff and tinker and you know what products are good, lower in sodium, etc., and what recipes are hits... WFH is very helpful in this regard (not because I cook during the workday, but because I gain back the commute time). |
Anonymous
| We eat dinner at 6/6:15 every night. I work from home and stop working at 5/5:15. Nothing takes more than 45 to prep and cook. Anything with more prep than that happens on the weekends. Kids upstairs by 7:15 every night. |
Anonymous
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Start with chicken breast and a trader joe's indian sauce = 15 min
Add a veggie, - costco salad, oven veggie, micro peas, etc = 1-5 minutes hands on work Add a starchy - rice, potato, etc - 1-5 min hands on work use this as your base - meals under 20-30 min. |
Anonymous
+1 You'll find as the kids get older, you end up getting home at random hours because you're picking DC up from after school activities at 4:30 or trying to time dinner before a 7:30 practice. I worked a very typical 8:30 - 5:00 schedule when my kids were younger, which was totally doable and no issue at all. By the time my oldest was in late MS I was in a more flexible job to accommodate all the random things that came up, which only increased as DCs got older. For example, if your DC plays HS fall sports, you're going to need to drop off and pick up each day for a few weeks before school starts. So while I support PP's thought not to worry because the changes happen gradually and you just adjust, my unsolicited advice is to work towards a flexible job schedule by late ES so you're available for all the driving in MS and HS (and all the conversations that happen in the car). Having said that, I have always come home and immediately started to cook, even before I had kids. I like eating on the earlier side. I usually have an idea of what we're going to eat and sometimes do prep in the morning before leaving for the office. I'm better at that then doing it the night before. The days I WFH are the easiest, because I can do prep throughout the day as I have breaks. |
Anonymous
| Feed your kids leftovers from the night before at 4pm right after school. Schoolkids are cranky after school but don’t eat a large amount. Then a banana or yogurt right before bed. Bath is 6:30 here bedtime is 7:30. |
Anonymous
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I have an 8yo and I don't think we've ever managed a weeknight family dinner together at any time. One of us hangs with her while she eats, and I cook after bedtime for an adult dinner.
I'm very impressed by the commitment and schedules in these replies, but it would never happen in our household. DH isn't home from work until at least 7 and we prioritize time with our daughter until she has to go to bed. |
Anonymous
Have you heard of marinating? |
Anonymous
Lol. I don’t think she has. |
Anonymous
I always found the idea of an “adult dinner” weird. We always try to eat together. But if someone is home late, they just heat up their meal. |
Anonymous
So you skip dinner with your kids? To me that is a non-negotiable, an integral part of parenting. Totally unnecessary sacrifice. |
Anonymous
I made “adult dinners” from the time my DD was born until she was about 4 and stayed up later than 7 pm. I found her to be pretty cranky in the late afternoon and preferred to focus on her bedtime routine from 6:30-7 and enjoy dinner with my husband after she was asleep. I didn’t think my husband should have to heat up his meal at 6:30 each night when he came home from work because I was tending to our daughter. |
Anonymous
| I grew up eating dinner around 5. My dad was a carpenter who used his body all day long. We ate as soon as he got home because he was hungry. In my house dinner is around 6 or 6:30 if I've made a complete dinner and we sit at the dining table. Kids are 9, 14. If we have a clean up leftovers dinner it's earlier and at the kitchen counter. The only way real dinners are on the table by 630 is because I SAH and am able to work on it. |
Anonymous
| When my teen has no evening practices, we eat between 6:30 and 7. I don’t make complicated things but it’s usually healthy so i just need 30 -45 minutes. When my kids were younger we ate around 6 because the kids weren’t up late. I think this is pretty common in the US because in our circle, kids would have bedtimes of 7:30-8:30. However, every family needs to do what works for them. |
Anonymous
DP, and for us, sleep was the nonnegotiable. We had family dinner because it was a nice way for us to catch up with each other, but there are other ways to catch up with each other -- family breakfast, family walk, family game night -- and families need to find the ones that work best for them and let go of the notion that there's One Best Way for every family to connect. Giving up the things that don't work isn't a sacrifice. |
Anonymous
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Grill
Slow Cooker Prepare over the weekend One pot or sheet pan meals Double as many recipes as possible so they just have to be reheated Prep throughout the day if you are teleworking |