Family Dinner together EVERY Night? Really?

[Anonymous]

We struggle with this. Our family has 'had it both ways' and so I have a basis for comparison. DH used to have a quicker commute and the type of job several PPs have mentioned (leave at time X and log on later after bedtime). We had dinner together every single night, all eating basically the same food, and the experts are right -- there was much engagement among all parties.

Now DH has a longer commute and a job where there is no chance in hell he can stagger hours or whatever (he's in charge), and now we do that thing where the family eats in shifts and it blows, comparatively speaking.

From my vantage point I'd have to disagree that it's all the same if DW + kids get X amount of quality time in the car, and then DH + kids get Y amount of quality time during bedtime/weekend. It's not -bad- of course and it's better than nothing, but it is in no way the same when the whole family is not physically present and engaging in a 3, 4 or 5-way conversation. It's qualitatively different and, in my personal experience, not as good.

[Anonymous]

My husband and I both work full time and we eat dinner with our 4 year old every night. We get home between 6:30 and 7. The 4 year old generally gets a 5 pm snack. I cook a large meal on Sundays in order to stretch the leftovers for several days during the week, and thus only need to worry about reheating food rather than a whole meal from scratch. We generally have something cooking in the crockpot on Wednesdays or Thursdays so that dinner is ready when we get home. Fridays are a free-for-all: sometimes delivery, sometimes a pantry Maguyver, sometimes dinner out. Family dinner is important to me - it's my favorite part of the day.

[Anonymous]

I don't mean to stress you out, and I think it is wise to first point out that everyone's schedules and family styles are different. What works for me, may not work for everyone else. To answer your question, yes, I think its important to have meals together: even if they are interuppted with crying children or complaints etc. I grew up in Cuban household, and my parents insisted that we have dinner together EVERY night. While I wanted to ditch the dinner to mope in my room, or talk to friends, I did appreciate talking about my day, or being apart of my parent's comversations. My own routine felt disturbed if I didn't have a sit down dinner. My husband and I both work full time, and have 2 kids: 4.5 & 1.5. While my husband gets home at 4pm, I don't get home until 6 somtimes even 6:30pm, and yes I cook every night. But like clockwork, we always have a sit down dinner. The kids usually eat alot faster and can't sit very long, so they get up after about 15-20 minutes, but my husband and I still chilll at the table talking and having seconds.

We've finally found some solutions that helped us keep this routine: On saturday/sunday afternoons (while kids are napping or watching tv) I make a menu for the week and use my favorite cookbook (the 6 o'clock scramble) as a guide and write out all the ingredients I need for the week. That way we don't waste time every night trying to figure out what we will prepare and eat. We write down on a chalkboard our chosen meals to remind us. So when I get home, I already know what to make, and pull all the ingredients out and rock and roll.

Again, eating together as a family allows my children to be apart of our family and teaches them not only table manners, but also how to contribute to our conversations.
If the kids are starving, my husband usually appeases them with crackers or apples until I get home to make our meal. If you want to talk more, I can be reached by email: [e-mail]

[Anonymous]

i am surprised how pro-dinner together this post is. yes it's nice. we try and do it a couple nights during the week but truth is she eats better for the nanny so a better evening for us all if she's fed when we get home at 630. i think the key is family time together - whenever it occurs. Honestly, we have more quality time when we play w our toddler after dinner. - maybe the meal itself will be more quality when she's older, but there are enough pressures on families these days - no need to add guilt where not necessary. if your kids do better eating earlier, i'd go for that. no fun for you or your husband to have hungry whining kids a little bit later. but then again we also keep our toddler up until ten and she sleeps till 8:30am and i am sure the cleavers never did that either but i see her/play with her and occassionally even eat with her for a quality 3.5 hours every night - not bad for a full time working mom and i don't see her when rushing around in the am for work. so my view is set this all up what works best for your family and allows you most quality time with kids.

[Anonymous]

i am surprised how pro-dinner together this post is. yes it's nice. we try and do it a couple nights during the week but truth is she eats better for the nanny so a better evening for us all if she's fed when we get home at 630.

That is because you have one baby. When your kids are (9), 7 and 5, it will be less surprising because there is no element of 'eating better' for a nanny, or squirminess. They will be able to meaningfully converse in a way that a 14 mo old cannot, and so having family meet-ups every day with all in attendance takes on a more important role.

[Anonymous]

We ate dinner as a family most nights when I was growing up (of course my mother had a housekeeper/cook, so it was easier for her). Our own family eats dinner together 5-6 nights per week. We live and work in DC; I get home before my husband and the kids do their homework or play while I make dinner (or they help). Both my husband and I love to cook, and we really enjoy sitting down to a meal together. My kids are older now (13 and 11), but we've been doing this since they were toddlers. It was difficult at first, but now we all look forward to dinner, and my kids eat a pretty wide variety of foods, since I don't make separate meals for them. OP, if you can't swing it, don't beat yourself up. But maybe try to do it on the weekends?

[Anonymous]

We live in Takoma Park, MD and both my husband and I work near metro center. We always ride metro which is a decent commute time.

[Anonymous]

We don't do family dinners together on weeknights. Kids are 3.5 and 1.5, and even with an afternoon snack, they are hungry by 5:30 and weeping beasties by 6:00. Our nanny gets dinner ready for them and they are usually finishing up dinner when we get home. One of us gets home by 5:45 most nights but at that point it's talk to the kids while they finish dinner, play for ten minutes, then upstairs for bath time, books, and bed. My 1.5 year old goes to sleep at 7, the 3.5 year old is in bed at 7:30 and takes about a half hour to settle down and sleep (and keeping him up later has no effect - he needs about a half hour of lying in bed time to settle regardless of bed time). So to come home at 5:45, make dinner for 20-30 minutes while kids are starving and weepy, meaning dinner gets on the table around 6:15, they take about a half hour to eat (so done at 6:45ish), ten minutes of play means it's 6:55, then we're left with what...five minutes to get bath, books, pajamas, brushing teeth and calming down for bedtime accomplished? That's just not going to work for us.

[Anonymous]

We ate dinner together every night when I was growing up as a child. My father traveled for business and he was absent many nights, but when everyone was in town, it was expected we would eat dinner together. In HS I was expected to be home either Friday or Saturday night. Could not go out both nights. However, I could have friends over on the night I stayed home.

My point: We eat dinner together every night as a family. We (me and my husband) think it is important.

[Anonymous]

I have an infant that has just started on solids and we have the nanny feed her and when we come home (6:30 or so) we barely have time to bathe her, read her some books, and then nurse her to sleep so that she asleep by 8:00. And that is when my husband and I eat together. We would very much like to be a family that eats dinner together.

So my question for those working families is this: at what age did you start having family meals? I assume this doesn't mean you eat dinner together with your puree eating infant or toddler?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So my question for those working families is this: at what age did you start having family meals? I assume this doesn't mean you eat dinner together with your puree eating infant or toddler?

It's not every night, but whenever we can we try to eat dinner together with our 2 year old, sometime in the 6:30-7 range. Of, and post dinner it's immediately upstairs for bath / pjs / stories / bed - playtime happens before dinner - and our child can handle this schedule. She does get a snack on the way home around 5ish, I'll often put out healthy parts of the dinner early for snacking (like the veggies), and dinner isn't her big meal of the day (she's more into breakfast and dinner), so this works for us. On nights where she's extra fussy I'll of course feed her earlier, and who knows what will happen when #2 shows up later this spring. But for now, we're just doing our best to get into the routine of family dinners so that it is what she expects. I figure this will actually become more important in a few years when she's older, but if we're already doing it we won't have to work then to get it into our routine.

[Anonymous]

If you want to be able to eat together, it is much easier (and less clean up) if you prepare something on Sunday that can be reheated when you get home. I think there is a book or a website called "once a week cooking." In a pinch, I'll pick up a rotisserie chicken at Teeter or Whole Foods.

[Anonymous]

This is our alternative: growing up, we all had various activities and rarely were able to sit down to eat together. However our kitchen (which was admittedly large) also served as our family room (TV and all), so that is where everybody converged. My mom seemed to always be cooking, my father seemed to always be watching or reading the news, and we played in/around there, so we were always together in a weird way.

[Anonymous]

so at what age ofyour kids did you start eating together?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have an infant that has just started on solids and we have the nanny feed her and when we come home (6:30 or so) we barely have time to bathe her, read her some books, and then nurse her to sleep so that she asleep by 8:00. And that is when my husband and I eat together. We would very much like to be a family that eats dinner together.

So my question for those working families is this: at what age did you start having family meals? I assume this doesn't mean you eat dinner together with your puree eating infant or toddler?

We did. They were always at the table with us.