How much time for family dinner?

[Anonymous]

We have family dinners in our house, and I'm wondering from others who do how much time "dinner" takes for you. (I don't care if you don't do family dinner or don't think I need to, I'm not looking for that kind of response.) Our house rule for the kids is that once they are done eating they can get down, but have to pick something quiet to do and can't bother the people still eating. The 4 yo can mostly do this; the 20 month old not so much. The problem that arises is that my husband is an incredibly slow and heavy eater. I'll usually sit with him even after I'm done eating, but I'll have one serving of food and be done in 15-20 minutes and he'll have 3 helpings and it will take him 45 minutes to eat. Meanwhile the kids were done shortly before me (10-15 minutes) and are understandably having trouble leaving the adults alone (especially once I'm clearly done with my food). Husband's idea is that this is a great time for him and me to talk; I disagree. I mostly rush through my food and end up refereeing the kids, telling them to leave us alone while he leisurely eats thirds. I've tried getting up before Husband is done eating, but it just feels so rude. This is all made worse because our house is very open-concept, so it is impossible to not bother the person still eating; there is no "other room" people can go into.

Something's gotta change here, so my question for others are - How long do you expect "dinner" to take? Do you make the kids stay with you until everyone is done (I don't think this is possible for us at this age)? If one adult takes a long time to eat, does the other adult stay? If your dinners are less stressful/time consuming than mine, what does that look like?

[Anonymous]

We also eat dinner together every night and it looks a lot like what you describe! I try not to worry about it too much. If toddler finishes earlier than us, we tell him to get his favorite toy (trucks) and play. My husband also takes longer to eat than I do, so I tell kid that we are talking (as opposed to eating). Sometimes kid gets it and plays a bit, sometimes he sits in my lap, sometimes he asks me to play with him. I think it’s great that we are setting the table, eating the same food, and eating together. Those are my goals so that’s all I really enforce.

[Anonymous]

At 20 months a toddler should be able to sit in their high chair for close to an hour.

[Anonymous]

We have an 18 month old and family dinner takes about 30 minutes. He's fine in his high chair that long.

In your situation I would do a few things:

1) Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. What you're doing right now is great. 4 and 1.5 and you've set up regular family dinners? You're doing awesome.

2) I might try to stretch out the time the kids are at the table a bit, while making it fun. 10-15 minutes is awfully fast. Maybe after 10 minutes try playing some little games or otherwise engaging the kids? We've had a lot of luck with singing some songs, practicing deep breathing (my toddler loves this! Don't know why!), reviewing body parts ("where's your nose?") and just little silly things like tilting our head from side to side and he copies us. I don't know what would engage a four year old, but there's gotta be some stuff. It seems much easier to me to deal with the kids at the table then to wrangle them once they're no longer sitting down (or at least that's absolutely true for our toddler, a four year old who knows?)

3) Talk to your husband! "We've gotten in this groove where I'm rushing to finish my dinner and refereeing the kids, while you get to leisurely eat your dinner, and it doesn't strike me as fair." See what he says - maybe there's a way you can find a compromise - like he does some of the refereeing too, and agrees to finish eating in 30 minutes.

[Anonymous]

I have a 2.5 year old who doesn’t use a high chair anymore so she’ll sit for maybe 5 minutes at a time to gobble down food, run around and play, gobbled down more food, rinse and repeat.

When she sat in a high chair she would stay for a solid 30-45 minutes, if she was hungry and occupied.

I will say that while I should probably be instilling sitting at the table to eat for longer than five minutes, I really like the idea of encouraging her to eat only when she feels hungry. I guess that is more important to me personally.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a 2.5 year old who doesn’t use a high chair anymore so she’ll sit for maybe 5 minutes at a time to gobble down food, run around and play, gobbled down more food, rinse and repeat.

When she sat in a high chair she would stay for a solid 30-45 minutes, if she was hungry and occupied.

I will say that while I should probably be instilling sitting at the table to eat for longer than five minutes, I really like the idea of encouraging her to eat only when she feels hungry. I guess that is more important to me personally.

This is the OP - we don't let them run around and come back to eat, that is a hard and fast rule for us. They'll eat at the table until they're done with their dinner, and once they get down they can't come back for more food. They do come back to us for when they leave for things like "Please open this marker for me" or "Brother took my toy!" The reason we let them get down is because we don't enforce plate-cleaning. When they're no longer hungry, they can leave/stop eating. They just have to sit at the table until that point comes, and if they want to take a break and eat more later, they'll take that break at the table with us. I think the leaving when they're done part will likely change as they get older and we will eventually force them to stay and engage in more conversation. We find it pretty tough to force them to sit with us now when they're done eating - their behavior deteriorates because they are understandably bored, especially the littler guy who can't really have much of a conversation with us even in the best of circumstances (sometimes I'll make the 4 year old stay and tell me about his day if he eats too fast). The little one will start throwing food at the cat or hitting the table with his fork, etc, if we keep him at the table too long, so he is "done" even if he's still putting food in his mouth if that behavior starts.

[Anonymous]

OP what time in the evening is your family dinner?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:OP what time in the evening is your family dinner?

6pm! The little guy starts getting ready for bed at 7, the older one around 7:30.

[Anonymous]

My kids take 30-45 min to eat, so we are often waiting on them! It eats into their play time, but it’s their stubborn choice. After 20-25 min, my husband and I stay at the table but use that time to synch our calendars or look over bills.

When they were preschoolers, we used a timer to make them stay at the table for 15 min. They need to go potty and get water before they sit down- those are the biggest excuses for wandering around.

If they leave the table without being excused, I take their plate and they are done. We don’t do snacks between dinner and bedtime.

[Anonymous]

I have a tween and an older elementary child. They can leave the table as they are done eating and we’re done doing our nightly three questions game. Sometimes this is ten minutes, but most is the time the conversation lasts a lot longer. The kids are luckily at an age where they won’t disturb those who aren’t done, but I just wanted to mention this because for us having a certain time for dinner isn’t the priority.

[Anonymous]

I would make the kids sit for 20 minutes while I myself got to eat like a human then if I felt bad about interrupting DH (not likely, to be frank, lol) I'd take them to a bedroom to read books or something.

[Anonymous]

OP, what you do now will change as your children age. Having a family dinner with a 20 month old is way more than most are doing, so bravo!

And having children eat while seated, not grazing back and forth, is a great habit to get into (and safer for eating and not choking). Also, it teaches a child to "listen to your body, are you still hungry or are you full?"

What about..... when they are done with dinner you and the 4 year old cleared away their plates and silverware (dumped in sink for later!) and then they got to use playdough at the table for another 20 minutes? a mound of playdough for each, along with a basket of playdough tools that are kept in the kitchen for this reason, would be so much fun!

They'd be sitting there where you can watch them so they wouldn't be interrupting, soyou and DH could chat about whatever, which means your 2 children are learning about conversation and how to have one around the table. Your 4 year old might join in that conversation while squeezing playdough, while the toddler will be listening and learning.

In another year with a 2 and 5 year old you may have 2 year old use playdough while 5 year old keeps chatting, or whatever. But it helps them learn to stretch their time out without being bored and throwing food, etc. You are right, you don't want their behavior to deteriorate because they are bored and then get disciplined for that.

Then after those 20 minutes of playdough, your husband will be mostly done and you can get up and clear away the table and start putting things in dishwasher, and the kids can go play with trucks, etc and you will still be close to husband so he isn't left alone at a table while you are in other rooms.

[Anonymous]

We have a 2 year old (just turned) and 5.5 year old. They sit and eat for about 20 min. Then they can get up. Dh and i still finish eating and talk. We have fruit/dessert after. They usually end up running around and playing and only bothering us occasionally. But I'm not getting up.

[Anonymous]

I love the playdough idea! I could see that working for the little guy. He is really the biggest problem in our situation - the older one can amuse himself quietly with crafts but the little guy will go up and grab his scissors, etc, and starts most of things that need intervention.

I also need to get more comfortable myself with leaving the table before my husband is done. Mostly I just want to start cleaning up and putting the leftovers away, but it takes him so long to eat I can't do it. I think maybe after he finishes his seconds/gets up for thirds I just need to call it and clean up what I can, and get comfortable leaving him to read the newspaper or something while I'm in the kitchen.

[Anonymous]

We eat for 15-20 min max. The developmentally appropriate time to be able to sit at a table for a toddler is 2-5 minutes per year of life. So when a 4 year old wants to get up after 8-20 minutes, you should not be surprised (but it seems you're within that range).

My husband eats really fast and I just don't get to start my food until everyone is half way through because 1 year old needs a diaper change, or older one accidentally knocked down the water glass or whatever reason... but everyone is free to go when they're done, and I sit and finish my food alone and it is NOT peaceful for the same reasons as you mention.

The difference though is that we do not see family dinner as a time to talk to eachother in peace when our kids are this young. After kids have gone to bed we talk to eachother over a glass of wine and desert.