Getting my two to eat - my options!!

[Ca Plane Pour Moi]

Supper. Porridge just before bedtime works wonders, especially if dinner was untouched! But we do dinner with enough time for porridge before bathtime if that is needed. Porridge isn't a replacement dinner, so I'm not doing two meals.

[Just Me]

My kids eat well all through the day that by dinner time I think they just aren't that hungry so I don't worry about it too much. I give them a small selection of the food we are eating and they pick at it. I figure that our bodies probably weren't designed to eat a lot of food before bed. We also don't do dessert (DH and I never have it unless we are eating out or at a party). I do let them have a milk before they go to sleep though. I wouldn't stress too much about it - if they were hungry, they would eat.

I like Nelle and LZ's ideas as well. I think either of those things would work really well. I like having a sit down hot meal together at night time though. I am big on table manners so even if my kids refuse to eat, I ask them to wait at the table until everybody has eaten which they do (most of the time). I leave their food in front of them until we clear the table together afterwards. If they are hungry, they tend to eat eventually. I do it that way because sometimes I am a bit worried that they don't eat because they have other things they want to go and do and if they have to sit there anyway, they sometimes eat.

I don't generally make all my kids eat everything off their plate because I read somewhere that it isn't good for them to get the idea that eating everything put in front of them because they don't listen to their own bodies about when they are full, they judge it by what is left on the plate. I don't know if you do that anyway but thought I would throw it in there just in case it was of interest

Good luck with your dinner times - I'm sure it's one of those things that gets better as they get older.

[Liviam]

We have tossed around the idea of having dinner at lunch but since being back at work I can't do it three days a week but it might be worth a revisit. We sit down to dinner at 5.30 - 5.45 at the latest. Thanks so much for your suggestions. It's just so difficult because dinner time (on the days I don't work) are the only times we can all sit down together which DH & I love. I'll definitely try to work in some of these suggestions.