What time do you have dinner?

[buzzy bee]

I have pick ups at 5.30 and 6, so I find it quite hard with dinner... sometimes parents arrive when kids are still eating etc.

I'm wondering if I should just say to the 5.30 pick-ups that I can't give them dinner anymore, and then start doing dinner at 5.30 so that they've finished by the time they're picked up at 6.

What do you do?

[LChurch]

Not sure what you should do as I don't provide dinner, my 14mnth old has tea at 5pm. I close at 5.30pm, fortunatley my parents work locally and are vary rarely late. I have always said that I won't provide meals as I like to have family time at the dinner table and always will. I know that it has meant that I might have missed out on business but my children always come first. They don't always like me minding so I do need to have some time when I don't mind before they go to bed!

[sarah707]

We eat from 445 to 515pm and ask in our policies and welcome booklet that parents either do not come within these times or wait until we have finished.

It is my family mealtime as well as the children's tea time and I don't want to miss my tea to be chatting with parents!

Some parents do forget but we gently remind them if necessary

[khlwomitchell]

we eat at 4.30 which is when my mindee leaves, works out perfectly and my 20mth old cannot wait, he practically chews the cupboard doors!

[miffy]

We eat at 4.30pm - it's the only way I can be sure the children will have finished eating before any of the parents arrive.

Miffy xx

[debratina]

we have dinner between 4.00 and 4.15. i am lucky that i have an oven with a timer so tea is cooking while we are walking home. i always do a cooked tea except for fridays when i know the children i have have had a cooked dinner at school. i had one parent who moaned at me for changing to sandwiches in the summer!

[buzzy bee]

That's the other thing - hubby gets home at 5.45 and I'd love to be able to eat with me and my son altogether (and with the other mindees of course!)

But this means that parents might turn up early for their 6pm pickups and interrupt us...

[khlwomitchell]

That's the other thing - hubby gets home at 5.45 and I'd love to be able to eat with me and my son altogether (and with the other mindees of course!)

But this means that parents might turn up early for their 6pm pickups and interrupt us...

i'd be in the hall with kid in coat and shoes on and put them outside on the door step when parent rings doorbell. done and dusted xx

[Playmate]

I'm finding this a problem at the moment. I now cook the childrens main meal in the middle of the day as I have one who is picked up at 5pm and they like her to have had tea before she goes (was in a nursery before starting with us ). So I started serving tea (sandwiches etc) at 4.30. However I have 2 four years old that often complain they are hungry when they get home at 6pm and parents hint they don't eat enough with us I wanted to change back to cooking in the eveing, but no way could I produce a cooked meal at 4.30pm as we have 2 that leave at that time who don't have tea and if they are five minutes late, (which they can be due to traffic etc) then that throws everything out Ideally would like to serve cooked meal between 4.45 and 5 and have 5pm pick up at 5.20, but they are not the easiest parents to communicate with

Sorry OP that doesn't help you at all

[The Juggler]

i agree with Sarah. If you are doing meals for childrne, pick ups (unless pre-arranged) should not happen earlier than arranged contract time.

[marleymoo]

i agree with Sarah. If you are doing meals for childrne, pick ups (unless pre-arranged) should not happen earlier than arranged contract time.

hell no. if there's any chance a kid can go earlier than their contracted time then they're outta here! i'd take the plate from under their noses and shove them out the door haha. dinner...wot dinner????lol
no, i finish at 4.30 so i don't have this problem BUT if i did do dinner then i would prepare it through the day and chill it till it's ready to be re-heated. i'd put it in take-away lidded boxes and send it home with the child if need be. i wouldn't want parents hanging around me either and i'm sure they've got better things to do too. you'd probably get "oh, well i'll just pop to the shops and come back in 5 mins" and then you'd still be sat there, in your pj's, at 8pm, waiting till they'd done their fully weekly shop, housework and ironing.
i am trying to pinpoint when i got so cynical and can't quite put my finger on it.........

[marleymoo]

i've been asking myself this a lot lately

[buzzy bee]

hell no. if there's any chance a kid can go earlier than their contracted time then they're outta here! i'd take the plate from under their noses and shove them out the door haha. dinner...wot dinner????lol
no, i finish at 4.30 so i don't have this problem BUT if i did do dinner then i would prepare it through the day and chill it till it's ready to be re-heated. i'd put it in take-away lidded boxes and send it home with the child if need be. i wouldn't want parents hanging around me either and i'm sure they've got better things to do too. you'd probably get "oh, well i'll just pop to the shops and come back in 5 mins" and then you'd still be sat there, in your pj's, at 8pm, waiting till they'd done their fully weekly shop, housework and ironing.
i am trying to pinpoint when i got so cynical and can't quite put my finger on it.........

Ha ha! Funnily enough this actually happened today... mum turned up when we were eating, and mum said "well I did finish early... maybe if i finish early in future i'll go to the shop on the way to you" - Oh no!! Not what I want at all!!

Think i will give up on the idea of having family mealtime with hubby, and just go back to giving them dinner at 5 and having it all out of the way before any pickups, then eat with hubby later.

Just feel like it's a shame for my little boy not to eat with me and his dad.

[mushpea]

when I used to feed the mindees they would eat between 4.30pm and 5pm and my children would eat with them then we would eat later but parents started turning up early and not caring that I had gone to the trouble of cooking for their children,, one parent turned up half way through me cooking tea and it was the only mindee that day , she just said' o never mind I will cook at home!',, not the point!
anyway this was part of the reason i stoped doing meals and now they all either eat at home or bring somthing they can reheat and parents of school children i suggest they have a hot meal at school then bring a packed lunch for at mine so if they havent finished eating when a parent arrives they can take it home with them.

[marleymoo]

Ha ha! Funnily enough this actually happened today... mum turned up when we were eating, and mum said "well I did finish early... maybe if i finish early in future i'll go to the shop on the way to you" - Oh no!! Not what I want at all!!

Think i will give up on the idea of having family mealtime with hubby, and just go back to giving them dinner at 5 and having it all out of the way before any pickups, then eat with hubby later.

Just feel like it's a shame for my little boy not to eat with me and his dad.

when i did to tea for mindees i only gave my own son a snack and he, hubby and i still had our meal together, in peace, but in the end i got sick to death of kids thinking they were in some a la carte restaurant, ordering whatever the fancied (and all different) and i thought, to hell with this, go home and eat your multi pack of cheesy wotsits and a can of coke in front of spongebob squarepants for all i care.

[BlondeMoment]

I had this problem too. I was doing tea at 5pm and having parents arriving in the middle and all hell breaking loose.

I now have the tea on the table between 4.15 and 4.30. I know it sounds early but the kids can take up to an hour to eat sometimes. One of the kids is picked up at 5, then another at ten past so I sit with them two and make sure they get on with it lol. Then one is picked up at 6. The last two go at 7, so they are given an evening snack once the 6pm one has gone.
Luckily it's only that tight two days a week. The rest of the time no one goes till 6 anyway.

[linda2girls]

I only cook for 1 mindee and she is here until 6pm. The other mindees leave at 5pm. I aim to have a cooked dinner on the table at around 5:15 and we all eat together. Mindee is a slow eater and mum likes her to have a pudding so we can't eat any later than that. If a 5 o'clock parent is late - I make a big thing about getting their child out the door in a hurry because I am late for A's tea!!! If I feed mindee at 4:30, she is hungry when she gets home.

I find it really difficult, I would rather not offer dinner to be honest. I won't for new mindees.

Linda.

[nikki thomson]

Hi, I only have one full timer who at the minute has baby food and mum likes her to have tea at 4.30 before she picks her up at 5, but I have told her once she goes onto proper food I won't provide an evening meal as I don't get back from the school run until 4.15 and there's no way mine would eat at that time my children eat at about 5.30, she's fine with that, I'm not cooking twice, I now have it in my policies that any children picked up before 5.30 won't have a meal. Xx

[Vickster]

We eat at 4.45pm as it generally takes 30 mins

[Bananabrain]

After 4 years of the 'teatime nightmare'
I don't cook for mindees anymore.
It's great!