What Time Does Your Family Eat Dinner?

We're like you & generally eat between 7 & 8. It's just what happens when both parents work & then come home & actually cook something from scratch. Occasionally we'll get everything ready to go & end up eating around 6 or 630, but it always seems so weird to all of us like we have too much time after dinner's finished!

Doesn't it depend on bedtime, which is based on when you have to get up in the morning? On normal weekdays we are all up by 6 am, out by 7, get home at 5, cook and eat at 6, bed for the kids by 8. (Everybody eats the same meal, or doesn't eat.) If I could choose, everything would slide 3 hrs later....

I would realy like to eat later in the day. I've had several jobs in the past where I did not get off until 7 PM so I am definitely used to eating later. Unfortunately, my husband and 2 sons about gnaw their arms off if dinner isn't ready and served by 6. Its awful b/c it stresses me out every night since I don't get off until 5 and then I have to pick up the youngest from his sitter so I am generally not home until 5:40 or so. I've become psychomom a couple of times when they have lit into me right as I walked in the door!!! :)

Ours changes nightly! My hubby works odd hours, so some days he is home by 4:30 and we usually eat by 5:30 or 6. Other days he isn't home until 7:30, so we don't eat until then. On the later days, my son just has a later lunch and a snack around 5ish to hold him over. My thoughts are, and always will be, that I would rather have us eat together as a family then eat at the same time every night just because it's "what we do". So until my hubby has that 9-5 job, we will eat whenever he is home with us!

I depends on who will be eating. Like this week Troy is out of town so the kids and I will eat at four. When he is home whoever gets home from work first makes dinner to be ready when the other gets home. Unless the kids are home then no later than six.

Its complicated, would you like me to explain Calculus, that would be easy. :p

Our habits are the same as yours. 7 or 8 unless we're busy or making something more involved. Plus, If I eat at 5, I'm hungry again at 8! But the kids haven't started school yet. I think once they do it will be a challenge to feed them at 8, get a bath, fix hair, read a story, and all to get them in bed on time. So, even though I dont like to eat that early, we're going to have to find a way. Or maybe just feed them early.

we eat anywhere between 7 and 10 pm, and always have. my husband didn't get home from work till 7pm at the earliest for the first 5 years of our marriage so it became a habit for us.

Plus once kids started really getting involved in sports and activities ... by the time they got home it was 7pm or later. So that's just our habit and it works just fine for us. Even when my kids were really little that was our schedule.

whatever works for you and your family will be fine. there is no "set time" that is right.

Depends what's going on. I work PT and on my "home" days 5-5:30, on my "work" days--more like 6:00.
You'll be OK with the late eating while your baby is young--if you're not too exhausted but once they're eating meals, you'll have to give him/her a "pre-dinner" dinner if you're going to eat at 7-9 pm. That's the witching hour!

EXCEPT in wintertime (when our schedule gets wonky) or when we're traveling:

Tea at 430/5pm
Dinner between 8-10pm

In the winter we're in bed by 7pm and usually eat in the car on the way home from the mountains. Get home, shower, start the laundry, and climb into bed. Wake up, toss the clothes in the dryer, and leave the house about 10 minutes after the clothes dry.

When we're traveling we tend to follow local custom.

I cook after I pick my son up from School at 4 so we do eat pretty early. I stay at home so its easier for me. When I worked, it usually wasnt before 7!

We eat between 5 or 530. My kids are in bed by seven normally. I am finding it very hard to convince my older two that even though it is still bright outside it is still bed time. My husband and I are going to rethink the early bedtime here this summer I think.

5:30 .

My kids go to bed at 7:30 and we don't like to sleep
on a full stomach.

We try and eat at least two hours BEFORE bedtime. I don't like my son to go to bed on a completely full stomach. Therefore, we try and eat BEFORE 7pm as my son hits the sack between 9 and 9:30pm..

A dinner for us is never too fancy but will ALWAYS consist of something raw and fresh. example. tonight we had grilled pork chops, broccoli, orange slices, raw carrots , fresh avocado, pumpkin seeds and roasted potatoes. all and all , the meal was easy but was also nutritional.. some people might think, hey what's up with all the raw fruits and nuts :) but I like my son to get a variety of food..

good luck to you :)

We were late eaters and it worked with baby number one until about 2ish when she really started eating. We had to push dinner earlier because the kids need to go to bed around eight.

The earliest we sit down for dinner is 6:30 and the latest is 8:00pm. It works just fine for us =-)

Just like you everyone I know eats between 5:00-6:00. It's all good!

I am starving when I get off of work, so I usually go home and start dinner right away. So, we usually eat about 6pm at the latest. My husband jokes with me and says I am like an old woman. I like to eat lunch around 11 and would eat dinner at 4pm if I could. I just snack a lot later in the night if I am hungry again.

On the nights my older kids have practice or games, dinner may be around 7pm, but rest assured I have snacked plenty in the interim so I am not resorting to violence due to hunger. =)

Somewhere between 6 and 7. I get home from work around 5/5:30 and I like to spend a few mins unwinding and playing with my son before fixing dinner, doing laundry, etc. There are nights that my hubby and I go to the gym and our son goes to grandma's where he usually eats so much junk food He doesn't want to eat an actual dinner (those nights he usually just eats a yogurt when we eat dinner).

We do exactly what Ashley W. does - and we love it. I know it will change as the kids get older, but right now they are 4 and 2. They are starving between 5-5:30 and my husband doesn't even get home from work until around 6. And we aren't really hungry right at 6 anyway. So I make a good dinner for the kids, then he gets home and whisks them away in the front room to play and have daddy time, while I have some alone time cooking. Then we put the kids to bed together (2 year-old in bed by 7, 4 year-old laying in bed around 7 to read books or play his v-tech for awhile before bed) and that's when my husband and I eat our grown-up dinner together. It's wonderful. Eventually we'll back up dinner time (kids will just have a snack around 4 or 5) and we'll eat together around 6:30 or so. But for now we're just enjoying this! Your dinner schedule won't need to change for quite awhile with a newborn in the house. ;)

We usually eat at 7:00 give or take. I remember though as a kid, everyone else ate early but my dad insisted on eating late and we hated it bc everyone in the neighborhood had to go in and we had no one to play with. Then in the summer when they all came back out, we'd have to go in. So I plan to be flexible. My husband isn't home at 5:00 anyway but as my kids get older, I'll work around their schedules and what their friends are doing if it's no problem for me...

We eat at 7 p.m.
We used to eat at 6 p.m., but then our son got more involved in sports, FFA, and other things at school. Because of practices and meetings he was coming home later. Since I'm the chauffeur it was a pain to schedule cooking supper around what time I had to pick him up. It is just simpler to start cooking after he's home. Also, my husband works odd hours. Most days he doesn't each lunch until 3 or 3:30. If I had supper ready before 7 he wouldn't be hungry.

Not on soccer nights, 4:30-5... then we hit the river.

Soccer nights, 6 :/

We used to be the same way. Now, we have 3 kiddos, a 5 y/o and 3 y/o, both in preschool and a 6 month old. You can still get away with the late dinners with a small baby. With the older two, I find it is best for us to eat no later than 6-6:30 during the week especially. That gives us time to have dinner, get baths and complete a bedtime routine before the wee hours!! On the weekend we are a bit more relaxed, but really the rountine works better if you stick with it everyday. Congrats on baby #1!!!

My husband gets home from work around 5:15. We eat between 5:15 and 5:30. The kids are so hungry and ready to eat... Sometimes, the kids and I are already sitting and beginning to eat.

Weekends maybe 6ish. Weekdays/workdays/school days I pick up our daughter from school at 5 and she's famished so we eat just as soon as I can put it on the table!

When I was a kid we ate promptly at 4:30 because my dad was a college professor and taught night courses. I hated it as a kid (NO ONE ate that early and I always had to leave playdates early) but I've gotta hand it to my parents that they were firm on family dinners and that's exactly what we had. A little rigid, but I understand now.

We have 3 small girls that go to bed around 7pm, so we try to be done dinner by 6pm - especially if it's a bath night. Weekends and summers (because of the extended daylight) are a little later, but not much.

We used to eat dinner as soon as we'd both come home from work, so 4:30-5, but now that we eat a little later I find we 'snack' much less :o)

We eat around 8-8:30 after the kids go to bed. We sit with them while they eat at 6-6:30, but we're not hungry then (plus it's hard to enjoy a meal with a five-year-old complaining about her vegetables and a two-year-old throwing food). Much more enjoyable to wait and have a relaxing meal and conversation after they go to bed. I'm sure we'll move earlier as the kids get older and we can eat as a family.

When it was just the two of us my husband and I would eat around 7-8, but now that we have a little one we eat around 6. for a little while we were eating around 7 because that's when my husband got home from work and I wanted us all to eat dinner at the same time. However, my son is 2 now and when he started daycare a couple days a week, he started asking to be fed at 6 because he was starved from playing all day at daycare. It was difficult in the beginning because he went down for bed about 8, which makes it hard when you're just sitting down to eat. Everybody does things differently, you'll know what works for you because your child will let you know.

We used to eat between 7 & 8 before kids. Since my daughter was born and I became a SAHM we eat between 5 & 6. My daughter starts getting ready for bed at 6:30 so it's necessary. Some nights my husband and I prefer a quiet dinner by ourselves so we feed my daughter and put her to bed and then make dinner for us.

I pick up the kids, go home and have a snack, do homework, the kids play while I make dinner. Ideally, I'd like to eat at 5:30 every night. Generally we do whether hubby is home from work by then or not. Ideally, we like to all have dinner together but since he's in sales, sometimes he has late appointments and sometimes I either wait for him (ideal) or we eat without him. I don't like to end eating much past 6pm because its not good for you and also the kids start to shower at 7pm and are all in their rooms by 8pm. I'm sure when you have kids you will eat earlier. :o)

i'm like you, my natural rhythm is later rather earlier. but with kids it just didn't work. now that the kids are grown, and our old metabolisms wreak havoc on us if we eat late, we still try to keep it between 5 and 7.
khairete
S.

We eat at 6:00. I work from home and my work day ends at 4:00 so I am able to pull it off. It works well for us. We have dinner, then are able to play for a bit - then bath and bed by 8:00.

My son goes to bed at 7:30 and it takes him awhile to unwind. I leave work at 5 and do my best to have dinner on the table by 5:30 when he and my husband get home, but sometimes it's closer to 6. He gets in the bug at 6:30, so if I don't get it done that early he doesn't have much time to play before bedtime.

My son is 2 and pre-baby we ate closer to 7 pm, but your entire schedule will change once you have a baby. I wouldn't stress over it right now.

We normally eat between 6-6.30. Earlier than that I feel like I'm at an "early bird special" and later than that and the children are completely melting down : )

I like to start dinner in the hopes it will be done by 7:00. bathtime right after and then bedtime routine. Everyone in bed by 9

we get home about 5:15 and usually have dinner on the table no later than 6:30. Depends on what we are making and if I start dinner right when I get home. I like to get it out of the way so we can do other things, but some days I like to enjoy the sunshine before getting dinner started.

Crazy... I was getting on Mamapedia this a.m. to ask this same exact question!! Then I saw it on the Home page. Glad you asked it.. now I can just read your responses, hehe.

We eat at 5:30. We have also been known to eat at 4:30 too. Most of the time the kids are starving by then. There are a lot of times as well that my husband is able to come home and he has not had lunch yet. So instead of snacking we just make dinner and be done with it. Rarely do we ever have dinner after 6 pm. We also ALL go to bed really early (all in bed asleep by 9) so I think that is another reason we eat dinner early too. Our neighbors tease us (good tease) that we are the old couple on the block b/c we eat and go to bed so early, hehe.