Franglaise Mummy

Posts Tagged ‘dinner’

We’ve always raised L in the way that suits us best, sometimes this is “the English way”, sometimes “the French way” but most of the time it’s simply our “Franglais way”. Now we are living in the UK what stands out the most, naturally, is the ways in which we raise L in a French way. One thing in particular is her daily routine.

I never really read any books on routines, English or French, and L set her own routine/rhythm when she was first born, so it wasn’t really until we weaned her that we started to establish any real kind of routine. The one that we ended up with just so happened to be the one that worked for us, not anything that either B or I researched.

So when L was 6 months old and we first weaned her, we took something very un-French – Baby Led Weaning (BLW), meaning we ate our meals with her – and mixed it with French timings. At around 6 months old L was waking up around 8am, having a milk feed and breakfast, then in the evening she would eat dinner with B and I at around 7pm before having a milk feed just before bed at 8pm.

Eating at 7pm was a big shock to our system as we were used to eating at 8pm which is fairly typical for the French, but we decided we wanted to have our evening meal all together as a family. We got laughed at by a fair amount of French friends who teased us about eating “comme des poules” which means eating early like hens which is a typical French expression.

Now we are living in the UK and L is older (she’s 5), her/our routine has changed slightly but not much. It goes something like this during the week:

7.30am: Wake L up and have breakfast all together before B and I go to work at 8am.
8-9am: L is got ready for school by our au pair.
9am-3.30pm: L is at school and has lunch at around 11.30am-12pm.
3.30pm: L has a snack after school, something like crackers, rice cakes, fruit, yogurt, seeds, cereal bars etc.
6-7pm: L is bathed by the au pair.
7pm: B and I are usually home from work by now, so we usually have leftovers of whatever we prepared at the weekend, reheated, so we can eat as soon as we get home. This means we all get to eat together as a family.
8-8.30pm: Bedtime for L.

Naturally the weekend is more relaxed with wake-up times, breakfast, lunch, dinner and bedtimes varying depending on where we are and what else is going on.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say that this routine shocks our English friends but it’s certainly very different to their children’s routines. L’s 5 year old friends are given “tea” (dinner) by their mums/dads/nannies/au pairs at around 5.30-6pm before going to bed around 7-7.30pm. When I recently questioned various English and French friends about this, the outstanding reply was dinner around 6pm for the English children with the parents eating separately later, and around 7-8pm for the French children with the parents and children all eating the same meal together at the same time.

Whilst I don’t want to preach about how children should be raised and I certainly wouldn’t say that one way is better than the other, what I would say is don’t expect your child to be fed at ours if they’re over for a playdate at “tea time”! I just don’t ever think to feed children at that time!

What do you think? What time do your children eat? Would you prefer that they ate at a different time?

Well she certainly seems to sleep well with this routine!