Will you come for dinner?

This question sounds lovely, a friend or family member inviting you and your family to dinner.

But in reality, the stress of this is unreal. 5-8pm with a toddler and a baby is the worst time of the day, In our experience Matthew would be toddler either after creche or at the weekends after all the activity that day.It is the witching hour for babies so Eleanor gets crabby at this time too. I find you are playing with fire trying to deviate from the normal routine here. We used to eat dinner at 6pm, we now eat at 5pm as it makes things easier then for the evening routines. 

So that’s the first hurdle, most people don’t want to eat dinner at 5pm, which is fair enough in their world. But in the context of us coming for dinner with the kids, if we wait until 6pm then we are into pushing the bedtime bottle and bath times out and then ultimately a later bedtime. Not to mention then you have to try and transport the kids home, either by getting them into the pyjamas in the visitors house and into the car, let them fall asleep on the journey home and then pray the transition to their toddler bed  or cot will work, which 9 times out of 10 it wont! Then they are awake and whining and won’t go back asleep until later. Or perhaps you try and keep them awake for the journey home and they nod off for 20 mins, then bing! They are nice and refreshed for staying up late! Either way both of these options eat into your parent downtime from 8pm when the kids go to bed, which is the one or two hours a day you get to cram your whole adult life time.

Not to mention, when the kids are in the visitors house for dinner, they are like the anti-christ. You cant enjoy the visit, you spend the whole time either trying to entertain the kids and prevent them from breaking anything in the house or crashing into a unprotected surface as naturally the house is not child proof.I usually pack up some toys to bring over so they can be spread onto the floor to occupy the kids. By this stage you are exhausted with the multitasking of trying to have a conversation, while minding your child and anticipating any sudden movements where they could break something. Then you have to get them to eat something, I will normally bring some food for the kids as again your host will have gone to special effort to cook a lovely meal but it might not necessarily be child friendly or they wont know what your child will eat, So you dish out the food to the kids, also trying to keep them in their seats and you barely get to touch your food, they usually finish eating by the time you sit down and then start whining that they want to go home.

Then you are into trying to find somewhere to change the baby or toddler and breaking up the dinner as the host will most likely be envisaging a nice relaxed dinner and tea with deserts. Where as you are on a timer now towards bedtime and tired tantrums flaring up!

I did this experience for a time with Matthew as in fairness it is easier to manage it with one child and two parents, but after we had our second child I just said no unless it was a special ocasion, this wont work for us with a baby and a toddler. So now if someone asks us to dinner, I say we can come for lunch or brunch with the kids or else I will come myself for dinner. It is a much better option and it means you can enjoy the outing a lot more as opposed to internally stressing about how to manage the kids and keep them in routine and not have to deal with the fallout of missing bedtime!