would this irritate you?

[taramoon13]

ds (almost 3) goes to my dad & his gf's one day a week for about 5 hrs. normally he stays at home with me. he is always done with breakfast before 9, has snacks and we usually eat lunch around 12, sometimes as early as 11:30 and he then takes a nap.
my dad lives about 30 min. away and sometimes i go to their town and do a couple errands before i pick up ds. last week i pulled into town around 2:30 and passed my dad in his car with ds, obviously driving around to try & get him to sleep (which he didn't). i got to their house a little before 3 and they were just making ds mac & cheese. i asked if he had eaten lunch and my dad goes "well, he ate all the snacks you sent with him earlier and we were out doing errands at the time, he also said he wasn't hungry"(i always believe everything a 3 yr. old says). i said "wow, we usually eat at such & such time, this is really late for him to be eating lunch" and left it at that thinking, well no wonder he ate all of his snacks, it was lunchtime and he was probably starving, and no wonder he didn't nap just now, he was probably starving.
of course, because he ate such a late lunch he hardly ate any dinner and was also miserable by 7 from not napping. i don't want to sound like i'm trying to dictate how they do things with ds, but i think this is a wee bit ridiculous. if he would've eaten at a normal time, he probably would've napped and been a lot happier.
my dad is very touchy and tends to take things personally, so i'm trying to figure out a nice way to say " hey feed ds at a normal time even if YOU aren't hungry, if you are out doing stuff stop at a freakin' restaurant.
if you made it this far, thanx for reading and thanx for your advice!!!!

[meemee]

i am a single mom. my ex has a completely different schedule with dd. and she has adjusted well to both.

so i would say if this is the first time, then let your dad learn from his mistake. give him a chance to figure it out.

he does not remember what it was like having a 3 year old. this time he learnt. and will keep on learning.

so i would let it go.

i dont know about you. but i have made similar mistakes with my dd running errands that i HAD to and messed up dd's day.

[mtiger]

Once a week? I wouldn't sweat it.

[choli]

How about instead of telling your dad to feed DS at "a normal time", tell him what time YOU usually feed him, and suggest that it would be good to feed him around then?

I mean, really, what does a normal time mean? Do you think that it means the same thing to everyone?

[grumpybear]

first i'd be thankful for them watching over my child.
second, maybe i'd start packing a lunch for my child so that it's easily accessible for them if they are busy or out and about.

[taramoon13]

Originally Posted by choli

How about instead of telling your dad to feed DS at "a normal time", tell him what time YOU usually feed him, and suggest that it would be good to feed him around then?

I mean, really, what does a normal time mean? Do you think that it means the same thing to everyone?

i guess i should've noted that i've told them a million times before what time he's used to eating and when i said "normal" time in my OP meant "normal" time for ds.
besides the fact that i think the standard excepted time for lunch is 12, of course not everyone eats then, but usually when you talk about lunchtime you aren't talking about 3 pm unless you are on an out of the ordinary schedule.

[taramoon13]

Originally Posted by grumpybear

first i'd be thankful for them watching over my child.
second, maybe i'd start packing a lunch for my child so that it's easily accessible for them if they are busy or out and about.

first,i don't remember ever mentioning that i wasn't thankful for them watching over my child, so i find this a weird comment to make and not really helpful to my question.
secondly, they usually all eat lunch together so i never needed to pack a lunch , this was a one time incident

[taramoon13]

wow, for a forum that's supposed to be supportive & positive i sure to seem to be getting a lot of weird vibe/attitude over a pretty simple incident i was asking for advice on, not to be lectured
if you disagree with me, that's fine, but i don't need lectures on things that aren't part of the picture

[mtiger]

Not judging or lecturing - it's just something I wouldn't sweat. I figure that grandparents get to spoil the kiddos some, and I'd just roll with it.

This is one of those things that isn't really going to affect how he turns out. Maybe mention to Grandpa that kiddo gets a bit cranky when he doesn't eat a meal at X time, and then leave it alone. That's what I'd do.

[mamazee]

When my inlaws are with my littler one, they sometimes forget that you have to move your schedule around a small child's. When they're running errands on their own, they plow through till they're done, and then eat, whenever that turns out to be. It's an adjustment to stop what you're doing for the sake of a child's routine, and they do forget. This kind of thing has happened, and they have learned from it, though they still slip occasionally. I wouldn't sweat it if it's only happened once, and if it becomes a pattern I'd gently give them specific times to feed him and put him down for his nap.

[poppan]

It would irritate me, sure, but I would let it go.

My mom is watching my kids (both 3 y.o.) once a week just for the summer. When I get them back, they have been off schedule (late nap, late lunch, late everything), watching TV, eating sugar the whole day. They are horrible cranks and it makes our Friday/start to the weekend uh, bad.

My mom knows what the schedule is. She knows I don't give them candy and crap food to eat. She knows I don't let them watch too much TV. But it's her time, she's doing me a favor, and it's her way of spoiling her grandkids, so I don't say anything. I mostly subscribe to "what happens at Grandma's house stays at Grandma's house", and I deal with the aftermath.

I think it bugs DH more than it bugs me. But I grew up with sugar and TV and he didn't.

[limabean]

I can understand the irritation, OP. I hate imagining my kids being uncomfortable when there's such an easy remedy (feed regularly, give opportunities for rest).

My MIL sometimes gets so into shopping that she'll forget to allow breaks for rest or eating -- she's done that to ME before and I'm a grown woman! We were out shopping for a rocking chair when I was 8 months pregnant with DS, and she's a serious shopper -- she'll go to a dozen stores and compare prices, ask a million questions of the salespeople, put tons of stuff on hold, then loop back through the first several stores to make sure she didn't miss anything, etc. -- I'm not that way at all and it's exhausting for me. Anyway, she apparently had no plans to stop for lunch, and we were out from 10am to 3pm with no breaks and I only had the granola bar I had packed in my purse. I finally burst into tears and told her that I was hungry and tired and we had to stop.

Anyway, because of experiencing stuff like that I used to sometimes worry that my kids weren't getting adequate rest when they were with her, and I hated that feeling of wondering if my baby was miserable and needing something and his caretaker wasn't seeing the signs. But actually, as she's spent more time with them over the years and seen the fall-out with her own eyes, I've noticed that she's become much better about just spending time at her house playing with them (instead of being out-and-about all the time) and giving opportunities to nap. She still forgets about snacks, and will expect them to go from noon to 6:30 with no food (I can't even do that!), so I pack an afternoon snack and point it out to her when she picks them up, and then she remembers.

Good luck to you.

[CarrieMF]

this was a one time incident

then let it go. If your Dad asked your son if he was hungry & he said no then I'd believe him. An almost 3yo is more than capable of of knowing whether he's hungry or not.

[just_lily]

Would it irritate me? No.

But there is no way anyone would be able to get away with not feeding my child for an extended period. She is 24 months and will announce "I hungy!" or "C'Ive lunch?" or "I want snackies!". And then she will get into specifics. So I am really surprised that a nearly 3yo could be hungry without vocalizing his displeasure.

[poppan]

Originally Posted by just_lily

Would it irritate me? No.

But there is no way anyone would be able to get away with not feeding my child for an extended period. She is 24 months and will announce "I hungy!" or "C'Ive lunch?" or "I want snackies!". And then she will get into specifics. So I am really surprised that a nearly 3yo could be hungry without vocalizing his displeasure.

Kids are different. My 3 y.o.'s never think about being hungry. They just get cranky as heck and start fighting and biting.

[CarrieMF]

Kids are different. My 3 y.o.'s never think about being hungry. They just get cranky as heck and start fighting and biting.

but if you asked them if they were hungry would they say they were? The op's dad asked him if he was hungry & he said he wasn't.

[VisionaryMom]

Originally Posted by taramoon13

no wonder he ate all of his snacks, it was lunchtime and he was probably starving, and no wonder he didn't nap just now, he was probably starving.

He wasn't starving. He may have been slightly hungry, but he wasn't "starving." I know you're speaking in hyperbole, but it helps to get the wording right to make better decisions about how to handle situations.

I probably would ask if I could pack his lunch. MIL used to do this with my nephews (who are all older than my children). Her thing is breakfast. She doesn't eat breakfast and apparently never has. So she used to forget to make breakfast until one of them was saying they were hungry. Over time, she's gotten back into the groove when the grandkids are over of making breakfast when they first get up. I'm sure once my kids are well past the stage of needing structured meal times that it will be easy to forget about it.

[earthworm]

It might be irritate me, but I wouldn't worry too much about it. If it happens again, ask if he wants you to pack a lunch for your DS because you know how hard it can be to stop to eat when running errands and your DS likes to eat at certain times.

[momasana]

If it were a one time thing I'd be irritated for the day but I would let it go. If it happens frequently I would mention the regular schedule, maybe lable snacks (this is for mid morning, this is only after he finishes lunch, etc.)

My mom is one who takes things personally so I know how tricky it can be to communicate things sometimes. I always try to tell her what a want, but add a spin so she can't get all martyr-y on me, like saying "Lately DS has been super cranky if his blood sugar gets low so we are trying to keep him on this schedule to see if it helps. Poor guy. I know it might not jive with your schedule but if you could please feed him at these times it would help us keep him on track. You're the best" Yeah, it stinks to have to be sugary-sweet all of the time but whatever works, right?

[mammal_mama]

Originally Posted by taramoon13

i asked if he had eaten lunch and my dad goes "well, he ate all the snacks you sent with him earlier and we were out doing errands at the time, he also said he wasn't hungry"(i always believe everything a 3 yr. old says).

Were you being sarcastic when you said that you always believe your 3-year-old? Because, honestly, I DO take my children seriously when they say they're not hungry. One of the reasons (among other reasons) that I wouldn't trust my Mom to watch my children is that she DOESN'T believe kids and back off; she has this compulsive need to keep pushing the food.

If I were you, I'd just decide how important it is to you to completely control when your ds eats his lunch. If it's more important than having a few free hours a week, then keep ds with you. Although the timing of lunch is NOT an issue I would sweat, my extended family did other things that were very upsetting to me, so I declined their offers to babysit.