would this irritate you? - Page 2

[TulsiLeaf]

Originally Posted by 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!!!!

Sure, it's kinda annoying and inconvient, but the thing I always try to remember is that they aren't used to being around little children. Sure, they raised babies, but it's been a while and it's a bit hard to remember ALL that goes with little kids.

My mother still will do this to my 5 year old, but luckily my daughter is old enough to be like "hey Nanny, I am ready to go home. I'm hungry".

If you really worry about it, just pack a lunch. It makes it a lot easier on the grandparents. I know, because we are vegetarian, that it really can confuse my mother as to where to take her to eat. She now has a few places she knows she can take my daughter to eat and get something good.

Good luck!

[Marsupialmom]

I would be annoyed for a moment but one of my kids would have said no if asked if they were hungry. Busy fun he would "forget" to eat until he became totally a crabby pants.

I would pack a lunch and tell grandparents to sit him down about noonish to eat.

[taramoon13]

just to address those discussing whether to believe a 3 yr. old when they say they are not hungry. with my ds just last night he repeatedly said he did not want to eat dinner and was not hungry and 5 min. later when i put food on the table he came in and sat down without being asked and wolfed down his food. same goes for potty, he will say no he does not have to pee until it's squirting out. ALL kids are different, but i do think at this age it's sometimes hard to stop and make the connections with all of the different sensations going on.
i appreciate the suggestions of packing lunch and when i spoke to my dad last night i asked nicely if they wanted me to pack a lunch for ds because he probably is ready to eat before they are and i think it hit my dad that it was important to ds and me that he eat at a certain time because right away he said no problem, we will make sure he eats around 12, we just aren't used to that when we don't have a little one around. it worked out just fine and i'm glad i discussed it with him!!!

[Hoopin' Mama]

Cool that it worked out.
I was going to suggest just a casual mention of "hey Dad, can you make sure he eats by 12:30 so he's ready for a full dinner later."

[mammal_mama]

I'm glad it worked out.

Come to think of it, sometimes my 5yo will suddenly wake in the middle of the night and announce, "I don't have to go pee, Mommy." At this point I'll jolt myself into awakeness, and decide to get get up and go pee myself and encourage her to come with me, sometimes even carry her, whatever it takes to get her to come try.

Because she always goes a whole lot once she sits down on the potty.

So I guess I don't literally mean that I always just assume that they literally mean what they say.

It sounds like packing a lunch for ds is a great idea!