Parents Daughter made team--but how does this dinner thing work?

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NMNorskie

Proud Parent
My daughter, who has been in rec classes for 10 months, was asked to join the level 3 team. We're all very excited, and she starts next week.

The schedule, though, is 4:30-7:30 two nights a week, and 5:00-8:00 a third night. We eat dinner on at 6:15pm, on the dot, all together, so this will be a big adjustment for us (and the kid normally goes to bed by 8:30, so it'll be an adjustment for her too). The commute is only about 15 minutes, but I'm still struggling with how to handle this food-wise.

Do you feed them before practice, after, or both? Are there good or bad foods to eat before they have such a long workout? I have never voluntarily done anything athletic in my life, so all of this is a complete mystery to me. Are there books or websites you recommend?

Oh, and to make things more complicated, we're vegetarians (we eat dairy, but no meat/fish).

Help!
 
D has practice every night from 6-9. He typically eats around 4:45. The rest of us eat after we drop him off :(
 
mine does 5.30 - 8 with a 35 min commute so I know how you feel. I feed a hi carb meal / snack before so pasta, jacket potato, rice etc and then she has a yoghurt, cake hot chocolate on the way home in the car and usually something before she goes to bed. The only weekday we all eat together is Wednesdays now.
 
Cut off before i finished ;)

D will eat kind of big before practice. USually a full meal. Leftovers are a hit. Sometimes I will make dinner early for him, and then the rest of us heat it up. After practice, he will sometimes eat again. We have about a 25 minute commute, so sometimes he eats in the car...depending on time.

It will be rough at first, but the kiddos usually adjust quickly. Parents..sigh..takes us longer. I am still adjusting!
 
Oh, I think she'll adjust fine. She loves gymnastics, loves her coaches, and can't wait to get started. It's the rest of us who will be sad. I can't imagine three family dinners a week without her there...although I know lots of people do this and we were lucky to make it 9.5 years before we hit this point.
 
You really were. Between gym practice and miscellaneous weekend events, Sunday is sometimes our only day. This week we have done Sun, Mon, Tues, and Wed! Not sure about tonight. This summer we will get more since we have morning practices.
 
I'm trying to figure this out myself. Right now my dd goes 3x a week from 4-7. I pick her up at school and take her straight to practice. She eats a snack in the car and then dinner after which has been fine. But starting 6/15 she will be going from 4-8 3x a week. She won't be able to eat a dinner because on the way from school to the gym (and honestly she isn't that hungry at 3:45). I can definitely pack her a snack, but she doesn't usually like to each much during practice. She won't get home until nearly 8:30. :( I'm not looking forward to this schedule, but it is what it is. I guess we'll adapt somehow.
 
Congratulations to your daughter! My daughter is on a similar schedule. We have always tended to eat dinner pretty late for other logistical reasons, but it is still tough to fit in dinner and a shower and get her to bed within an hour of her arrival home. She is an incredibly slow eater, which makes it even harder. I feed her a mini-meal before practice, and if she's having a growth spurt or otherwise in a hungry phase it will be an entire meal. At the end of practice, one parent picks her up while the other gets dinner on the table so we can start eating as soon as she gets home. This allows us to eat dinner as a family every night. I have tried just feeding her dinner before practice, but she always requires a full meal after practice no matter how much she eats beforehand, so there's really no point in having the rest of the family eat while she's at practice because I'd still have to fix her something later on.

To speed up dinner, we do a lot of homemade freezer meals; favorites are pizzas (prepare and partially cook ahead of time, freeze, then finish cooking straight out of the freezer), pasta sauces, and burritos. Other quick options are panini, quesadillas, and breakfast-for-dinner. On weekends I will purposely create leftovers that can be repurposed into another meal early in the week (e.g., Sunday's taco filling becomes tortas or tostadas on Monday). We also like a few of the Trader Joe's frozen meals. As many of half of our dinners are vegetarian, so it can be done!
 
Congrats on making team!!! The dinner issue is certainly one way where your family will soon find a "new normal". Kipper finishes at 8pm 5 nights per week. However her brothers are busy until 8-8:30, sometimes later with other sports. So, we now eat together at 9pm. Occasionally I'll take dinner to her so that she can eat in the car, especially if she has homework to finish, or if we're headed straight to a ballpark. She eats a carb-heavy snack before practice, but her first words after practice 90% of the time are "what's for dinner?" Snacks include cheese and crackers, fruits, granola bars, and peanut butter (loves to dip pretzels). I always pack several things, and just let her eat as much as she wants.
 
Congrats to your DD.

DD packs a lot of food. Eats in the car on the way to gym, snack at gym and then I make sure there is something to eat for the car ride home otherwise she crashes and everything becomes drama. Or as we call it on our house Hangry
 
We've always had a long commute, and at least 5 nites a week practice so the weekends are our only family meal times. My daughter usually eats a decent size snack/small meal on the way up to gym (anything from yogurt and string cheese to a pasta offering) and I bring her a nite time meal to eat on the way home ( usually what the rest of the family is eating at home).....I zap it in the microwave and she's done with dinner ( and usually her homework) by the time we hit the driveway 90 minutes later....then it's just shower and head to bed....
 
This is one reason I can't wait for dd's summer schedule! She's done by 4 every day and we can have dinner as a family again! During the school year practice is 4-7:30. She eats a light snack during practice (finger foods) then eats whatever we had when she gets home around 8. It makes for late school nights!
 
We sometimes eat very early, before DD leaves for practice. Then when she gets home, she has a protein shake and the rest of us eat smaller things or snacks.

We sometimes all eat late, after DD gets home.

Sometimes YDD and I will go ahead and eat at a semi-normal hour and ODD and DH will figure something out when they get home.

Our commute is 40 minutes one way. Some nights, she won't get home until after 9 pm. Fortunately, we homeschool, so she doesn't have to get up super early.

She usually takes peanut butter crackers or energy bites in the car, and has a granola bar or banana after practice on the way home. Check out Pinterest for some good snack ideas.
 
Like the others said, before and after, and mostly in the car! We eat as a family on the weekends :) Congrats to her!
 
Do the kids get a break? Our boys go 415-715 or 415 - 815 and typically get a break for about 15 - 20 min around 6 (3 hour training) or 630 (4 hour training). Snack after school (we have a 50 - 75 min commute depending on if carpooling or not), dinner (usually a regular lunch like they would have in school), then usually a snack on the way home (sometimes a second dinner if really hungry).

Congrats to her! It will all work out.
 
Yup, a meal before and a meal after.
For us, gymmie is never done before 7pm, but her sister is at dance until 8:30 or 9 every night so it really doesn't matter...
I feed the girls a big snack/small meal in the car on the way from school to practice, usually have my crockpot set or oven timer on to have a meal ready by the time we get home so we can grab dinner as quickly as possible when we get home.
DH is the one getting the short end of the stick. He doesn't get to eat with us during the week at all, he's lucky if he sees us during the weekends....
 
We have family meals every night with whoever is home at the time. So sometimes there are 3 of us, sometimes there are 6 of us. It is still important to sit down as a family and eat. And we cherish the 2 days a week that all of us are able to sit together.
 
Our gymnasts got a break (same schedule) so we did a yogurt and fruit and a bar for snack most days. They they eat dinner after practice.
 
Oh, and to make things more complicated, we're vegetarians (we eat dairy, but no meat/fish).

My daughter eats both before and after (and a small snack during break). Protein after practice is important. You probably already have a great blender that can handle frozen fruit for smoothies, if not you might want to invest in one. Costco has them for $200-300. Skip the ice and use frozen fruit instead. I sometimes add a pile of the squirt whip cream (costco has 3 packs for reasonable cost) to make the smoothies more inviting. You can even freeze single servings, smoothie on the bottom with a layer of whip cream on the top (works great in a flatter shaped container) and eat with a spoon for a cold item in the summer. Whole Foods has some plant-based high protein powders you can put in smoothies that aren't gritty (kids sometimes don't like the gritty textures of some of the protein powders). Also, you can get fully pasteurized egg whites in a carton that are safe to eat raw, they are OK to sneak a little into a smoothie. Frozen dark sweet cherries are great way to sweeten smoothies. Other fav ingredients: high protein vanilla yogurt, a little V8 fusion fruit/veggie blend juice or orange juice, strawberries (frozen or not frozen), frozen blueberries, frozen peaches, a little spinach.

I would think variations on omlettes/egg scrambles with cheese and veggies with a side of berries would be a quick go-to for after practice. Cut up bananas and strawberries, along with some slices of cheese and nut crackers before practice. Or PB sandwich! Big bowl of spinach salad with nuts, cheese, craisins, homemade dressing...

Heated up frozen single servings of veggie lasagna... Spinach empanadas from Whole Foods deli make a great/neat "sandwich" type item.
 
Oh do I know those dinner woes!

DD practices 5:00-8:30pm 4 days a week. Because I work, she is picked up by the gym for their After School program and goes straight from it to practice. There is NO way to get her dinner before practice, so I've learned to pack her snacks she can eat after school then we eat dinner after practice.

I love the summer schedule where the kids work out during the day and we can have dinner at a reasonable time again.
 

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