Dinner - leave alone or watch?

My wee fella has his tea quite early - some days at about 4.30 (if he is really grizzly), and as DH often doesnt get home until later we dont often eat together. My dliemma is that when Oli is eating his tea in his high chair - I dont know whether I should be sitting with him and encouraging him or leaving him alone to get on with it. He is going through a phase of throwing his food around, which is really frustrating but I am not sure whether me sitting with him will make any difference or not. I dont ignore him, but I often use the time to get our tea organised and get washing in etc. He doesnt seem to like the "pressure" of me watching him eat!

What do you do with your toddlers?

 

Daniel goes in his high chair with is food, I sit next to him and eat mine or just sit there and pay no particular attention to him, or that he notices anyway. If people watch him hes not keen on eating. If he eats "enough" then he gets yoghurt for dessert. If he doesn't (unless hes sick) then he gets down without dessert. I always try to sit down beside him though

I try to eat with my girl's... if DP is late home he eats on his own... DD2 really doesn't mind if I talk about her eating or not... she loves eating so much it wouldn't stop her lol... esp if we're having peas Every now and then when there is lots to do I leave them to eat alone...

We sit and eat together, Spencer is going through a stage of not wanting to do his spoon/fork himself and wants me to load it up and then him to put it in his mouth. Generally we eat about 5.30ish now so I don't mind eating at that time. When DH is here then sometimes we feed the boys then we get take out and have it after they have gone to bed, but one or both of us will still sit at the table with them. Mostly Spencer and Kyle eat together as well but sometimes Kyle is having his late afternoon meltdown and misses dinner. They sit together for breakfast and lunch though and again either me or DH is sitting with them. Sometimes at lunch, cos the boys tend to have finger food for lunch, then I will eat mine then leave them to it whilst I tidy up the dining room and kitchen. House is open plan so still right there if they need a hand with something.

We eat together as a family at 5.30. It took a bit of getting used to but DH and I made the decision to do so when Tom was 11 months. He eats the same as us and one of us is with him at most meals. If we werent he would get down, run around etc. He definitely eats much better with us. I'm also getting him to set the table and he's damn good at it too.

Perhaps you could just sit down with a cup of tea while he eats so he doesnt feel abandoned.

With E if he is mucking round I will sit in the chair in the next room where i can still see him..seems to help..eating with him doesn't really he just wants to eat mine..and we eat after he does.. though weirdly we do eat breakfast together:)