Mom 'Cracked The Code' For Freeing Up Time For Herself By Feeding Her Kids Dinner At 3 PM Every Night
She says they have eliminated afternoon snacking entirely.
Olena Yakobchuk / Shutterstock It seems like kids are always hungry. They’re constantly trying to sneak a snack or two whenever they get a chance. But, what would happen if you mixed up their eating schedule? One mom decided to give it a try and said it has led to amazing results.
A mom gives her kids dinner at 3 p.m. instead of later in the day.
TikTok content creator Aimee Owens shared her secret to actually having some time to herself during the day. “I feed my kids at 3 p.m., and I’m going to tell you why,” she said.
Owens explained that she feels it just makes sense to feed her kids dinner earlier in the day.
“They always wake up from their naps [ravenous], so why not feed them the most amount of nutrients now, and then snack later?” she asked.
Owens said the same is true for her oldest daughter, who is in school. “She also gets home starving, so it’s the best time to feed her the most amount of nutrients as well.”
Owens filmed herself making dinner for her kids, showing that she makes a different dinner for her youngest children than she does for her oldest daughter. She also makes something different for her and her husband to eat.
After their dinner, each of her kids gets an "ice cream,” which is really a relatively healthy popsicle.
Owens admitted that she has a reason for doing this beyond just feeding her kids more food when they’re the most hungry.
“And then it frees up the rest of the night,” she said. “They can play games. I can do a workout. There’s no pressure.”
The afternoon is often a time for kids to have snacks, but Owens said they have “eliminated all of that.”
That doesn’t mean her kids aren’t allowed to snack at all. Owens promised viewers that if her children get hungry later in the evening, they can have a healthy snack. “From now,” she said after dinner, “they know that they can just have yogurt or fruit or toast.”
Research suggests that Owens is on to something with eating earlier in the day.
While eating at 3 p.m. won’t work for everyone’s schedule, it seems that there are benefits to at least eating earlier in the day than society tends to.
NBC reported on two studies published in Cell Metabolism. They said, “The first study found that eating on a later schedule made people hungrier over a 24-hour period than when they consumed the same meals earlier in the day … Overall, the study suggests that eating later can increase a person’s obesity risk.”
Furthermore, “The second study, done among a group of firefighters, found that consuming meals within a 10-hour window shrunk “bad cholesterol” particles — suggesting a potential reduction in risk factors for heart disease.”
So, if you eat breakfast at 7 a.m., you’d want to eat dinner by 5 p.m. to fit within the 10-hour window. That’s not quite as early as 3 p.m., but still earlier than many people eat dinner.
Owens’ fellow TikTok users thought her idea was ‘genius.’
TikTok users couldn’t get over how innovative they felt Owens’ idea was to serve her kids dinner earlier.
“Did you just crack the code to getting through the 4-6 p.m. craze?” one person asked.
Another person thanked Owens and said, “We started doing dinner after school now too … It has made life so much easier and I actually get time to myself!”
“This is actually genius because we have sports too and they are starving after school but before sports!” a third person pointed out.
While everyone’s schedules are different, eating dinner earlier in the day clearly has its benefits. If it’s possible, it wouldn’t be a bad idea to give it a try and see if it works for your family.
Mary-Faith Martinez is a writer for YourTango who covers entertainment, news and human interest topics.