Working moms with little kids under 4: Are you cooking weeknight meals? What are your survival tips? We don’t love eating unhealthy but are struggling to find a viable path during the toddler years here.

We rotate through easy recipes that my kids eat most nights:

- pastina and roasted chicken drumsticks
- slow cooker pulled pork tacos
- air fryer frozen meatballs and Ina’s oven risotto
- slow cooker soups, chilis
- slow cooker bolognese
- roasted potatoes and grilled steak
- cheesy nachos with slow cooker shredded chicken
- instant pot mac and cheese
- grilled steak and rice
- grilled kabobs from the grocery store

All stuff with 20 min of prep or less and/or prep that my kids do with me after school (I take a break from work like 2:30-5 PM every day, and then work another hour or two while my kids are at activities or after bedtime).

I’m fine ordering food twice a week though—Cava, California Tortilla, Playa Bowls, pizza, sushi/dumplings, pho.

CookUnity and prayer.

In-house counsel with a 2.5 year old. Husband and I both mostly work from home (I need to show my face at the office 2x a week). We cook 80% of our meals but will order takeout or go out a few times a week. WFH makes all the difference… defrost meat the night before, prep in early pm, and dinner is usually around 5:30 pm. Daughter packs leftover for lunch the next day.

Mostly one meat dish, one veggie, and one carb, or something with everything mixed in like chicken noodle soup with veggies, pasta, fried rice, something grilled or baked, etc.

I cook every night but only because I haven’t found a better way, honestly. We have a decent rotation of quick weeknight meals. I did cook unity until my oldest started eating more grown up food. Tried Little spoon but my youngest never really ate it and I got sick of throwing away so much food.

Just here to tell you you’re doing awesome because we’re either eating pasta and rao and/or uber eatsing pizza/chinese/tacos. So…can’t be worse than me?

We get a local chef to deliver 3-4 meals a week. My other friend was using her and she does it for about 8 families and it’s been helping. There’s other meal delivery services that are more formal in our area as well.

My husband is a government employee with a great schedule and does all the cooking during the week. I pick the meals and go grocery shopping on the weekends.

It's hard to manage for sure so you're not alone. My kids at 8 and 5 and I thought it'd be easier now but we still struggle. General advice is to rotate a few go-to meals each week to take out the decision making. Breakfast for dinner is a big hit in my house. We have more time to cook on the weekends so we make bigger meals then, and start the week with leftovers.

My Kindergartener wrote on their mothers day thing about me that their favorite thing that I cook is "spgede." My husband laughed and said it was the only thing they could say I cook!

We are part of a group where two local aunts each cook a meal a week. So between my spgede (spaghetti, in case you couldn't tell, lol) and the aunt meals that's 3 home cooked meals a week. It's 2-3 more per week than it was when we had a 3 year old and newborn.

Do what you can, and find solutions when you can't do it. It's verrrrrry tough out here being a full time mom and employee. Your kids aren't going to judge you for keeping them fed.

I feel you - we are lucky because my husband gets home a couple hrs before I do and can get dinner going. If cooking is an option for you, we’ve found that making a menu at the beginning of the week and stocking up on the ingredients we need over the weekend is helpful. And we keep it simple - a protein, a veggie, and a carb. We also use our air fryer a LOT for everything from meat to tofu to veggies. We’re also lucky that our toddler (so far) is content to eat what we eat so that makes things easier. Friday and Saturday nights I give hubby a break and we do either take out or go out to eat.

At the end of the day, though, some processed food during the week is not going to kill your kiddo. You’re keeping them fed and that’s the important part, no reason to feel guilty if cooking every night is just not feasible right now.

Batch cook on weekends and freeze. My toddlers don’t care about repeats and leftovers thankfully. 😅

We do Territory meals and kiddo gets Little Spoon. It’s not ideal but it is what it is.

We do tacos one night (fish or beef), usually some kind of pasta, pizza Friday (order or make it if remember to make or buy dough), sheet pan dinner (chicken sausage, potatoes and veg just roasted all on the same pan) and then takeout or frozen spinach and cheese ravioli from Costco fills the gaps.

The real question is: do I need to just buy an air fryer already??

I cook dinners on Sundays and Wednesdays (when I WFH.) We eat left overs the after I cook and eat out on Fridays.

Lots of microwave foods.

Cook a large dinner on Sunday and have the leftovers for that dinner Monday. Tuesday my husband cooks. Wednesday I prep a crock pot dinner in the morning. Thursday we order take out