What does your family dinner look like?
Ours is the four of us--me across from DH and the kids across from each other. DD, 2.5, in a regular chair. DS is in a highchair and still eats whatever we put in front of him.
DD gets up several times to let the dog in/out (she loves to do this), or kiss and hug the dog, to smell her blanket, to ask her doll a question, etc. We just say something like--DD, if you want to eat you have to come sit at the table and when we are all done, your food is going away. She usually comes and sits for a few minutes and has a few bites---sometimes she eats everything, usually not. Then she says she wants to go do some random task and we tell her she needs to stay and eat, sometimes she stays, sometimes not.
Anyway, last night, she wanted to put her chair next to mine and sit right next to me. I helped her move, even though DH was saying--no, sit in your spot, etc.
So, does your toddler get up and roam during dinner, do you allow it, would you let her move her chair, what are your dinner rules? At her preschool, if she gets up from snack, she has one more chance to sit down and eat, but if she gets up again, then her snack time is over. That seems harsh for me at night so we let her keep coming back until the rest of us are done. Curious what others do. Thanks.
Re: What does your family dinner look like?
At the age of your LO, around 2 1/2, your post made me smile because that is SO the age they just love to get up and wander for little reasons isn't it? And my almost-5 year old still tries to think of reasons to leave the table.
We do insist our almost-3 year old and almost-5 year old stay in their seats, but of course they still try to wander away. Two things we've done to try to help them stay in their seats - the almost 3 year old is in a booster seat on a regular chair. Once she's pushed in and under the table it's actually hard for her to escape. The other is the almost-5 year old, who really is the most wiggly/get-uppy, (and I got this idea recently from a neighbor) we put her in an arm chair at the table. So once she's pushed in, it's hard for her to escape too.
We also tell them it's important to stay at the table, etc. DH is more strict about it than me. The worst is when the almost-5 year old gets up and DH is all stern "WHERE ARE YOU GOING" and she says "I need to go potty!" Poor kid. So of course there are reasons that are OK to get up from the table.
We just moved C to a regular chair from a booster a few months ago. I think the only reason this has been relatively successful is that the chair has arms and he can't push it out himself. But I know the constant up and down that you describe would drive me and DH crazy. When C is doing something relatively obnoxious (giving food to the dogs, trying to stand in his chair), we usually give him a warning and then say "If you do X one more time, dinner is over" and then follow through.
He can get down and go play when he's done, but DH and I don't leave the table until we are finished eating and he's usually more interested in hanging out with us at the table than playing by himself in the other room.
Sometimes we'll take him out of his chair if he clearly wants out, but sometimes it backfires and he gets upset that we're still sitting at the table eating while he wants to move on to something else. But sometimes he'll just walk over to his play kitchen and play for a few minutes, and then come back and want to eat.
I like to think we'll have more rules when he gets older, but at this point, he eats very little and I'm willing to be more flexible if it gets him to eat more.
DD doesn't roam - she actually has never asked to get down from her booster seat mid-meal. It would drive me nuts if she did, because she can't get in or out without our help. (The child chooses to buckle herself in if she's waiting for food, or done eating and isn't ready to get down. She's weird.)
We don't have many family meals - it tends to be lunch on Sat/Sun, given T's early dinner time (4:30 or 5). T sits in her booster seat on one side of the table. I usually sit next to her (at the head of the table - DH's "usual" seat) at breakfast, so sometimes she believes that is "my" assigned seat and insists that I sit there at lunch, otherwise DH sits there and I sit across from T. She's a good eater (of the foods she is willing to eat), so she pretty much eats, talks to us, or looks out the window during meals. When she starts playing with her silverware or her cup, it's generally time for her to get down.
We don't have many hard and fast rules other than no feet on the table, mainly because by nature T doesn't really push physical boundaries. I'm trying to make her keep the foods she doesn't like at least on her plate (instead of in my hand or on the table).
I am flexible with the just under three year old, I mean she never knows what she wants anyway. Most convo's with her are going back and forth between wanting and not wanting something. Also she is in a stage where she just does not eat a whole lot. My 4.5 yo sits at the table until she is done, she knows we clear her plate when she gets up (for something other than potty) and we let her roam at that age too.
I do put the food away at a certain time, basically before we go take a bath and then it is bedtime so it isn't like there is a time where she would look for it and it isn't there. I just don't want to make food a battle and if I make her sit there she will cry and scream and not eat anything anyway.
DS is 18 months and still strapped into a booster seat so no getting up from the table.
Basically we strap him in and DH and I start eating. We'll hand him some of our food not very much at a time. Sometimes he puts it in his mouth, sometimes he throws it on the floor. If he wants more he'll usually point at it and show an interest. I try not to react to him throwing it on the floor. I figure he wants a reaction out of us. I struggle with this, but I don't think he will understand that it is wrong and I do want him to eat so I don't want him to associate negative things with eating.
After we're done eating, we may supplement with something else depending on how much table food he eats like cheese. We'll usually give him some fruit for dessert that he gobbles up. I know he's done when he's not interested in the fruit and straining to get out of chair and voila dinner time is over.
Off to the beach
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Sprout is strapped into a high chair so no up & down.
And, I'm probably a mean mommy, but when he's up from the table, meal time is over for him. No snacks, no eating off my or my husband's plate, no anything. I make sure when I feed him that he has a variety of things to eat & at least 1 or 2 things on his plate he likes. That's my job. It's his job to eat it. If he doesn't eat it, it's his loss.
That said, my kid is chunky (85%tile for weight) so not eating one meal every now & again isn't going to be disastrous. Almost always he eats a bigger breakfast the next morning.
DS is in a highchair but DD is in a regular chair; we have rules and one of them is "no getting up," but she still gets up a gazillion times a night
We eat together as a family for dinner nightly, and then we eat breakfast and lunch together on the weekends. I sit at the head of the table, she sits to my left, DH sits to my right and DS is in a highchair between me and DD. DD is almost 3 and lately she gets up a lot, I think it's because we got rid of the booster. She used to strap herself in, even when we told her she didn't have to, and she couldn't undo the buckles. She's also in the stage where she just picks at her food, so she finishes really early. When she wanders away from the table, I make her come back and ask her if she is done (usually she wants to go feed one of her stuffed animals) and make her ask "May I please be excused". We started this about a week ago, and it's cut down on the tantrums when we would clear her plate after we finished eating and according to her, she was still working on it. We also took a tip from artslvr and instituted a thank you bite of new foods or foods we decide we don't like anymore. This does not always go over well, but DD usually winds up trying it.
EDIT: Lindsey reminded me, we always say grace before meals.
our table is an oval shape. DH sits at one of the long ends, T (5 years) and i sit across from each other and A (16 months) sits in her Bumbo on the table (gasp, the horror!) across from DH. my seat is closest to the kitchen and the other end across from DH (where A sits) is a PITA to get to the kitchen.
we eat dinner every day together at the table. we eat breakfast and lunch at the table together on weekends. weekday breakfast we eat where we can (i usually make a shake and take to go, DH eats his while ironing)
our house rules:
no phones, toys, tv or books at dinnertime (sometimes we listen to music)
you don't have to eat, but if you decide you will, then you must. you may not interact with the rest of the family during dinnertime if you choose not to eat. you also may not have dessert or any other foods if you choose not to eat what is prepared for dinner (we had to implement this rule b/c T would pick and choose what he wanted to eat and i only make things that i know he likes to eat)
there is no getting up to do anything other than go to the bathroom
no beverages until after a sufficient dinner is eaten (if you chose not to eat dinner, you may have water or milk)
no dessert for kids who don't eat enough dinner
we aren't very religious, but we always say grace and bless the cook, we don't eat until everyone is seated and the grace has been said, and we ask to be excused from the table if we need to leave before the meal is over.
DD is 5 and I still have to fight her to stay at the table. That's probably not what you want to hear!! She has a hard time sitting still in general and she talks so much at dinner it takes her forever to eat her food. I will give her a job to do (refilling a water glass, getting another napkin) so that she can move around a bit and she seems to have an easier time staying in her chair afterwards.
I don't have this problem with DS, he eats so fast and immediately asks to be excused. I don't expect them to sit at the table after they eat. Once they ask to leave the table and clear their plates they can go play.
DD1 9.24.06
DS 7.1.08
twins due 9.7.11 lost twin A at
DD2 4.7.12
Well, it's good to hear she is not the only little one who won't sit still.
DH seems to think she should sit once, eat everything properly, never get up, etc., so thats probably part of the problem. I have to remind her--she's only 2! So, I guess that's part of my problem too.
She was in a booster seat, but she insisted on climbing in herself and it got too dangerous, so she has been in a regular seat since before she turned 2. Maybe we could try a chair with arms just to see her reaction.
LO is only 1 year old, so he is seated in a Fisher Price space saver high chair at the head of the table and DH and I sit across from each other.
We eat at the kitchen table because the tile floor cleans up much more easily than carpet in the dining room.
We generally feed LO starting with food from our plates and then his little toddler raviolis, then cheese, yogurt, fruit/vegetable squeezy pouches, bananas and crackers. Right now he hates to eat so we have to try a lot of different things to get a full meal. We try to introduce a new food pretty regularly (no signs of allergy yet) and some things he likes more than others.
We know dinner is over for him when he starts running his hands back and forth on his tray flinging food to the floor recklessly. Generally when he does that, we spring to action and clean off the tray, wipe his hands and face and take him from the table.
Eating together is really important to me. We don't have a TV in the kitchen, so it's nice to be able to talk.
LOL. This sounds very similar to our dinner. Basically, we just encourage DD to stay at the table and eat together as a family. If she leaves, we say "you need to come back to the table". However, once she is done eating, we do let her go play. We've been trying to teach her to say "May I be excused?" and she's done pretty well with that. So, she's learning that she needs to ask to leave the table.
The other thing we do is that after she leaves the table, we make her play on her own or come back to the table. If she wants us to come play or to climb into my lap, etc., I tell her that I'm eating my dinner and that she can wait until we are done. We at least want her to respect that we are still eating.