restaurant behavior
tonychelle
member
Do you guys have any good tips on how you get your kids to behave in restaurants?
This is our first kid, and she is about 17 mos. She's not horrible (definitely seen worse), but she rarely sits in her high chair the whole meal, so when it's just a few of us, we try to sit in a booth so she can "sit" with us, but she's not really into the booster seat either. I would try to "make her" sit in her high chair, but I really don't want to be "that person" with a crying/screaming baby in the restaurant, ya know, so sometimes I just let her sit with us, which I'm sure is probably a mistake, but I'm not sure what else to do without causing a scene.
She's not really into coloring (well, maybe for like a minute), and sometimes we bring her snacks in, but that doesn't work for long either. I'll try to hold her until our food comes, and sometimes she is ok and will eat after that, but half/most of the time she wants to sit with us or get up (I won't let her walk around, though, which she is fine with but she wants to "do" something - like play with the sugar packets, pull straws out of cups, throw food on the ground or look over the booth behind us/etc). Obviously we can control the food throwing/etc, but she will move onto something else except for eating/sitting!
Any tips/good restaurant-friendly toys/etc?? Or maybe I'm asking too much of her a little too soon to sit still and eat for a while???
Re: restaurant behavior
Personally, we have pretty much stopped eating out. He is such a wiggle-worm, and rarely sits still through a whole meal at home, let alone waiting for food and then eating.
But, you can try to make some busy bags or a busy book, o
I think you may be asking too much. From experience, that's the worst age for restaurants. LOL. If we do go out to eat some of the things we do is we don't put her in the high chair until our food is served. So, she'll 'play' with us in the booth or we
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I have a very active toddler and it is not always easy. We usually have the most success if we go out for breakfast (we go as soon as she wakes up and don't feed her before so she is interested in food when she gets there). We b
Breakfast and Lunch are easier than Dinners out. You need to get there at least 45 minute
We do A LOT of walking around. I think it helps we're in CA, so we can go outside and he can walk around until food comes, or after he's done eating (with either DH or I - we don't send him out on his own.)
And I always bring snacks with me
For the most part--my daughter enjoys coloring and looking at a stack of books. She also loves her flashcards. I do give her "restaurant snacks"--things that she loves, but are only limited to restaurants.
We try not to do electronic device
What kind of restaurants are you going to?
Do early dinners at family-friendly places until she gets used to doing whatever it is you want her to do. If you want her to sit in a high chair, then just have her sit in a high chair. If you're worrie
We go out to eat with DD at least once a week. We'll go early at 5. I make sure DD is always hungry when we go out to eat. I bring toys, coloring books, my cell phone, snacks, milk, etc. for dinners out. DD is generally entertai
Honestly, it doesn't sound like your daughter's behavior is that bad for her age. What you are describing is pretty normal for a 17 month old. My DD is 13 months and we have always, every since she was about 5 months old, had to entertain h
We had an incident just today that made us say we aren't going out to eat again for a looooong time! DD's pancakes came, and they were not what I ordered (they had nuts in them, which she can't have). When she saw them and couldn't have them, they thre
I take my travel high chair that we use at home when we go out to dinner. It is the only way that she was stay "confined" and behave appropriately. It is as if she knows what to expect if we her her in that. If we try anything else sh
With DD1, there was a period when we completely stopped eating out because it had become such an ordeal. That was roughly between the 1.5 yr and 2 yr mark.
We haven't hit such a phase with DD2 yet (knock on wood), but we do keep our outings to fa
We're just accepting that it is a phase that doesn't include restaurants:) We do go to Noodles and Company and other sit down fast food type places, but no one cares if he is screaming or throwing food there. If we want to go out anywhere decent, we ge