Kristina Clark

My husband and I are spontaneous and that means we frequently put the kids in the car with no set agenda and take a road trip or a quick flight somewhere new. We also love exploring new places through the food and don’t want to restrict ourselves to “kid friendly” establishments. We’ve been taking our kids with us to restaurants since they were born and we’ve developed our own set of rules to have it go smoothly and make it an enjoyable experience for everyone (including other people in the restaurant). Now, this doesn’t mean we don’t have the occasional meltdown mid-meal, but we’re able to mitigate most of the drama by following these guidelines. Here are our tips!

1. Start them young- We’ve been taking our kids with us to restaurants since they were very young. When they were newborn-6 months old, we tried to plan meals out around their nap time and they would sleep right through it allowing us to have a relaxing meal. Every baby is different so if yours wakes up with any noise, this might not work for you. In that case, you may want to go during a feeding time to avoid crankiness.

2. Go hungry- For toddlers, go to the restaurant when they are hungry. Don’t load them up with snacks ahead of time to give you the best chance that they sit down and eat.

3. Bring activities- Some, but not all restaurants have some limited activities for kids such as coloring. Bring coloring or activities books such as this Sticker book, some magnet tiles, WikkiStix, Drawing Tablet, or if you allow it educational apps such as ABCMouse.

4. Sensory seat- For the child that won’t sit, this Sensory seat works wonders.

5. Talk with them- We frequently play “I spy”.

6. Set expectations ahead of time.

7. Avoid using dessert as a reward- While this might seem to work for some, we have found it’s never really worked for our kids and studies show it can actually harm children’s relationship with food in the long run. It might also make it more difficult to get them to eat the healthier stuff. We try to teach our kids that sweets are foods we eat sometimes and our meals are “everyday foods” that make us big and strong. This isn’t to say they don’t get excited when we eat out and we get dessert, but we save it for special occasions or if there is something that sounds really good on the menu.

8. Order appetizers- Get some snacks they like to munch on while waiting for meals that take time to eat like chips and guacamole, a side salad, or miso soup or edamame (yes our kids eat sushi). This brings me to the next tip.

9. Don’t resort only to kid meals- I firmly believe that if you start a child off eating only “kid food” (mac ‘n’ cheese, chicken fingers and fries, pizza, hot dogs) they will get used to it and only eat the kid food. From a young age we have given our kids exactly what we were eating (within reason- no spicy or very strong tasting or raw meats). We do order kid meals at times, but our approach has allowed us to be able to find them something to eat on pretty much any menu. Again, every kid is different and you might have an exceptionally picky eater (like I was when I was a kid) but I think starting them on “adult food” from a young age helped tremendously for us.

10. Ask your server if the kids’ meals can be brought out as soon as they are ready.

11. Last resort, use screens- This one will cause some controversy, but our choice is to allow limited screen time when we need it. For us, it’s helpful to have this in our back pocket as a last resort if it’s becoming difficult at a restaurant so that we don’t disturb others and so we can still enjoy our meal.

12. Have an exit strategy- Let’s face it, our toddlers are humans and they can have bad days just like us except they are not nearly as good at regulating their emotions. If all else fails, having a exit strategy where you switch on and off or one parent takes the toddler outside and the other parent or adult stays/ pays is useful.

If this post was helpful to you, follow me on Kristinanewengland.com to see more tips for moms and young families like us.