Child only area in restaurant- discriminatory?

Absolutely. The amount of 'they're kids, what can you do?' I've heard over the years, like it's physically impossible to get children to behave well. It really isn't.

Yeah, I know, spent a lot of time living in Europe when I was younger ... it's rather more civilised

Children in Europe generally eat out with parents and wider family at weekends AND SIT AT THE TABLE conversing with the adults and other children. They talk, laugh and eat and do not run around. There is something wrong in our society that accepts running around restaurants and making lots of noise.

I tend to agree, and wouldn't have chosen this type of place myself when DC were bairns. DC are autistic and wouldn't have coped with the noise and chaos. The thing is though, I also wouldn't have expected the business to change its policy for my family. If you have SEN kids, or equally adult family members with particular needs, you get used to planning ahead, researching the places you could go, and reading the small print. OP seems to think her family should be the exception. It's legit not to want to be seated in a children's play area and go elsewhere, but not to demand that a business bends the rules or that you and your family are somehow better than other families and therefore deserve to be the exception.

The market is what it is - there will be places that mix dining and creche, and places that don't. For everyone who is like us and can't bear the sound of shrieking kids in a ball pit or the challenges of trying to get your own kids to eat at least a bit of a meal before entering Bedlam with the others, there are plenty that will be quite content with it!

For me the issue is that the restaurant has created the meal time/playtime confusion by installing a play area and then insisting all families sit there.

When I encountered this, I voted with my feet. I don’t want my child or anyone else’s running around during a meal. The presence of a play area right in the dining area plus other kids racing around presents this as a normal standard of behaviour.

Family meals can involve multiple adults and one child. No way do those adults want to sit in a play area. I ended up not booking a family meal at a place like this as one member of the party had terminal cancer and was in poor health and a kid bashing into him would have really hurt him, plus he had a hearing problem so any conversation would have been hard. Sitting in a family area without the play area would have been acceptable. It’s the play area being the only family area that is the issue. It’s real lowest common denominator stuff.

I understand both sides.

We ate out with dd from when she was a baby, mainly because of going on holiday with her.
We always took sticker books etc and talked to her. She could sit quietly at the table and didn't disturb anyone.
I would have hated to have been in a noisy children's area and wouldn't have stayed if that's where I had been asked to sit.

At the same time, there are many parents go out to eat and don't bother to parent their children.
Some parent allow their children to be noisy and even run around.
Because of families like these, I can understand why the restaurant has a designated area so that noisy children don't disturb child free diners.

It does seem a shame for families with quiet, well behaved children to have to sit near a rowdy soft play area but those families will either have to suck it up or to find somewhere else to eat.

It's an issue with British society, which in these settings treats mealtime and playtime as part of the same thing. In which case, it makes a lot of sense.
If mealtime was mealtime, and playtime was playtime, then it wouldn't be necessary, and such places would be a lot calmer and more civilised 😂

No I can't say I would. Someone farting is unlikely to make me waste £20 on a meal losing my appetite. The smell passes in seconds. You must be overly delicate

And do newborns also want to play in it?

And what about the parents who want their kids to sit nicely at table. It's not helped if other kidsare running back and forth to play area

What's wrong with a good, satisfying fart in a restaurant? 😃🤣

It is after all the by-product of eating food there. 😉🤣

LOL you can't ban processes of the digestive system.

it is not discriminatory
If there is a play area then kids will want to play in it. It makes sense that their parents are near by so the kids are not running about the whole establishment. If it is a carvery, then there will be fellow patrons walking about with plates of hot food and not a handful of waiting staff.

Farting should be banned in restaurants as should babies. And dogs. Let people eat in peace.

@RubySquid

i would be proper disgusted and lose my appetite if I could smell either a shitty nappy OR a fart. Wouldn’t you?

I was trying to point out, gently, that you are not the only person in the world, but most of us are not banging on about our experience being the only possible experience worth taking into consideration.

Incidentally, the OP's baby is fourteen months old, so it probably isn't exclusively breast-fed and if it is weaned or in the process of being weaned its shit is not just milk-shit.

Maybe Are you also unable to eat your dinner if someone was to fart??

I can smell BO at 20 paces so obviously sense of smell not that bad

Maybe your sense of smell isn't all that acute. Who knows? Since I do smell the shit in nappies on babies a table or even two over from mine, we might just have to agree that not only do our personal experiences differ, other people's may not be the same as mine or the same as yours.

Strangely I've never smelled other babies shit from a different table in a restaurant and I'm sure one of them must've had a dirty nappy in the 40 odd years I've been going to restuarants.

Because the mother is used to the smell of her own baby's shit and doesn't notice it so much, whereas I am not and therefore do, possibly?

Why would you think that you could smell a baby so badly that it would ruin your dinner from a different table before the mother right next to it could smell it?

Perhaps their license only allows children in the family area of the premises?!

I think it's easier for staff to corral people into certain areas, to make the ordering/paying process easier.

I might eat out more often if more places did this!

Brilliant idea.

So your child can disturb other diners in the quiet area, but you don't want other children disturbing you?

I'd rather be slightly condescending to point out a truth than listen to misguided "my baby's shit doesn't stink, therefore I don't care if I ruin everyone's dinner when he fills his pants" posts, frankly, yes.