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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

To accept bad table manners in an 11 month old

103 replies

LionRichie · 02/08/2015 11:23

DM has invited us over for dinner but has made it very clear that 'her majesty' (referring to my 'spoilt' 11mo DD) must not throw any food on the carpet.

DD's method of eating is not pretty. It usually involves her picking up fistfuls of food and slamming them into her own face. Some goes in her mouth, most doesn't. DM thinks she should be eating nicely with a bowl and spoon by now, and says I let her get away with too much by not ending mealtimes immediately if she throws anything on the floor.

AIBU to tell DM that I'll bring a plastic sheet and clean up, or do people really expect more from their babies in terms of table manners?

OP posts:
80sMum · 02/08/2015 16:04

Good God! I thought I had heard it all, but table manners for a child not yet a year old?! What planet is your mother from?!!
When I get ready to give my granddaughter her lunch, I prepare to be plastered with food! A large plastic table cloth goes on the floor under her highchair and it wouldn't be out of place for me to wear a plastic poncho! With the hood up!! DGD is 15 months. She hasn't learned table manners just yet. I wouldn't expect her to have the slightest clue about such niceties.
Your mum needs to lighten up a bit!

Andrewofgg · 02/08/2015 16:38

Your DD is the same age as my great-niece and eats in the same way - I know you aren't my niece because my SIL has more sense than your mother!

It's a joy to see her eat and if there's a mess, there's a mess, sod it, who cares, that's what a sheet of plastic is for.

I can't get my head round anyone wanting a baby of that age to have any table manners. Or calling her her majesty in that snide way.

contractor6 · 02/08/2015 18:30

Memorise read debretts and pick up on all your MILs non etiquette behaviour (no one is perfect, least of all 11 month old) or tell her that she doesn't do that with your food, so must be a problem with her cooking # feeling little evil today Wink

Andrewofgg · 02/08/2015 18:36

It's OP's DM not her MIL.

MrsBigginsPieShop · 02/08/2015 18:58

11 months? As in, a year ago she wasn't born?! And you don't have her fully versed in Debrett's yet? Shame on you!
Your M

MrsBigginsPieShop · 02/08/2015 18:59

(Balls)
your DM sounds a bit bonkers.

BlackeyedSusan · 02/08/2015 19:28

I don't think my 11 month olds threw food. not a fucking clue what they did

I do remember banning yogurt though as that is a pain to get out of carpets, curtains, wallpaper, wooden furniture, sofas... they were a lot older than 11 months though.

I would not want my carpets ruined either. however, the preceeding comment of her majesty is way out of order and I would not go if we were so unwelcome. I do remember having to eat in the kitchen with cheap carpet tiles and a sheet down when they were little and visiting mums but there were no snide comments about their behaviour. that came later when mum can not understand autism.

surreygoldfish · 02/08/2015 19:53

Well whilst it's clearly bonkers to expect an 11 month old to have table manners I'm not sure I get 'all this mess everywhere either. I don't remember ever seeing food everywhere in our house or outside. 3 DC now ranging from 8-14 all of which I can take anywhere for meals so all learned to feed themselves well before they started nursery / school. BLW probably hadn't taken off with DC1 so I'm sure we just naturally part spoon fed and let them try feeding themselves with 'safer' foods. There's no way I'd want to be spending hours clearing up or washing food out of their hair! Maybe your approach to BLW is a bit much for your mum.

lemoncordial · 02/08/2015 20:26

I've just been with PILs and they has a plastic sheet under a highchair ready for 11 month old dd's arrival.
Yanbu of course.

tobysmum77 · 02/08/2015 20:31

my dm dithered because she thought it was rude to put a plastic sheet down Grin Hmm

DisgraceToTheYChromosome · 02/08/2015 20:33

D'you know when I realised I wanted children, really really wanted children?

When I met DW2B's godson. He was a year old and wearing chocolate ice cream mixed with peas. He was the happiest person in the room.

tobysmum77 · 02/08/2015 20:33

Maybe your approach to blw is a bit much for your mum

you see my dds were both arsey as hell about being spoon fed. How the hell do you feed babies off a spoon, they just blew raspberries and I got it back in my face.....

HungryHorace · 02/08/2015 20:41

Ha! My DM seems to think that she had my DSister eating perfectly with cutlery by 10 months' old. Cutlery-wielding genius, my sister!

Anyway...your DM shouldn't be so snidey about your DD. It would be for that reason that I swerved the invitation to dinner rather than the opinion on her table manners.

CinderellaRockefeller · 02/08/2015 20:45

I remember going for dinner at pizza express with a friend whose child was about 11 months, maybe a bit bigger. Child in question threw pasta on the floor, across the table, breadsticks everywhere and tomato all over him, the table and the floor.

I was absolutely mortified tbh. Tipped the staff loads and apologise (friend wasn't bothered, thought it was cute he had tomato in his hair) Think I would feel the same if we were at someone else's house. At least in a restaurant everything is wipe clean - If there was carpet it would be a disaster.

BLW is fine in your own house if that is what you want to do but do you not try and mitigate the horror in other people's houses?

TheOriginalWinkly · 02/08/2015 20:55

CinderellaRockefeller in her first post the OP said she would bring a plastic sheet and clean up, she wasn't going to let her DD trash the place.

CinderellaRockefeller · 02/08/2015 21:09

Yes but ever since some posters have been waxing lyrical about food Armageddon and how wonderful it is so I'm genuinely curious in general.

kathryng90 · 02/08/2015 21:10

Sounds generational problem to me. My mum was the same. When we were little we were spoon fed and at the point of spitting food out or 'messing about' we were deemed full up and the meal ended. She was horrified when I let my first play with food and experiment. Lots of tuts and comments about waste. She just didn't get it. She has mellowed slightly by my 4th and although she doesn't get it still she acknowledges that all 4 have a healthy attitude to food and self regulate their intake.

Go prepared with wipes and covers and ask her to go along with your parenting your way.

MiscellaneousAssortment · 02/08/2015 22:16

Yes generational though in my experience when it's a grandchild rather than your own, they tend to lighten up anyway...

morelikeguidelines · 02/08/2015 22:19

I definitely wouldn't go. Just say "I can't guarantee that so I won't be able to come"

Your DM is bonkers.

tomatodizzymum · 02/08/2015 22:31

maybe I'm out of touch already because my youngest is nearly 3 but why can't an 11 month old use a spoon and bowl?

In terms of mess, my kids meal times are carnage at 6 and nearly 3 so your mum is deluded if she thinks it's going to be like silver service, but I would also try and keep her carpet clean too, 11 month olds are not the best lunch company!

KatieLatie · 02/08/2015 22:48

This reply has been withdrawn

This has been withdrawn by MNHQ at the poster's request.

PiperChapstick · 02/08/2015 23:12

It baffles me when people who've had children themselves expect so much from other people's kids. Name calling is also unnecessary, I know how you feel - DD going through terrible twos, if she has a paddy MIL makes the biggest drama out of it and calls her Angelica (as in rugrats). Any suggestions for scathing responses are most welcome people Grin

Muldjewangk · 02/08/2015 23:16

My DSs stormed out of a restaurant because they didn't like the way my fourteen month old DD was eating. She wasn't even throwing her food around at that stage. When DD was two I was told DD talked too much. Confused That was just the beginning of much unnecessary critism over the years, spoiling many happy times for me. I wish I had gone NC then not years later.

I would buy your DM a book on baby development stages.

mummyrunnerbean · 03/08/2015 00:01

Oh god mine is the same. She yelled at my one year old that he was a 'rude little boy' after he threw a spoon on the floor the other day. And then binned his dinner. After I'd asked her repeatedly to stop trying to force him to eat pasta bake off said spoon which she kept jabbing at him. I wasn't impressed, told her so, and then got him some more. But apparently I'm an awful uncaring mother who is raising a monster, and will 'get ideas' if I let him do things like decide how much he wants to eat Hmm. And apparently I should also back up any other adult in the vicinity regardless of whether I agree with them so that he learns he must do what any adult tells him Confused.

We haven't spoken since...

IAmNotAMindReader · 03/08/2015 00:11

Don't go.

If your mother refers to her grandchild as spoilt at 11 months old and her royal highness then she really doesn't like her and their relationship has little chance of improving if she has made her mind up a child is a wrongun this early in her life.

Save both you and your daughter the earache and heartache.