How to explain to friends without toddlers life with toddlers

[Onemorecrisp]

Real examples of convo/ messages welcome:

Current repeating questions: “why can’t we go out for lunch ?”
“Let’s meet at this fine dining place- Just bring the children”
Offering to meet late afternoon
Not receptive to meeting early morning !!!

[Sirzy]

It seems you want all the flexibility to come from them.

There are plenty of options between fine dining and the awful places with soft play attached

[OhNoMyCheds]

Even parents of kids don’t like netting early morning sometimes I tried to organise a meet up with my NCT lot and thought breakfast would be a good option (cheaper, and people would have the rest of their day to enjoy), one said “we can’t get there before 12, sorry” When I saw her I asked what they’d been doing that morning and she said nothing!

[OhNoMyCheds]

But OP, tbh I just ask people to come to me instead and say i’lll put lunch on/whatever for them but it will be easier for everyone if they come to us due to feral toddler antics.

[DontMakeMeShushYou]

Because literally no-one wants to eat lunch at a place with a mini soft play area unless they have a toddler to entertain. How many lunches did you have at the mini soft play area place before you had dc?! Its not snobby op. Those places are just not enjoyable to non-parents.

This.

In fact these places are not enjoyable for anyone over the age of 36 months. Period.

[SmileyClare]

You want to meet friends at 10am followed by lunch in the soft play area? Bless you

I get the impression both you and childless friends are being inflexible. There must be a middle compromise between fine dining and squishing round a damp plastic table shouting over a soft play racket aka Hell?

[RhymingRabbit3]

snobby about toddler things that work eg lunch with a mini soft play area
I have a toddler and I still wouldnt want to meet somewhere like that. Why not just go for lunch somewhere which is middle of the road - has a kids menu but isnt a "kids" restaurant e.g. a chain Italian. Keep toddler busy with snacks and a colouring book. Have a quick lunch with your friends and then leave.

[SarahAndQuack]

Yep, agreeing too.

I don't want to meet anyone at 9.30 in a soft play!

Can you have them round to yours?

If someone asked me now to meet at 9.30, and it wasn't work related, I would be saying no.

[MrsMelanieHamilton]

I have a toddler and I would never suggest to my childfree friends that we meet in a soft play area for lunch! Why on earth would they want to go there?! I don't even want to be there

There's plenty of compromise between The Ivy and soft play hell.Surely a decent cafe would be fine, stick DC in a highchair with plenty of toys and food to keep them happy?

[AiryFairyMum]

I've taken my preschooler to lost of fine dining places for lunch. She's been eating with us since she was born - first breastfed then BLW and she's great. Now she enjoys ordering from the menu. I always take a sticker book or some pens and a pad to keep her entertained.

Evenings are trickier, as those places often don't want children there in peak hours, but I've never had a problem with lunch or afternoon tea.

But afternoons are fine, and I definitely wouldn't fancy germy soft play. We went a few times and my little girl caught norovirus, so never again.

I wouldn't thank you for a morning meet up either. What's wrong with an afternoon?

[SoftSheen]

There is surely some happy medium between fine dining and a softplay centre. Carluccio's and Wagamama are both pretty good with toddlers.

[f00k]

I agree with MrsMelanie. I hate soft play as it is but I go because I have a toddler. No way would I want childfree friends to experience soft play hell.

I meet my friends for lunch at Harvester, Nando's, TGI with toddler in tow. There's a compromise between meeting them in the morning for soft play and going to a fine dining restaurant.

[ThisBear]

Has the OP been misunderstood on the soft play thing, I wonder? There are quite a few e.g. gastropubs with a soft play corner or department store cafes with a kids' zone near me, which is what I assumed she was meaning. You'd happily visit as a group of adults, so they would be an ok compromise for everyone.

[Lulualla]

Why cant you just take your toddler to lunch? I have 2 kids. I took them out to lunch to (shock horror) restaurants and pubs without soft plays!

[SoftSheen]

AiryFairyMum We took DD to a variety of different restaurants, including some rather formal, as a baby and toddler. She was always well behaved and we didn't understand why other people had a problem. Then we had DS... who, let's just say, was entirely different!

[AiryFairyMum]

No, I completely understand that all toddlers are different. But OP seems to be amazed that anyone would suggest taking toddlers to restaurants for lunch, or going out in the late afternoon.

[NoIDontWatchLoveIsland]

My favourites are

• "just keep him up late, he'll sleep in and you can have a lie-in!"
  
• "he can wait until 2.30 for lunch can't he"
  
• "he can just skip the nap, it will be fine", followed by "why is he crying? Is his behaviour always this bad?"
  

One I really like is "please do bring your 18m old to the wedding to be a page boy/bridesmaid. We've booked a sitter you can just leave the kids with her the rest of the time so you can party". Yeah, because 18m olds love being in a strange place and left with a complete stranger. It doesn't terrify them at all.

[QuimReaper]

I'm still trying to figure out how to explain to our friends who have young children that they've forgotten how to adult.

[SarahAndQuack]

YY, NoIDont, I'd be much more irritated by people assuming a toddler will wait hours to be fed.

The worst is people who just carry on expecting you to be flexible while they are flakey. I have lost touch with friends who used to annoy me with the 'oops, we said 5 but actually I'm going to be another half hour ... oh maybe 15 more minutes, nearly there ... wait up, just parking, be there in 10 ...'. Because what was once annoying is now just completely incompatible with waiting around.

That's what I miss. Being able to wait around for things.

[karencantobe]

Lunch with a mini soft play centre is my idea of hell, and I have kids.

You can go out to lunch somewhere suitable for families but with decent food. I suspect everywhere you are suggesting has shit food.

[beautifulxdisasters]

Is there a reason you can't leave kids with DP and go and meet your friends? Or invite them over to yours where DCs can be put down for a nap if relevant?

[karencantobe]

Also if you don't have kids and are working all week, you don't want to meet up at 9.30 am on a Saturday morning. Not sure what you would do at that time anyway with young kids that is not a playground or a toddler group.
A pub near us gets brilliant reviews for being a foodie place for Sunday lunch and is always rammed with families. Bit too expensive for me, but I suspect that kind of meet up would work better.

[DontMakeMeShushYou]

NoIDontWatchLoveIsland

I could have happily done all of those things without an issue with both of mine but, you know, not all toddlers are the same.

What is clear though is that even people who actually have toddlers of their own can be pretty clueless. Your 'favourites' are perfectly viable options for some of us. They may not work for you but to treat other people as though they are ignorant not to know that, makes you ... well ... a bit ignorant.

[karencantobe]

@ThisBear I assumed Wacky Warehouse, which I think is a horrible place unless you want to get drunk and leave your kids to run around the soft play.

[mrsm43s]

You sound ludicrously inflexible.

Fine dining is inappropriate for a toddler, but eating lunch in a standard high street chain restaurant (think Pizza Express/Prezzo/Frankie and Benny/Wagamama etc) would surely be fine? Plenty of toddlers in them whenever I go on a Saturday lunchtime, and they normally have crayons etc out.

Can't see what's wrong with late afternoon as a meet up time?

No-one ever wants to meet early morning, or eating in a soft play - seriously!

You could also consider, shock horror, leaving your toddler with his Dad (or arranging other childcare), and going out for a few hours without him...