Re children in restaurant

[Arbesque]

Four of us booked a table in an expensive restaurant last night for 7.30.
About 10 minutes after we'd sat down a couple came in pushing a buggy and with 2 other children in tow. They were seated at the table beside us.
One child kept bashing his spoon off the table, another kept crawling along the wide windowsill so that he was right behind my head, and the baby was kept amused by the father playing peek a boo while she screamed excitedly. This went on and on.

We asked to be moved to another table. There were none available.Then the baby started crying loudly and the toddler got tired and cranky and joined the wailing.

We left without dessert and complained on the way out. They knocked the price of a bottle of wine off our bill.

AIBU to think expensive restaurants, charging a fortune, should have a policy for dealing with situations like this?

We paid a lot of money for a meal we couldn't enjoy.

Anyway, I'd boot any noisy disruptive kids and their parents straight out of my restaurant. If they can't keep their kids under control, then they have no right to be there.

No what is entitled is allowing your DC to crawl around peoples heads and scream.

That isn't ok

Well I took my 2yo DS to the ritz last December for Xmas afternoon tea and he was so good! The waitresses made a fuss of him and we had a fab time. They have a children's menu.. 😉

That is sweet, but what does that have to do with a high end restaurant night out/dinner?

I cannot imagine any sophisticated couple choosing to go for a quiet Christmas tea at the Ritz and expecting intimacy. Its a tourist joint. Hence the menu for DCs.

You do realise children aren’t the property of parents right? They are independent people. Obviously parents need to make their best efforts to manage their children, but you can’t control a child, especially a baby / toddler.

Why do you keep saying “expensive?”😂

Are you trying to imply you have more “class” than the average family who dare to take their kids out with them?

If the level of noise and behaviour was not acceptable for the restaurants standards, policies and health and safety they would have asked those guests to leave. I’m guessing they didn’t?

In future, as I said earlier, if you wish to dine out without hearing children then go to a restaurant that has a 0 tolerance police of under 18s.

The world also doesn’t revolve around you and your need for “peace”.

You probably can if there are no noisy babies and toddlers around. But sometimes there are noisy babies and toddlers around. That is the nature of human society you know! Stop being so entitled!!

You can stop a child crawling around - would you let one crawl into a road.

It’s the baby’s human right to crawl in the road, such entitled drivers encroaching on the baby’s personal freedoms!

@Tandora you can't control a very young DCs actions, but you can certainly control your reactions.

Baby cries- take it out of the restaurant, toddler kicks off - ditto.

That's what I did and missed dessert and lingering enjoyment of meals on a few occasions, but it wasn't the other diners choice that I brought my baby and young DC out.

We stuck to cheaper restaurants when DS was young, precisely because we knew we may have to abandon our mission at any given point.

To a certain extent you can but it’s a trade off. The baby might then start
screaming/ fussing/ squirming out of your arms: sometimes you literally have to pin them down with all your strength- inevitably that induces crying .land you’ll have to let them go at some point. They probably thought allowing the tot to entertain themself crawling along the windowsill was the lesser of two evils.

sorry but realistically if you had to remove your baby and toddler every time it made noise /
disturbance of the nature that was apparently bothering the OP you literally wouldn’t be able to take them to a restaurant.

If that were true thousands of children would die every day in random accidents. But somehow most of us manage to stop our babies from crawling under cars and over cliff tops.

Don’t be silly, Of course you can prevent that but you wouldn’t be able to Necessarily do so in silence!

If they start fussing you take them outside for a while. I have got a profoundly disabled teenager. We still cannot rely on calm outings and relaxing meals. If he gets distressed we have to go outside or leave so I don't think it is too difficult for someone with a baby or toddler to do this.

sorry but realistically if you had to remove your baby and toddler every time it made noise /
disturbance of the nature that was apparently bothering the OP you literally wouldn’t be able to take them to a restaurant.

That's right. If you can't keep your child's noise under control then don't take them to restaurants. Plenty of people manage to take their kids out and they can behave themselves. Other parents seemingly aren't capable of this. In which case, stay at home or go and join your tribe at pizza hut.

I have four kids but voted YANBU. when mine were young I wouldn't have taken them to a restaurant after 5PM as I knew they'd be disruptive and other diners wouldn't be able to enjoy their meal

Only when they were able to sit nicely and talk at reasonable volumes would I take them out later than that

YABU. Children are people too. They are obviously allowed in restaurants and they are noisy. This sort of attitude is incredibly entitled

Sorry but YABU @Tandora. Of course children are noisy, but when in a restaurant a considerate parent tries to keep their children's noise down. Your rather defensive answer indicates that you don’t try and get your children to behave while in public. You also sound incredibly entitled.

As for allowing them to crawl about and run around, this is rather dangerous when hot food and drink is being carried around.

I’ve taken my children to plenty of high end restaurants and never had an issue with them kicking off because I stopped them disturbing another table. I’ve had to step outside with a crying baby or a restless toddler to stop other people being disturbed by their noise but that’s reasonable when you take small children to restaurants. It’s not reasonable to claim you can’t control your children and therefore others must just suffer.

Never mind the OP that they were disturbing then?

Of course you can stop DC climbing around peoples heads.

Of course you can stop DC climbing around peoples heads.

Of course. But some people can't be bothered.

They probably thought allowing the tot to entertain themself crawling along the windowsill was the lesser of two evils.

They probably did, and it was entitled of them to think so. If you have a child whose only modes are “be left to bother people” or “scream in protest” then you’re not yet ready for a restaurant.

You know nothing of my parenting or my children thanks. Actually my kids have a reputation for being of the most well behaved and generally calm and compliant Of their peers. What’s entitled is people who think that they don’t have to share the world with children, and aren’t willing to acknowledge that children are inevitably more noisy and disruptive than adults. Children are allowed out in public and thanks to child rights movements gone are the days when we expect children to be “seen and not heard”.

Yanbu. Especially when you have forked out for a babysitter for your own kids ad the subjected to kids using the restaurant as a playground and screaming their little heads off