Put your frikking babies to bed!

[Plsdiscuss]

I went for a very exclusive dinner Saturday night. I'd been looking forward to it for ages. £150 per head place, which is a huge splurge for us.

A family of 4 were seated next to us at their 7.45pm arrival. The (about) 3 yr old was 50% pacified. The (about) 9 month old in the high chair squawked for about 30 mins then fell asleep, looking very uncomfortable slumped over the side of the highchair.

If their noise wasn't bad enough, I could hear another child crying in another part of the restaurant for about an hour. That child's noise got louder as they were pushed in their pram crossing the restaurant to leave around 9pm. I commented and gestured to my partner. I wasn't as subtle as I thought in this, as the mum looked cross, waved her arm at me and mouthed fuck off.

When my now adult children were that small, they were in bed by 7.30, unless there was an event like a wedding. We got babysitters for evening meals out...very rare as very hard to get babysitters. I would never have dreamt of taking my under 5s to quiet intimate adult spots, then letting them cry for the majority. For 1, I wouldn't have enjoyed my food and 2, neither would those around me.

There's a reason deliveroo exists. Use it. And stop being so frikking selfish. Babies need sleep, not fine dining.

Our favourite local is a good bet. Steep rickety stairs up to the restaurant. Same for the loos. Zero space for high chairs or prams. Guaranteed child free.

If the venue thinks people who want to bring their kids out are a more attractive group of clientele than people who want a childfree space, tough fucking tits. That's capitalism. And before anyone asks, yes the same is true in reverse.

Spot on. To change the example - I don’t like dogs and I hate eating in restaurants where they are. So I’ll sometimes check - “do you allow dogs?”. If the answer is yes, then I’ll book somewhere else. Which is fine. They’re allowed to have a dog friendly strategy and I don’t have to eat there. Same with allowing small kids for later bookings. Just phone and ask.

Unfortunately it's the way it is now OP. This is why I choose adult only places to go these days. Parents are entitled to take their kids out, whether they will disturb others or not. They just don't care.

In future you'll have to ring ahead and ask if there's a cut off time for kids and then give the place a swerve.

I don't mind children in restaurants in general but I never understand why people take their kids to fancy restaurants!

It's like they can't accept how that part of their life is on hold for a bit, so dig their heels in and carry on even though it's absolutely not enjoyable to be in those places whilst trying to entertain little ones.

Quite Right

A meal which starts at 7:45pm is not a normal mealtime for a toddler and a baby, which is quite obvious from the fact that the baby in question fell asleep in their high chair 30 minutes later.

Most people understand this, which is why if they go out to an expensive restaurant at that time they don't expect it to be full of noisy kids.

But if a few entitled parents don't understand this then I think more restaurants should have a no kids after 7:30pm rule.

And I say that as the mother of a three year old and a one year old.

This is sensible.

There is a lot to unpick here.

Firstly, I think it is a good thing introducing children to restaurants, particularly nice places as it will teach them how to behave and appreciate good quality food. However, parents should always balance this with the comfort and enjoyment of others, and make it age appropriate. Just because an establishment doesn't explicitly ban children, it doesn't mean its open season for Bluey on full blast and toddler meltdowns.

There have been plenty of replies to this thread saying how their children are fine staying up a bit later on occasion and do well at restaurants, which is a bit of a pointless response to the OP because it featured a baby and a toddler, and a baby and a toddler that were clearly not coping well with being up late and being in a restaurant. You take a baby and a toddler to a nice place past their bed time you are setting the poor kids up for a fail, I don't know why you'd do it to yourself to be honest!

If the establishment is reasonably high end, at a dinner service perhaps the staff should have had a quiet word with the parents, but I can understand why they wouldn't by some of the posts on here. The response would have ranged from abuse to trip adviser reviews, to a 'sad face' article in a newspaper, and cause them more hassle than it was worth, which is sad and unfair.

I don't think OP huffing and throwing her arms in the air is particularly helpful, and a parent who, for want a better phrase, knows they've fucked up is unlikely to respond positively to this. But I can understand the frustration as this meal sounded like a nice treat. I don't really care what some Michelin meal in London costs, dropping £300 on a meal is a decent spend. If you think £300 is a cheapy, bully for you, but take your comments to poshnet or whatever. To some people £100k is a shite car, good for you, I'm not jealous, just don't be a dick about it.

To respond to several things
No children's menu.
No typical child dishes (although my children rarely ate beige food at that age)
I didn't even think to ask if children were welcome after a certain time, as it is an adult venue and has been for years.

I feel sorry for the businesses who it now seems, by some on this thread, are expected to spell things out to ignorant parents... This is an adult place for adult people. They've got a message on their website saying dogs aren't welcome...are children the next expected message businesses need to be clear on?

I taught my children to eat out at lunch times. When they were awake and amenable. Not when they were tired and squeaky. That poor boy slumped over the side of the highchair was how the conversation started with my partner. The baby was in that position for at least one of our courses. How uncomfortable for him... But hey, at least the parents (and us) could have a bit of peace while he slept. Selfish selfish selfish.

And those saying we should have eaten later...

We were seated at 7.30. We finished our drinks at closing at 11pm. It was an event meal. How much later should we have been seated?!

They've got a message on their website saying dogs aren't welcome...are children the next expected message businesses need to be clear on?

It would be an idea not to provide highchairs if they aren't, yes. Unless we're about to hear that the parents in question brought their own?

I have three children under 5. There is no way I'd ever bring them to a fine dining place when they're obviously going to be extremely tired and miserable, and share that misery to other diners.

We do take them to nice restaurants but at a time of day when we know everyone will be in a good mood.

We would not have let our DC disturb other diners and then mouthed swearing across the room. That on its own tells you all you need to know.
Totally agree with this 😆

Funnily enough, the last time we took our children out for dinner we did bring our own high chair for our one year old in case they didn't have one. It turned out they didn't, so it came in useful. We didn't think to check whether they had high chairs or a no children policy when we called to book the table, so the decision to take the high chair was a spur of the moment one which turned out to be well judged.

But it was an Indian restaurant where the entire bill for five adults and two children came to less than 150 quid, and our booking was for 6pm.

I may expect to find highchairs in use at lunchtime or early in the evening, but not at 8pm.

I wouldn't expect their occupants to be disturbing others at any time of day!

And the fact that the kids sound like they're having no fun whatsoever? Sounds a bit selfish parenting to me.

OK. My point was that if OP was now going to tell us they brought their own highchairs, that would be quite a convenient drip feed and is the sort of info that ought to have been included in the first post.

LOL what?? Dinner at 9? Your poor metabolism!

It's not a sensible idea to make assumptions about what a private venue provides to customers. The onus is on you to check, if its important to you. The behaviour of those customers is a different point again.

It was big.
It was wooden.
I didn't ask the family if they owned it or not.

I presume not 😉

Most sane parents I know with young DC and babies would never take them to restaurants of an evening because they want to get away from their children then but are also respectful of other patrons.

The one exception to the rule would be eg if it were a special birthday but again this is kept mostly to lunch/daytimes.

The woman mouthing Fuck Off would probably have had me mouthing the same back to her and giving her the finger back.

Is it that relevant though?

As a PP has pointed out, I think it would be reasonable to expect a restaurant which welcomes children to have high chairs for children to use at an appropriate time of the day/evening, but not to expect there to be children actually eating after a certain time.

Unfortunately I think as more and more parents seem happy for their children to ruin everyone else's dining experience, we are going to see more and more places introducing rules about children, which risks spoiling things for families who are more considerate of others.

I was looking for a restaurant for a family event recently and I found a place which looked absolutely perfect in terms of the location and the menu, but had a no child policy. It's a shame because I wanted to book for lunchtime and they had a private dining room which was exactly the right size for our group, but if they have a no child policy then that's too bad. There will be a reason why they decided to put that rule in place, and it's probably because of parents like the ones the OP is referring to.

But you don’t know what a normal meal time is for other families. Just because it’s not your normal, doesn’t mean it’s not theirs. The restaurant allows children at that time, so it’s not up to the op to judge families for taking their children there.

There is no way I'd ever bring them to a fine dining place when they're obviously going to be extremely tired and miserable, and share that misery to other diners.

This - though big reason for this is that's a lot of money to us and I would have found it very stressful to be dealing with tried grouchy kids.

I'm not anti -children being places - as often had that directed at me preventatively when my kids were young despite fact they can did behave well - and some kids can cope with odd late night but these days so many parents don't seem to manage their kids well and expect others to expect to accept poor behavior.

It's clearly not a normal meal time for that family's baby, otherwise he wouldn't have been asleep dangling over the side of his high chair.

When I take my children out for dinner I book at 6pm because I know they will be awake and interested in eating at that time.

Well its pretty obvious from their behaviour that it wasn't normal for them.

Dinner at 8.30/ 9 is perfectly normal for most people? If I’m going to a restaurant with friends (kid free!) I’d book for 8.30 as normal. If I booked for 7 I wouldn’t be surprised to see kids there.