Books at the dining table for toddler?

[Fancypanda23]

We have gotten into the habit of allowing our 3 year old to read books when eating breakfast and dinner. It started when he was a year old as a way of coaxing him into his high chair. But now it's stopping him from eating his dinner, concentrating on using his utensils and having a chat with us.
As of yesterday we said at dinner no more books and explained why. Even serving his favourite food he just said NO, that he was finished and left the table. Same thing again at breakfast.
Our dilemma is now getting him to stay at the table to eat his food without being forced or punitive discipline. I'm thinking we have our dinner, stay firm on no books, and say that food is here if he wants it and try not to turn it into a battle/big deal. Easier said than done!
So I just wondered... do you let kids bring books/toys to the dinner table? Do you make them stay at the table until they eat everything? Do you deny a treat if they don't eat their dinner? Thanks!

I've had phases of reading to mine while they eat. Sometimes we listen to music or an audio book. You could try that? BBC Sounds has some Postman Pat stories that mine really enjoyed. Personally, every meal is followed by "pudding", which 98% of the time is fruit. Our rule around that age was everything needs to be tried before pudding. My eldest is now 4 and she now has to try everything and eat the majority of her vegetables before pudding. This works for us! Personally we do treat stuff more as like part of a day out and mine would have to be behaving obscenely to have it removed.

We've never done books at the table but my son regularly brings toys. I always just put them in the middle or to the side so they don't get food on them or they can watch him eating his food. Maybe try gradually moving them away until they're gone/forgotten rather than totally removing them?

Thank you. We got on better this evening, after a bit of protesting the book was placed on the table and read afterwards. We'd gone to ikea today so we all had a great time chatting about it and eating. I like the idea of having to at least try everything once.
Fruit for pudding is a nice idea, he loves watermelon so that could work. And yes to the treat being during the day like a hot chocolate or ice cream, I learnt the hard way having done ice cream for dessert during the summer then it was like dinner was ice cream!
All trial and errors over here!

I didn’t introduce Booja to mealtimes but would sometimes put in a simple audiobook fkr them to listen to whilst we ate.