So this couple walk into a restaurant with an oldish toddler......

[Flum]

... sit down at a table, get out a portable DVD player, plonk it in front of him and switch it on.

Is this normal behaviour? Would you do this?

Judge, Judge, Judge away.....

It must be great to be such a perfect parent - no doubt you have intellectual discussions with your young children at the table - the rest of the world get by the best they can - if the child is not disturbing your meal, what on earth has it got to do with you? Call me judgey - I won't hear you of course because I'll be looking over his shoulder at the DVD player...

I can imagine doing this if I were on holiday (and presumably this couple were) and we just needed food to eat. Wouldn't do it for a fun night out. If you aren't self catering and there aren't any pizza express type restaurants what do you do? Toddlers just don't make good dinner companions in my experience. Not their fault. Its just the way they're made.

Incidentally, DS and DD were both marvellous dinner companions at 12 weeks. Could take them anywhere.

flum

i saw the comment about typing on t'other thread
i am watchign you

I am not judging either way. Not sure. However, I know a family who make a huge song and dance about not having a TV at home, yet they do this with a portable DVD or laptop at every mealtime out, every flight and every car journey. I think that is dumb.

I do it with Ds. It stops him rampaging as he can't deal with waiting well. (ASD)

If it makes my day a little less stressful then sod anyone else. My iPod works well for a few episodes of Spongebob or Wallace and Gromit too!

I'm becoming less tolerant of judgy people in RL. I'm not going to hide my Ds away for no-one. I'm so glad my DS doesn't echo My language.

I am not an old crone but I think it is terrible to get game boys/dvd/psp /ds lite fucking qwe into a restaurant.

I really cannot believe that anyone here would really do that and feel okay about it.

better than leaving him in a hotel room by himself I guess.

I find the time between ordering and eating painful - as others have said. We also have had times when the dds' meals have come out way before ours and they are finished when our meals arrive and so it is a nightmare trying to eat your food without trying to give yourself indigestion because you are so quickly trying to eat and go cause the dds are at the end of their time limit.

We try to have conversations with the dds about what they have done that day, what we will do tomorrow but when one has sn the conversation is not that long.

I guess it is one of those - each to their own.

pmsl at the shining example of the 12 week old who gets included in the conversation...

You wait, just you wait...

I probably would not get DVD or DS out at dinner table tbh, but ds1 and ds2 will take theirs on holiday because it will keep them sat down in one spot (i.e. safe and in our vision) in the airport and also a way to lure them in to the villa at the hottest part of the day.

Just ds3 to deal with then

Sorry, but sometimes what you think is absolutely teh perfect way to go about things is just not always the way you do go when you occasionally want to make life a bit easier on yourself. Hence I gave ds3 a swizzels lolly at 10am this morning while I was trying to sort the car out at the garage.

i obviously don't have my judgey pants on today and my unjudgey pants say - what a fecking brilliant idea

We have eaten out quite a lot with DD (although on tight budget just now ) She is very good, but only if she can get up and run amok. So we are choosy about where we eat. Anything with a long wait is a no no - like you say, there are are only so many times you can line up the sugar!!

I don't go o restaurants with the children if I can avoid it. '40 pounds for indigestion summed it up beautifully.

ChairmumMiaow, fab posting name, but you do (in the nicest possible way) sound a little PFB.

I would love to be able to go out for a meal and take a dvd player....would stop all the squabbling instantly.

nope, strike that, it wouldn;t as then they would squabble over what to watch instead !!!

ho hum.......heres to a few more years of expensive indegestion

Message withdrawn

No its not ideal but when we were on holiday recently our alternatives for the evenings were

-getting a babysitter we had never met before (not appealing to us) to sit in the room with DS(2.5) while we went out for dinner (or leaving him alone)

-eating at 5pm and spending the evening whispering in our room or on the balcony (or we could have got room service and done the same)

-taking ds to dinner with us, when he is tired, not hungry and only inclined to run round a restaurant, climb all over us and generally be a PITA so that we end up bolting down food, often taking turns to chase after him, try and entertain him, leaving the other alone at the table

-or previous choice, but with a DVD player which enabled us to eat and chat together in a relatively civilised fashion while he zoned out watching Madagascar (quietly).

Sorry to the judgey ones - after trying options 2 and 3 a couple of times, we did the last one with a dvd player we had bought to entertain him on the long haul flight. We eat other meals together at home - in and out (without a dvd) but would not contemplate attempting dinner out with him, its no fun for us and not fair to expect him to behave and enjoy it at his age, particularly at that time of day. Congratulations to those of you with toddlers who are perfect dinner companions though, you must be v proud and i bet you have lovely hols!

I think it's a great idea, and can't see what the problem is tbh

If you have a child who is well behaved and good company in a restaurant - GREAT!

If you choose not to go to restaurants with your child - GREAT!

If you give your child toys/games/sweets/crayons/dvd players to amuse them in restaurants - GREAT!

If your child is a pain in the arse and irritates all other diners and staff in restaurants - then I'll be judgey!

gawd

I'd actually rather see a child watch a DVD than have to listen to most of the 'yes we're having a fantastically interesting and stimulating conversation at with our exceptionally well behaved and advanced child, do listen to how loud and competitive involved we are' soundtracks that I hear out and about TBH

I think it's a brilliant idea - inspired.

I'm disappointed.

I was expecting a punch-line to go with the thread title.

very sad

but very tempting.....

Wish I'd thought to take a dvd player out with us on Friday night, big family meal out that went on a lot later than anticipated. By 10pm the 10 year olds were getting bored & wanted to play outside. And because they couldn't they then started to get very annoying...ggrrr.

My kids take their game boys which they play on silent in the waiting bits. When the food arrives they are expected to take part in conversation etc.

Its one of those strange things, a compromise. They are quite happy to go out to eat, and behave very, very well. We can do a full 5 course Frence dinner of 3 hours if we want.

Some people on MN seem to expect perfect adult behaviour instantly. Talk about making a rod for your back.....

So SAD