Baby Squared - All Comments

re: Eating out With Toddlers: A Primer

Page — Fri, 16 May 2008 14:37:48 GMT

I am an expecting mom myself so I am not sure if these ideas are good, but I came across this blog and I thought you would find this post helpful. I want to believe there is a way.

www.susiej.com/.../dining-in-a-wine-list-restaurant-with-kids

re: Eating out With Toddlers: A Primer

Sheri — Thu, 15 May 2008 03:12:51 GMT

We've gotten by by finding places that will take our order before we get there and our food is waiting for us when arrive. Of course, it works best with pizza, and if you know their menu (get a take out one if you don't). We love the local Italian place for lunch (dinner is too pricey) and they know if they let us do this, they'll see a lot more of us (and we tip REALLY nicely). In fact, the Italian place even removes the Sweet n Low and sugar off the table before we get there, and in the past has even gotten the high chairs in their place. Try it. It worked for us.

re: Eating out With Toddlers: A Primer

Karen — Thu, 15 May 2008 01:01:20 GMT

Danielle - absolutely correct. The local Chinese Buffet knows us well (and by well I mean the ten times or so that we've eaten out with the twins and their younger brother in the three years they've been alive).

Also - ask for carryout. Most restaurants will do this even if they are not normally a "carry out" establishment. Just mention you have three toddlers. =)

re: Eating out With Toddlers: A Primer

mattdm — Wed, 14 May 2008 18:39:05 GMT

Brunch is where it's at. Breakfast, really.

Brunch on Saturdays (#3) at Johnny D's (#4!) in Davis Square. They have #2 already there, and it's generally super-kid-friendly.

When the girls are a little bigger, Renee's in Teele Square is awesome. The food is way above point #4 but they're still not too busy early Saturday morning, and all the staff will gush over your kids.

re: Eating out With Toddlers: A Primer

betty — Wed, 14 May 2008 18:08:09 GMT

we keep thinking the restaurant crazy will pass so we try, try again. not passing. 17-month-olds. most times i look down at my plate and wonder where my food went. i don't remember eating it. i don't know what it tasted like. i don't know if it was good. it's gone. i had to vacuum it into my stomach in between cutting small toddler food bits and saving everything in go go gadget arm's reach. number 5 it is. sniff.

re: Eating out With Toddlers: A Primer

Loona — Wed, 14 May 2008 18:03:46 GMT

Happy Anniversary! As a mother of 10-month old twins, I read this post shuddering and then laughed out loud when I got to #5. Amen.

re: Eating out With Toddlers: A Primer

shm18 — Wed, 14 May 2008 18:01:29 GMT

I'm with tip 5 all the way. It is no fun. I prefer to do take out from restaurants now and enjoy at home, letting the little one run around or do whatever. No stress and we still get to eat good food that we didn't have to be hassled with cooking.

re: Eating out With Toddlers: A Primer

Susie Felber — Wed, 14 May 2008 17:07:07 GMT

I think your tips are awesome! Honestly, that's all I have to say. Oh, wait, one more thing: remember that outdoor cafes are your friend! :)

re: Eating out With Toddlers: A Primer

mombo — Wed, 14 May 2008 03:22:22 GMT

I'm sure this tip gets repeated frequently in annoying parenting magazines all the time, but I didn't know this until I had a kid: Ask the server to bring the kids' food as soon as it's ready. They don't have to wait, and you can help them without your food getting cold. Of course, they'll be closer to done when your food finally arrives, but at least they're not starving beasts. I always hope mine will be sated and slower...dare to dream!

re: Eating out With Toddlers: A Primer

BSB — Tue, 13 May 2008 21:20:24 GMT

I like it all and also agree with Melissa that if you bring lots of family... well many hands you know. We went to Thai with our one year old when his grandparents were visiting and it was easy peasy then silly us went with him a week ago and it was SOOO HARD!!! So far we've had really good luck at the food court at the mall. Sad, I know but all the external stimulus helps a lot, I don't feel as guilty about the mess, and everyone gets to eat whatever they want! HA. We do the nice dinners just us and I must say it is extremely nice to eat out and have no babies in the room.

re: Eating out With Toddlers: A Primer

Danielle — Tue, 13 May 2008 20:57:55 GMT

My best tip: Go to a buffet!! We've discovered that taking our 21 month-old girls to the Indian Buffet works every time! The food is ready immediately (though we still bring food for them) so we can actually eat before they get restless. I swear, it's so much better than waiting for your order.

re: Eating out With Toddlers: A Primer

Karen — Tue, 13 May 2008 17:45:02 GMT

You forgot a rule: Ask for the bill to come with your food.

re: Eating out With Toddlers: A Primer

Eva — Tue, 13 May 2008 17:34:30 GMT

I totally agree on mediocre. When we are on the road and stop for a meal, we now go to annoying chains we never would have frequented before. But they are kid oriented and crayons (when they're not eating them) and kids' menus to play with help. We sometimes say, when we are out, it's so not worth it... but then we do it again a month later.

Also, I started taking one kiddo to lunch occasionally. It's rare one on one time, and so far, they are better behaved when we are one on one.

re: Eating out With Toddlers: A Primer

Melissa — Tue, 13 May 2008 17:29:51 GMT

I'd go with #5 all the way! I have only one, and it's still a fiasco.

Or take your relatives with you. The more people attending, the more helpers to distract/ feed/ move things/ take the baby out for a breather.

re: In which I poison my daughter

Roper — Tue, 13 May 2008 17:03:05 GMT

Hey El Gordo, we'd love to come hang in Dartmouth with you guys! I'll catch you on the goat...

re: Eating out With Toddlers: A Primer

SER — Tue, 13 May 2008 16:13:22 GMT

We went out for brunch on Mothers' Day, and I said to B.: "Is it wrong to leave your kid at home so you can enjoy Mothers' Day brunch?" Because we didn't. No, we were too busy trying to keep S. from stabbing himself or others or upending water glasses or diving from his highchair onto the floor (which he very, very nearly did).

re: Clio goes commando

Jen — Mon, 12 May 2008 21:12:30 GMT

Jane,

You may have redeemed yourself although I would urge you to rethink placing Dirty Dancing ahead of Skatetown USA in Patrick Swayze's body of work. Both though are infinitely superior to Citizen Kane and my 12 year old self will always be enormously grateful to Mr. Swayze for Skatetown's spotlit solo in leather pants. Carry on.

re: Clio goes commando

churlita — Mon, 12 May 2008 15:13:26 GMT

Happy Mother's Day twice to you.

Just so you know, my girls are teenagers and they actually kind of like being blogged about, as long as I don't put anything really private up, which I would never do.

re: Clio goes commando

Roper — Mon, 12 May 2008 14:08:09 GMT

Jen, I knew I'd stir up some controversy by daring to dis the 'dance! Would I win back your respect if I told you that I believe 'Dirty Dancing' to be on par with 'Citizen Kane' if not superior?

re: Clio goes commando

marissa — Mon, 12 May 2008 13:57:11 GMT

"played her pants off"

I will laugh for days about that.

VERY funny post.

Happy Mother's Day!

re: Clio goes commando

Melissa — Mon, 12 May 2008 01:12:26 GMT

Really funny! Happy Mothers Day to you too! (twice)

re: Clio goes commando

betty — Sun, 11 May 2008 17:52:43 GMT

she's a maniac, maniac on the floor...gets sung in our home. often. :)

re: Clio goes commando

Jen — Sat, 10 May 2008 22:42:15 GMT

Jane,

Until now I thought you were an unusually discerning and perceptive writer and generally in the cultural vanguard. Given your review of Flashdance - the single most important/seminal movie of the last 20 years, I may have to seriously rethink that assessment.

re: Regression

AmyE — Fri, 09 May 2008 19:54:46 GMT

I don't know. If you can get your kids excited about going to bed with those things....that sounds really nice.

Amy

Mom to 3

www.sofiabean.com

re: Regression

betty — Fri, 09 May 2008 17:47:41 GMT

we also do the pacifiers only in cribs/car thing (g/b twins 17 months). when i get them up in the morning they put the pacifiers in the drawer themselves and then they are gone until nap time. it actually works! they are into having jobs right now. plus i feel like it is better than me being mean mommy taking them away. they're in control (sort of). in the car they definitely get them b/c i've still got them rear-facing because i am crazy and read too much. this is one break up i am not looking forward to b/c the pacifiers really do help them get to/stay asleep.

re: Regression

Julie — Thu, 08 May 2008 21:36:01 GMT

My b/g twins used pacifiers for sleeping only after about 18 months, and they loved them. Sometimes I would catch my son taking "hits" off of his pacifier when it wasn't time to sleep - he'd sneak into his room and pull it out of his crib and suck on it for a minute and then put it back. If I caught him he'd put it back quickly and walk out of the room. I couldn't help but laugh.

Anyway, when they turned three and we moved them to big beds in their own rooms, I told them that the store wouldn't sell me pacifiers any more because pacifiers were only for babies and my kids were too old. I let them keep the pacifiers they already had (one each) until, about a month later, my son's got a hole in it. So, before they came in to get into bed I pulled his apart so that the top ripped off and then ran into my daugher's room and snipped hers with sissors. We let them find them broken in their beds so that they wouldn't blame us and they both cried heartbreakingly hard when they saw that their pacifiers were broken, especially when we reminded them that we weren't allowed to buy more, but, surprisingly, they both went to sleep pretty easily that night and slept right through. After that, my son never mentioned it again. My daughter said that she missed it for about 2 more nights, but then went on to explain to *us* that pacifiers were for babies.

I'm glad we used pacifiers because they were a great self-soothing tool. We thought we'd get rid of them by the time they were two, but I really think going until they were three was fine (the dr and dentist thoguht so too). They have great sleep habits and I think the pacifiers helped to develop them.

Whatever works!

re: Regression

BSB — Thu, 08 May 2008 20:09:34 GMT

I guess I'm evil because right at a year we switched to sippy's instead of bottle. That was pretty easy. Then about 2 weeks ago (he's almost 14 months) we realized he was getting more and more attached to the Bobo (paci) so we talked about it and decided it would be easier now than in 6 months or a year so we hid all of them for 2 days to see what would happen. He was a little upset but not bad enough for us to break them out again. After a week we threw them all away. YAY!!

Sorry about the fever/ ear infection thing. Fevers are scary. My son had Roseola a month or so ago and I freaked when the thermometer his 104+. So glad it didn't include an infection too that would have been terrible. Hope she's feeling much better now!

re: Regression

Sheri — Thu, 08 May 2008 14:17:30 GMT

I second the at-least-it-isn't-their-thumb comment. Quinn is 4 and still sucks his thumb when he is tired. I always know when that is because the thumb goes in and the index finger rubs (and crushes) the tip of his nose. If it makes you feel any better, I sucked my thumb until I was 5 and my brother didn't get rid of his pacifier until almost that age and our teeth were fine. Best of luck to you and the girls.

re: Regression

Dwtintx — Thu, 08 May 2008 10:04:58 GMT

My daughter was a serious pacifier addict, and we also got her down to using it just in the crib, and then we also had a regression around when she was about 16 months old, so I totally hear you on this series of events (except for the twin part). We had gotten really lax about just taking it away from her first thing in the morning, and hiding it so she didn't see it if she went into her room. If she saw it, she asked for it, and if she didn't see it, she generally forgot about it. So we just had to get tough with ourselves on that, even stopping bringing it with us in the car or when we're out (because we did that too). Lately (at 19-20 months) she's been giving it up all by herself in the mornings, and she's actually fallen asleep in the car without it, so there's hope for us yet. We're also shooting to wean at about age 2, though my pediatrician was all, "Yeah, I like to have them off the pacifier at 18 months." At her 18 month checkup. Like, this is information that could have been useful, I don't know, say 3 or 6 months ago!

Anyway, my advice would be to be really regimented with yourself about taking it away and hiding it and redirecting them if they ask for it during the day. Not easy, I know, and I'm sure double not easy with twins! Good luck! And I'm sorry to hear about Clio's ear.

re: Regression

Megg — Thu, 08 May 2008 01:31:02 GMT

Oh no! We haven's started the pacifier weaning yet and Im not looking forward to it, but we did try the bottle weaning. I am trying the sippy cups, but after new teeth and a giant cold...we regressed as well. Just know you aren't alone!