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Infants, Toddlers, & Preschoolers
Do you let your kids bring their stuffed animals to the meal table?
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Anonymous
A trivial question, I know, but both my kids (ages 5 and 2) love their respective "lovey" stuffed animals so much that they want them to sit at the dinner table with us, either on their laps or in chairs of the animals' own.  For no real reason other than not wanting to get the animals messy and general unseemliness , we've been prohibiting this practice, but I wonder if we should just allow it, since I guess it's not really a big deal. Anyone else have this minor issue, and if so, what have you decided?
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Anonymous
| I prefer the animals over the kids. |
Anonymous
| If it's one animal (per kid) giving them their own seat at the table probably couldn't hurt. On the laps is probably asking for grossness. |
Anonymous
| Yes. We don't think it's a big deal. |
Anonymous
| Diego always joins us for dinner and on special nights Baby Jaguar gets to nibble on the leftover scraps. |
Anonymous
| I have the same issue. DD loves to have them with her. It's not a battle I really want to have but it does gross me out. Especially when I hear that someone at school has lice and what if my child and her animals get it before I notice. |
Anonymous
| Nope. And I am pretty lenient as a parent. But then on the other hand, my 5 yo has never asked to do it. |
Anonymous
| Nothing comes to our dinner table except clean hands! No toys, puzzles, books, stuffed animals, etc. |
Anonymous
| We've dined with a giant inflatable horse on the table. Not at the table -- ON the table. Who needs the Inn at Little Washington when you have an electric yellow blow-up pony grinning at you? |
Anonymous
| oh we've had many stuffed animals and other creatures dine with us. sometimes they sample the food too. mostly they just chat. or else my son fills a cup with cheerios and puts it in front of the animal so he can munch on something. |
Anonymous
| Mine brings her invisible animals to the table, does that count. There are a lot of them. |
Anonymous
| My 2-year old DD is starting to want "bunny" (her lovey) with her at ALL times. I prohibit her from taking it out of the house for fear of losing it (god forbid!) but I've been allowing bunny to sit with her while she eats. Today it got so distracting that I had to say "bunny's going to take a nap" and put it in another room. I've decided to ban bunny from mealtime so meals won't take an hour. |
Anonymous
No toys at the table because it would turn into a stuffed animal zoo if I allowed even one. When my kids turned 4.5 I made them keep their loveys in their bedroom. I told them that "big kids" don't carry the lovey around and if they want to spend time with said lovey they could hang in their room. It worked! Now my son cuts up scraps of paper to feed to his bear (in his room, of course). 
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Anonymous
| Not yet (my son's 2.5), but we do let any "invited guests" to sit near on something close -but far enough out of reach not to get dirty. And I explain that we don't want special kitty cat to get dirty. Sometimes there is a small protest, but so far if if I don't give, he is fine with it (I realize things can change at a moment's notice, but right now my son hates when his favorite animals have to disapear for hours to go into the washing machine). |
Anonymous
| Yeah. Not a big deal in our house, it helped him stay appropriately behaved, and he eventually outgrew it. |