Bringing baby to a nice restaurant

[Anonymous]

PP, if it does happen to be a couple's anniversary, and they do feel compelled to go out after their babysitter has cancelled, may they have the where with all to go to a less expensive restaurant in order to truly be CONSIDERATE of others. WHAT a concept. I know this is D.C. and all. But really, suck it up.

Chances are greater there are others who went through the burden and expense of hiring a babysitter to actually ENJOY the evening. Is this all that difficult?

I have only seen a baby/small child at a fancy restaurant a couple times, and I must say I have never seen that parent do the right thing and whisk the child away when the noise begins. If you want to have a self-entitlement contest, by all means. But I would think the remainder of the patrons who are also paying good money will see fit to retaliate. As I have also seen.

[Anonymous]

The antagonism toward parents is sooo tedious. Here's the thing, OP. You're nice to be courteous enough to consider others. Your child is a human, too. If she is a quiet baby, you can absolutely take her wherever you want. Despite the fact that your child may be sitting quietly, some freaks will be turned off and repulsed and have their evenings ruined by your child. But in a way, you are doing these people a favor because people like that tend to enjoy working themselves into a froth over something as small as your child. You probably gave them the only interesting conversation they are going to enjoy tonight. Plus, some of these people think that Morton's is what constitutes a "really nice place." LOL.

We take our 20 month old out constantly. We don't often frequent the best of the best, but we do go to upscale places. My child, right now, is quiet and does not throw food. People always remark on how well-behaved he is in restaurants. It's not because we're doing anything different from anyone else, though... It's just because he's there a lot. It's not novel or weird for him. We bring books for him.

The moment his behavior starts to change, we'll probably stop taking him to nicer places for a while. But the behavior may never change! I can't tell you how many times I've sat next to people blathering too loudly to their companions about some work story that's full of "me me me me and then I said and then I was like me me me me me" or worse, people yapping on their cell phones, or worse, the aforementioned idiotic loud drunks. A quiet tot in a restaurant is sweet.

And for those who disagree, "oh well."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP, if it does happen to be a couple's anniversary, and they do feel compelled to go out after their babysitter has cancelled, may they have the where with all to go to a less expensive restaurant in order to truly be CONSIDERATE of others. WHAT a concept. I know this is D.C. and all. But really, suck it up.

Chances are greater there are others who went through the burden and expense of hiring a babysitter to actually ENJOY the evening. Is this all that difficult?

I have only seen a baby/small child at a fancy restaurant a couple times, and I must say I have never seen that parent do the right thing and whisk the child away when the noise begins. If you want to have a self-entitlement contest, by all means. But I would think the remainder of the patrons who are also paying good money will see fit to retaliate. As I have also seen.

I would love to see this. I mean, really, grown people retaliating at a "good" restaurant? Tell me how they do it. Do they throw water on the couple? Do they yell at the baby? Let the air out of their stroller tires? Please. Just shut up and go back to clutching your pearls.

[Anonymous]

Wouldn't you like to know. Especially directed at those attempting to play apathetic.

[Anonymous]

We took our child to nice restaurants until he was about 14 months old (before he could walk). I think it depends on the child. We had a easy going, quiet, rarely cried, never shrieked baby who people did not know was even in the room unless they saw us. We are members of private clubs in DC and NYC and we ate in the formal dining rooms w/baby very often: Never a problem and DS was well behaved enough to be welcomed and invited back. A lot of fancy restaurants (and our club in NYC) don't allow strollers - a not so subtle hint that their users are not welcome, no high chairs either. I wore DS in a Baby Bjorn and we did just fine. The rule for these kinds of places for us was that as long as the baby did not do anything that made his presence known to other diners we were "good." Any noise then we were out of there. We did stop taking him to fancy places after he started to walk and could move/run around but started taking him again when he was almost 4 when he could follow the rules: he has to sit and stay there from beginning to end, no noise, yelling, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Wouldn't you like to know. Especially directed at those attempting to play apathetic.

Huh?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am no more bothered by a child at a nicer restaurant than I am by a table of loud people who've had too much wine. As long as the child isn't screaming at the top of his lungs or throwing her food across the restaurant, I really don't care. Annoying people are annoying people, regardless of age. Appropriate behavior is expected at a nice restaurant, and if a child knows how to behave, then why would it bother me for them to be there?

Yup, when I get a vote on how my fellow restaurant-goers conduct themselves - how much perfume they wear, how much they drink, how loud they laugh or tell jokes, how much of the server's attention they require, how long they sit after having paid the bill, cellphone usage - I will consider give them a vote on my child. Going out to a restaurant, even a nice one, means lots of things, including eating in a room full of strangers, any number of whose behaviors will effect your experience. Restaurant patrons need to be prepared for that, including for the behaviors of the very young. The comments about taking children away from the table at the first sign of a shriek, however, are on point, just as you would expect an adult whose behavior was for some reason well outside the bounds of generally accepted restaurant behavior to leave the dining room.

Having said that, I would not bring my ds to a nice restaurant because at age 3, his behavior is not reliably good enough for me to be able to relax and enjoy myself.

[Anonymous]

When I'm out at a restaurant alone with my husband, I am always just so happy to be in his company and to have a nice chat that I wouldn't care if the entire Duggar family was at the next table.

[Anonymous]

I think the time is everything. We frequently take our kid to nicer (not super high end but not "family") restaurants but we only do it around 5:30. There are always other families at that time, yet it's not crowded yet so you aren't bothering the people on dates or who don't want to be disturbed by kids. Try it, I'm sure you'll witness the same thing. As a result our toddler, who is not chill by any measure, knows how to behave in restaurants, and is exposed to more foods than chicken fingers and Mac and cheese. As a pp mentioned, I don't want to raise an Applebees kid.

[Anonymous]

No. Get a sitter.

Nice and not fussy ? Great. Should be a breeze to get a sitter.

Stink smelly soggy diapers at the next table-- no thank you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:PP, if it does happen to be a couple's anniversary, and they do feel compelled to go out after their babysitter has cancelled, may they have the where with all to go to a less expensive restaurant in order to truly be CONSIDERATE of others. WHAT a concept. I know this is D.C. and all. But really, suck it up.

Chances are greater there are others who went through the burden and expense of hiring a babysitter to actually ENJOY the evening. Is this all that difficult?

I have only seen a baby/small child at a fancy restaurant a couple times, and I must say I have never seen that parent do the right thing and whisk the child away when the noise begins. If you want to have a self-entitlement contest, by all means. But I would think the remainder of the patrons who are also paying good money will see fit to retaliate. As I have also seen.

I would love to see this. I mean, really, grown people retaliating at a "good" restaurant? Tell me how they do it. Do they throw water on the couple? Do they yell at the baby? Let the air out of their stroller tires? Please. Just shut up and go back to clutching your pearls.

Clutching pearls? Couldn't you come up with your own words? Loser.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We do. Our only issue has been others who think it's cute to wave and distract our child when we are trying t

Ah, this has to be one of the most ironic representations of entitlement on this forum (and that's saying a lot). Feel free to bring their child to a fancy eating place. Don't care if their child disturbs others. Are offended when people notice their child in a positive way. Are you trying to win the prize for most inane posts ever or you truly someone who needs to go back living under a rock?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We do. Our only issue has been others who think it's cute to wave and distract our child when we are trying t

Ah, this has to be one of the most ironic representations of entitlement on this forum (and that's saying a lot). Feel free to bring their child to a fancy eating place. Don't care if their child disturbs others. Are offended when people notice their child in a positive way. Are you trying to win the prize for most inane posts ever or you truly someone who needs to go back living under a rock?

No, I want people to respect our dinner time as a family and not engage my child and distract him. You don't want him walking up to your table bothering you, so why would you assume I want the same from you. Yes, I do find the comments a bit annoying when my child is acting n what others consider in a positive way as I consider it how kids should act when they are out and he's not doing anything more special than any other child with a parent who parents and teaches good manners. My child has never screamed in the 1 1/2 we've taken him out and other dinners are far more loud and rude than he'll ever be. Its pretty presumptuous to me to assume a child will scream and act up.

[Anonymous]

Typical D.C. spin does not work on those who have been here too long and has a tendency to backfire hard.

- Ancient Chinese Proverb

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We do. Our only issue has been others who think it's cute to wave and distract our child when we are trying t

Ah, this has to be one of the most ironic representations of entitlement on this forum (and that's saying a lot). Feel free to bring their child to a fancy eating place. Don't care if their child disturbs others. Are offended when people notice their child in a positive way. Are you trying to win the prize for most inane posts ever or you truly someone who needs to go back living under a rock?

No, I want people to respect our dinner time as a family and not engage my child and distract him. You don't want him walking up to your table bothering you, so why would you assume I want the same from you. Yes, I do find the comments a bit annoying when my child is acting n what others consider in a positive way as I consider it how kids should act when they are out and he's not doing anything more special than any other child with a parent who parents and teaches good manners. My child has never screamed in the 1 1/2 we've taken him out and other dinners are far more loud and rude than he'll ever be. Its pretty presumptuous to me to assume a child will scream and act up.

There is definitely something wrong with you.