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[quote=Anonymous]We have an 18 month old and family dinner takes about 30 minutes. He's fine in his high chair that long.

In your situation I would do a few things:

1) Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good. What you're doing right now is great. 4 and 1.5 and you've set up regular family dinners? You're doing awesome.

2) I might try to stretch out the time the kids are at the table a bit, while making it fun. 10-15 minutes is awfully fast. Maybe after 10 minutes try playing some little games or otherwise engaging the kids? We've had a lot of luck with singing some songs, practicing deep breathing (my toddler loves this! Don't know why!), reviewing body parts ("where's your nose?") and just little silly things like tilting our head from side to side and he copies us. I don't know what would engage a four year old, but there's gotta be some stuff. It seems much easier to me to deal with the kids at the table then to wrangle them once they're no longer sitting down (or at least that's absolutely true for our toddler, a four year old who knows?)

3) Talk to your husband! "We've gotten in this groove where I'm rushing to finish my dinner and refereeing the kids, while you get to leisurely eat your dinner, and it doesn't strike me as fair." See what he says - maybe there's a way you can find a compromise - like he does some of the refereeing too, and agrees to finish eating in 30 minutes. [/quote]

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