The Best Toddler Restaurant Tips
Taking Your Toddler to a Restaurant?
Does taking your toddler to a restaurant seem too overwhelming or have you not quite figured out the best way to entertain your child while there? Are you in need of some toddler restaurant tips?
Every parent of a toddler has asked these questions. Toddlers are their own little humans and it can be very daunting to take your child out to eat in a restaurant. (Trust me I know. Toddlers are hard ya’ll.)
Here are 5 of the best toddler restaurant tips to make your outing much more enjoyable and help you feel more confident in yourself and your sweet and crazy toddler!
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5 Toddler Restaurant Tips
1. Choose the Right Restaurant
There are easier restaurants to bring toddlers to and enjoy your dinner and there are ones you want to keep for date nights until your child is older.
To make your experience easier, keep to family-friendly / kid friendly restaurants and ones with a louder atmosphere. (At least until your toddler gets the hang of eating out.)
Unfortunately, most play places are being taken out and becoming a thing of the past (at least in the area where we live), but there are still lots of places that are super easy and comfortable to bring your toddlers.
Examples of Fun Restaurants for Kids:
Chick-fil-A
Olive Garden
Mexican Restaurants
Steak and Shake
Diners
Golden Corral (Children under 3 eat free)
Fazoli’s (Check your location for kids eat free night)
IHOP (Check your location for kids eat free night)
Texas Roadhouse (Check your location for kids eat free night)
Most Pizza Shops
Once your toddler understands how restaurants work and the different rules there are while eating out go ahead and try some more fancy places.
Our toddlers can be hard to take out to eat but are also fully capable of going to any restaurant. They just need to be taught the ground rules first and you need to learn how to best handle the situation as well.
2. Time Your Visit Well
As parents, we know our child has a sweet spot for when they are in a good mood.
Try and hit that sweet spot when going out to eat.
Stay clear of nap and bedtimes (if possible).
Try to plan when you get there to make sure it is near when they normally eat.
Making sure there are no outside reasons for them to be upset during dinner will make your dinner that much more likely to be successful.
3. Bring Entertainment
Want to have an enjoyable restaurant experience with your toddler?
Pack some activities for them to play with while waiting for your food.
My biggest tip is to pack activities and toys that do not make noise and do not have a bunch of pieces that go to.
Example of Activities:
(Down below towards the end of the post is a toddler restaurant kit needs list.)
4. Snacks and Drinks
When it comes to our toddler; packing snacks is the key to having a good dinner at a restaurant.
Toddlers can not quite understand how to wait for their food. When at home and we sit down at the table it normally means that the food is ready to eat, but at a restaurant that is probably not the case.
Bring a few extra easy snacks in the diaper bag for them to eat while waiting on the food. This will help them stay content and happy.
Another thing to bring to make your life easier is a toddler cup.
Most restaurants do not have spill-proof cups (which let’s face our sweet toddler needs one.)
5. Bring Your Patience and Flexibility
The last thing to bring is your patience and flexibility.
Being a parent means always needing to be patient and flexible, but going out to eat at a restaurant needs even more than normal.
If you bring your patience and flexibility with you, you are sure to have a great time eating out with your toddler!
Toddler Restaurant Kit
Here is the biggest tip I can give you.
Make a toddler restaurant kit!
We put all the ingredients to the toddler restaurant kit in a small wet bag and just always left it packed in the diaper bag so we would always have it with us while out.
Toddler Restaurant Kit Ingreditants:
Activities
Bib (these are the ones we love because they are easily packable and are washable.)
Snacks
Toddler Restaurant Ideas
Life does not stop after having kids. We still want to go about our normal lives and eat out. And there is no reason why you can’t!
You can still go out to eat and eat at restaurants, just now you need to plan it out a little better and still have a great time!
If you finished reading this blog post on toddler restaurant tips it probably means you have a toddler…. If you plan on taking a road trip soon and want some tips on that as well, here is another post for you! How to survive a road trip with a toddler
