Do you let your toddlers wander while eating?

[lemontree]

DS is 15mths.

He was a HUGE (I mean 5 big poops a day) eater until recently.  He is currently getting all 4 molars (poor baby...) and also he started walking 2 months ago and now really really really wants to go go go.  So, he's eating less. a lot less. He still nurses a ton... I know this is normal toddler behavior....but I find that he will sign "all done" and want to get out of his high chair while he's still eating.  And he gets MAD if I don't take him out.  So I take him out...and I feel like he isn't done eating...so I give him some ezekial toast or something and he happily eats it while walking up and down the hallway.

I'm torn.  There is the choking hazard thing...and the "should I enforce eating at the table" question.  But then I'm like, he needs to eat!  And he will eat while moving, so I should just relax maybe?  When we are out at the park or something he wanders when he's eating, there's no way to prevent that. 

How do you all handle this?

[hopefulfaith]

I was scrolling down the front page & saw your question - my kids are a little older now, but I was curious as to what others said.  :)

My policy has always been that our family eats in the kitchen, at the table.  I never allowed wandering while eating, and if my kids were in the high chair at the table and signaled that they were done, I let them down and they scampered off.  Even if I felt they weren't done and I would just have to put them back in fifteen minutes, I cut them loose and let them go --- without food.  If they wanted to eat again, I had no problem putting them back in their chairs and giving them their food back.

Now that my kids are 5 & 4, this has worked out really well for us.  My kids eat at the table for snacks and meals and they sit down in their chairs to do it -- I don't have any half-eaten, forgotten food anywhere in the house that I find six weeks later....and even better, they associate sitting down at the table with eating and they actually have pretty good table manners for a preschooler and a kindergartener.

Just my .02.  :)

[Courtney-Ostaff]

Yes and no.  My one firm rule is that we all sit down like the Cleaver family every night, about 5pm and have a real meal, together, with no toys, etc.  She's allowed to get up and leave when she's done.  For the other meals, she can eat on the sofa or at her kids table.  She's never wanted to walk around with her food.

[maptome]

DD eats meals at the table.  She's a picky eater and a skinny girl, so I worry.  She has a snack table that I keep stocked throughout the day.  It has a little bowl of fruit and her sippy cup with water.  I like it because she can eat on her own if she gets hungry, and she knows to keep her food there.

[ASusan]

We call that "nomadic eating" and we don't allow it. Your DS will eat when he's hungry and when food is offered. He won't starve himself just because he's able to eat at the same time he's playing.

We have an open concept house, and it would make a mess if DS just wandered around eating. Plus, we are concerned about choking. We don't generally allow jumping on the furniture, but jumping happens, as does racing around, and food could easily become inhaled.

If it's not a sit-down dinner at the dining room table with mom and dad, DS can eat at the kitchen counter or at his child-sized table, which is in a corner of the "dining room" area. SOMEtimes, he has a finger-snack in a bowl, and the bowl says on the child table and DS is wandering around and comes back for bites, but we generally prefer he sits and eats.

In nice weather, he can eat outside on the deck. DH enforces "eat at the deck table" whereas I let him wander on the deck, but his bowl generally stays at the table.

We also do not allow him to eat anything in his car seat. He can have sips of water when one of us holds the water bottle, but we feel that eating in the car is a choking hazard. I also cringe to think of how much MORE messy our car would be if DS ate in it. This rule may change as the car seat gets turned around (we can see him better) and DS gets older (he can manage his food better, not that he has particular problems in this area).

[kismetbaby]

I have to chime in. . .pre-baby I would have said that absolutely children (including toddlers) should eat sitting down and at the table.  But then I had DS! :)  Who is also 15m. This child hates to sit still, always has. He hates the car seat, hates the high chair. He has about a 10min window before he becomes squirmy and miserable. The stroller and the Ergo are fine as long as we are moving (and he does love to eat snacks in the stroller).  

To top it all off, he's a picky eater and was late to get into solids (he still BF for at least 50%-75% of his calories).  So I have decided that some rules are good, but I have to be flexible for him too.  So I allow a lot of wandering, free-range eating. If it's something like cheerios, then I give him a little bowl of them and let him be in charge of them. Often he will take them to his play area and sit down with them himself. Or he'll leave the bowl on a table/surface and wander back to it for each bite.  If he spills them I ask him to pick them up and then help him do so.  To be honest, I am not that worried about choking as I moniter the situation and would take the food away if he started to play wildly. If the food is messy, then he gets bites off of a spoon that I control and I sit in one place (at the kitchen table most often) and he can come back and forth to the spoon/me.  He will often sit in my lap and eat, but this doesn't allow me to eat my dinner in peace.

As he gets older I will try and encourage eating sitting down at the table and someday it will be required. . .but for now I don't think he is able developmentally to sit and eat like a grown-up.  I'm thinking I'm going to get him his own little table and chairs, I think he will respond better to sitting at something his size.

I guess I'm in the minority in this, but I really don't have a problem with it or feel that it is harmful in anyway. Eventually he will sit and eat a whole meal.

[lemontree]

Hm. 

I'm thinking I should stop allowing the "nomadic eating" at home.  I only started it because he started eating so much less...but you're right, he won't let himself starve.  He and I love to sit on the floor together and share a clementine...maybe I'll save that for picnics in the park? 

What do you do about food when you're out and about? 

He is a high energy man....

I never let him eat in the car seat.

If we are someplace without high chairs he will not stay on my lap...so he'll eat and pace...and snacks sometimes when we are out are those plum organics squeezies which he sucks down on the move as well --in the ergo or stroller sometimes...

I'm trying to figure out the balance here....oy.

I think I've been dropping the ball....

[crunchy_mommy]

Yes. I eat walking around occasionally so I have no problem with DS doing it as well sometimes. Most of the time we eat either at the big table, or his kid-sized table, or on the couch (when I'm too tired to sit anywhere else lol). But sometimes he eats snacks walking around, or standing on a chair at the kitchen counter. I just don't see it as a big deal, as long as he usually eats at the table (for the sake of family time, conversation, learning table manners, etc.) He is not allowed to eat in the car, however (unless DH is in the back seat with him), because that to me would be a choking hazard. I don't see walking around as a choking hazard, but DS is a steady walker (and a good gagger) so I might feel otherwise if he was tripping a lot or something!

[lemontree]

kismetbaby, our DSs are 6 days apart!

I have felt like you, that it's good that he's eating - and that he sits 3x a day to eat and that is "wiring him" to eat for meals.  It is hard for him to stay still, he's just a baby!  And so excited to gogogogo!  Today I asked him to help me set the table for breakfast and he brought his placemat to the table.  I've been underestimating his comprehension!  I have to ask him to help me clean up more now as well....

[beebalmmama]

Yes, but then only crackers or something not too messy for ds1 (13 months). If he starts to get really messy with it I put him in his chair. Ds1 who is 5 eats more snacks on the couch than I'd prefer because he makes a mess. But we're consistent with eating meals at the table (except for the brief time post partum with ds2 where we ate meals on the couch for a couple of weeks. It took some effort to break the habit for ds1). My step mother was so strict when I was growing up about eating "ANYTHING" outside the kitchen and I found it so annoying. So I guess I don't mind a few snacks, but granted it's kept to a minimum and I certainly don't have food hiding out in corners for weeks on end!

[oaktreemama]

He can eat at the table or at his desk. No wandering. Too messy and the dog is too pesky.

[crunchy_mommy]

Also wanted to suggest as a bit of a compromise, you could set up a small kid table (or coffee table or picnic blanket or whatever) and he could walk up to it at will, eat a few bites while sitting/standing right there, and then walk around in between bites... if that makes sense... so he's not walking around eating but he's not restricted as much. Also this might be a good time to switch him to a booster chair... he might enjoy it more than a highchair at this age.

[lemontree]

Thanks!

Crunchy_Mommy-we have the stokke chair pulled up to the table, so he has always eaten with us, not a traditional high chair...  Everyone, thanks for your input!  He has 3 meals a day and snacks...but has been "grazing" more as of late.  I know if I set up a kids table he will just take the food and roam....

[half-pigeon]

DS is 18 mos. & was slow to get into solids so i gradually moved to feeding him while he plays because it is what works best for us. i put him in the highchair a few times a week. he eats a bit there & then is ready to get out. i put out some snacks & water at his height that he can get to if hungry. kids at this age tend to be more grazers, so i work with this. i figure when he is older he can (& will want to) sit at the table for family meals, but it isn't important to me at this point in time. 

[Sharlla]

Yes, we allow the toddlers to roam the house and eat.  Mine is doing that right now lol

[kcparker]

He wanders, the food stays at the table. DS1 would eat a little, want to get down from the table, then 'cruise' us and eat a forkful of food that I held out for him each time he wandered by. DS2 seems to be going into the same pattern, and I will do the same for him. Frankly, I enjoy eating, and I don't want to be disturbed by hassling around with a kid who doesn't want to sit still. If they start at the table and leave before I am done, that's cool with me, as long as they don't pester me to the point that I can't eat . I refuse to be the mom in A Christmas Story who laments, "I haven't had a hot meal in sixteen years." DS1 has always been good at restaurants, and he grew out of the wandering and sits politely with us until he's done and then asks to be excused. I think it's just not age-appropriate to expect a toddler to sit still for a 30 minute meal.

[lactatinggirl]

DD occasionally gets snacks without being in her high chair, but under strict supervision (i.e. We'll have grapes in a bowl and mama holds the bowl and gives her 1 at a time. Or she'll cuddle on my lap while we eat some popcorn and watch a movie.) If she doesn't eat when we're eating an actual meal and wants down though, she doesn't get food. This is less about wandering with food and more about her getting food when she won't eat what I'm serving. Her grandma lets her have different stuff all of the time, but I refuse to turn into a short order cook. 

[strmis]

These are all such great ideas! You think its too late to teach a 30 month old these habits?? 

[MrsBone]

2 year old DS eats at the kitchen table with us, while he's sitting at his chair at the tv, or has his plate at the coffee table, but he doesn't wander around the house eating. I will let DS get out of his seat if he's half done eating, but I put him back in it to eat the rest of his meal. I don't hand him a plate and let him run off. I do like the idea of having snack foods out all day though (healthy ones, fruit, nuts, veggies), because I don't mind him munching on those all day. I tend to walk around eating a handful of nuts or a pear throughout the house as well, so it's not a big deal.

[kriket]

Yep. DH was/is a TV eater. And when we were childless, we would get baked, stuff our faces, and watch TV after work before bed. So I had a June Cleaver freak out and decided it was unhealthy and not benefiting our family to eat in front of the TV. I did have to make concessions. DH can see the TV from the table (but not me or DS unless we really strain), and DS only has to start his meal in the chair. But over time, when his dinner is ready, now he runs over to his chair ready to eat! He will eat most of it, but eventually later, he will ask for snacks or cheese or something and I will give it to him. He doesn't really walk around, but if I am doing laundry or something he will follow me and sit on the couch or bed or one of his chairs.

Originally Posted by Courtney-Ostaff 

My one firm rule is that we all sit down like the Cleaver family every night,