Do you let your toddlers wander while eating? - Page 2

[lifeguard]

No wandering & eating here, but honestly it's as much because of the dogs as anything. Recently I have started allowing ds to stand on a chair at the kitchen counter & eat so that he can be in the kitchen with me while I clean or prep food or whatnot.

[lifeguard]

No wandering & eating here, but honestly it's as much because of the dogs as anything. Recently I have started allowing ds to stand on a chair at the kitchen counter & eat so that he can be in the kitchen with me while I clean or prep food or whatnot.

[lactatinggirl]

Originally Posted by strmis 

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

It's never too late to change habits IMO. Just make sure to do it gradually and gently. 

[Mal85]

At our house, we sit at the table for meals. Sometimes she'll sit at her kid-size table and eat, which is fine as long as she's not up and down. But snacks are fair game. I'll often put a small bowl out on the coffee table filled with grapes or crackers or something like that. Then, just let her graze with her snack. But, yeah, meals we sit down at the table. If she eats a little and wants down, that's fine, but she can't roam with her food. She has to sit back down at the table if she wants to eat some more.

[Pookietooth]

With ds, he was so skinny and anemic that I let him eat while wandering, and now at eight he never ever sits at the table to eat, so I think I made a huge mistake. This time I'm trying to be better about it, but it's hard when dd sees ds eating in front of the TV. Sigh. I say keep them at the table and don't let them graze unless maybe it's outdoors and they are grazing on fresh garden food.

[AirMiami]

We don't even own a table. I leave food out and my kid grazes. She can eat just fine at tables when we're at restaurants or other people's homes, so I don't really care.

[Mama Mko]

We let the kids wander while they eat. The only time we enforce sitting down is at restaurants. This hasn't been an issue at all. I don't have a problem with it.

[RomanGoddess]

He can wander but he can't take the food with it, i.e. he can't walk around with a piece of bread or cheese or whatever.  He has to leave it at the table.  I have this policy for two reasons : 1) eating while you're doing something else is a bad habit and is one of the reasons for being overweight later in life and 2) the food gets on things in the living room and elsewhere, which I don't like.

But I don't stop him from getting up from the table.  He's still too little for that.

[nukuspot]

Originally Posted by Mama Mko 

We let the kids wander while they eat. The only time we enforce sitting down is at restaurants. This hasn't been an issue at all. I don't have a problem with it.

Same here!

[JudiAU]

I am pretty flexible when it is food I want to be eaten. We have a big play mat in our living room (easy to clean) and any other snacking takes place there or at their little table. I don't allow snacks on the carpet or whatever but we have many many vegetables/bean snacks on the play mat. Especially for the little 17m who will stick take bites of food if she is busy.

[Sleepymamaov2]

DS1 is 2;3 and wanders with his spill-proof snack cup if he's eating nonmessy snacks like cereal and has to sit in his highchair for meals and messy snacks like yogurt.  He's very active and can sit in the highchair for about 30 minutes to eat before saying "DONE!"  If the TV is on, then he'll sit for a bit longer.  He can sit sometimes at his toddler table for nonmessy snacks, but he's just so darn active and distractible it's nearly impossible for him to stay in a chair for meals.  He also moves around so much on a chair that he actually falls over several times.  It gets really exhausting at times.  Still, I do make him sit at the table for somewhat messy and chokable snacks like apples or grapes so that I can monitor him.  I say it depends on your child.  If he'll tolerate sitting on the chair at the table, then go for it!  If he's too active to sit through a meal, then you have to make compromises.  Maybe, you can start off by having him sit at the table for one snack a day and gradually add other eating situations at the table as he becomes more proficient with it. 

[GracieBugsMama]

I think about this often, because we have a wanderer -- but I always come to the conclusion (like some pps have stated) that I just don't care.  Dd is 18.5 mos and we recently took her booster seat out of the kitchen entirely, because it was collecting dust. Sometimes she'll eat standing on a kitchen chair (that probably makes some freak out about falling, but I can count the number of times she's fallen on one hand, and it's not at all high off the ground), sometimes she'll eat off the coffee table, and sometimes she'll sit in our laps to eat. Messy things are kitchen table worthy. As she gets older, we'll work more on sitting at the table with the rest of us, but she does fine with that at restaurants. Right now, this works for us.

[CM Byers]

I always thought I would require DD to sit down and eat... and now that she is 4 , I do "require" her to at least sit with us for a little bit when eating dinner.  However, I've been told (and believe due to own family experiences) that "making" a child eat when they really don't want to eat can lead to poor eating habits and struggles with weight later on.  I don't want her stuffing her face when she isn't hungry because I said it was time to eat.... but at the same time, I don't let her run around the house to eat - mainly because I started it because of the whole choking fear, and now because I don't want to find rotted apple cores under her bed or anything like that.  She does what I call grazing - she will eat a little bit, go play, return to the table and eat a little more, repeat. My 3 siblings and I were always told to sit down and eat and finish our plates and every one of us has struggled with weight issues and unhealthy eating habits at one point or another. Just my opinions!! :)

[sunnygir1]

I just wanted to contribute my experience.

I let the little ones wander with snacks.  We eat meals and messy snacks at the table, but I will put dry cereal, rice cakes, crackers, an apple, plain toast etc. on a chair for him and let him come and go and wander around eating.  I let dd do the same thing when she was a toddler.

Now that dd is older, she eats almost exclusively at the table or outside, even if ds is wandering.  That transition wasn't a problem for us.  Once she was old enough to get on and off her chair by herself, she had the choice of eating at the table or outside.  I let her wander inside too, without the food, but she rarely does.  If she leaves I ask her if she is done and remind her to clear her place if she is.  We will eat popcorn on the couch together if we're watching a movie or something.

I guess it doesn't bother me to allow that kind of snacking for toddlers.  It isn't much mess -- I think the dog probably gets most of what he drops anyway. )

[academama]

We always have and I regret it. I don't feel like they need to eat at the table (we often dine picnic-style in the living room), but I wish that I had enforced eating from a plate, sitting down, while not doing other things.

[shotmama]

i let my 14.5 mo roam around while eating. but not at dinner, cause that is when hubby comes home and he doesn't like the roaming around for dinner.

[Zimbah]

I've always enforced sitting down to eat.  If we're having a meal we eat at the table, DD (2y3m) has to sit in her highchair, or sometimes on someone's lap.  She's recently started also sitting or kneeling on a big chair if she's got older friends round who do the same.  Snacks are eaten either in the highchair at the table (in which case I'll usually sit next to her also eating, or sometimes might wash up etc but talk to her) or if it's nothing messy she can sit in one of her kid-size little chairs if she wants, or can sit on the sofa and eat, or on the floor.  For non-messy snacks like peas, crackers etc I don't mind where she sits as long as she's sitting down.  I absolutely hate it when friends come round and let their kids wander round eating snacks, dropping crumbs all over the place and leaving sticky fingerprints and food smeared on the furniture.  I am far, far from a clean freak but at least if they're relatively still while eating the mess is contained.  Otherwise I find crumbs get ground into the carpet or smushed into the sofa and won't come off.  If she's eating (not in highchair) and wants to go wandering off to play that's fine but she has to leave the food then come back to it when she's ready to sit down again.  She's not too bad at doing this although I still have to remind her frequently.

[cyclamen]

We eat at our coffee table.  DD18mo can get up and wander but she doesn't take the food with her.  Well, during the day she'll occasionally wander with a piece of food if it wasn't on a plate to begin with but otherwise the food stays at the table even though she wanders around.  

I kind of don't really care?  But maybe I should?  She does fine at restaurants because she sees everyone else sitting down.  If we are out someplace, she knows she has to sit in my lap to eat.