Do you let them eat places other than the table/high chair?

[Isaiah's Momma]

I guess this is kind of a vent. I let my mom watch Isaiah one night and I left snacks and told her Id be right back as soon as I got his booster seat from the truck. Well I come back to her feeding him on the couch and she tells me "its ok he can eat here". OK well maybe thats OK at your house but its not OK at mine and if he learns he can do it here then he will want to do it at our house too. Also I bought my door way graco jumpster and my exersaucer used (at two difernt places) when I cleaned them both I found signs of food like who ever had them first let the child eat in them. To me thats a BIG choking hazord to let a child eat in something made for jumping/moving so much in!

[JenM]

I let my daughter have snacks in her playroom.. That's pretty much the only other place she can have food besides the kitchen. If I didn't let her snack on the run she'd be strapped in her chair all day! She is a big time nibbler... doesn't ever sit down and eat until she gets "full"... so I decided a long time ago it was more important to me that she actually EAT and I figure I'll just be cleaning up crumbs a bunch :lol:

[Connie1222]

I voted "other" because the only other place Jack can eat besides in his booster at the table is is own little table that's in our living room. He can eat snacks or lunch there, but I never let him eat on the couch.

[Hilary]

:blush: I let Madelynn eat her breakfast in the living room, but she usually just has a waffle, so it doesn't make a mess.

[TtownAnne]

The only time Caroline eats away from the table/booster seat is (a) if she's sick, as she was this past week. I would let her lay on the sofa and I would feed her. Or (b) if the inlaws are watching her, she has a tendency to flip out when they try to put her in the booster seat, so she eats at the coffee table. Otherwise, no, she's in her chair.

[gulp!]

We usually have Emma eat in her booster seat at the table, but we have an open floor plan so if she's eating anything in the kitchen/dining room and she's not strapped in, she can walk into the living room with it. We're trying to teach her not to eat food in that room. We also have a family room downstairs, and we sometimes let her eat down there, but make her stay seated in her Pooh chair.

[JillMelissa]

Well, at this age I keep Emily in her highchair when she's eating, because you never quite know when her sitting-up skills will suddenly abandon her and she'll fall backwards! :lol: I would imagine that I'll continue to enforce the highchair-or-table rule, but who really knows once that time rolls around! :)

[Dennis]

We let Joe eat snacks in the family room. All meals are at the table.

Dennis

[chefkath]

Like Dennis, we have a "meals at the table, snacks on the go" rule. I adopted Dr. Sears' idea of always having a snack plate with some munchies (usually grapes, crackers, cheese and baby carrots) available in Brigit's play area. If not for this, Brigit would never get enough food into herself each day!

If your mom wants to have different rules at her house, it doesn't mean you have to let Isaiah bring those rules home. He will be exposed to so many different rules in his life, he might as well start learning now that your family's rules are non-negotiable regardless of what he does elsewhere! I used to freak out that Brigit's best friend, Asher, is allowed to jump on his bed, climb all over the furniture and stand on a chair in the kitchen to watch his mom cook. But it actually provided a great opportunity to discuss how different families have different rules, and that in our house I expect her (and her friends) to follow our rules. I made it very clear that she's free to jump and climb when she's at Asher's house, but at home she cannot do those things. She actually likes to tell me, "In our family we don't jump on beds! Asher's family does!" I'm happy she's learned to make that distinction. :aok:

But I definitely agree with you about the choking concerns. I would make it clear to your mom that allowing foods in the exersaucer is not OK! :eek:

[Jillian]

We usually let Janelle eat not in her booster seat. Our house is seriously not big enough for a table, so we just don't have one, and we hated the high chair thing, so when she is "confined" for eating she uses a booster seat on a picnic blanket on our living room floor, it works well for us. She goes into it for meals other than the ones she now refuses to feed to herself (she now has a thing about not getting messy)...so like mac and cheese or oatmeal...but all snacks she gets on the living room floor (which we vaccuum at least twice a day every day), and she is free to wander and come back to the couch for bites when we are feeding her. She has way too much trouble eating and gaining weight for us to institute food rules right now!

[Leslie]

Ian has his meals in the HC, but most snacks on the go. DH gets mad when there are crumbs on the carpet, but we vacuum a lot (house is on the market), so I don't care. It bugs me when there are crumbs in my sheets, but I let him eat Cheerios there, so that's my own fault!

[Dawn]

Alexia ALWAYS eats meals/snacks......ANY kind of food at the table. :) This is one of the rules in our house that we make sure we stand by.

[Eleanor]

Meals with us are at the table (she doesn't always eat dinner at the same time DH and I do, cause he gets home late, some days); she can also eat at the "snack" table in the living room, but has to be sitting (not standing) in her chair. She can have drinks in a sippy on the couch or in her room, but no food there. And we discourage wandering with snacks, but she likes to carry her snacks from the kitchen to her table...so there's often a little trail of cheerios, or pretzels between them. :dunno:

[Karri]

We also do meals at the table and snacks on the go (unless its something like yogurt or applecause). Aidan likes to graze, so if I made him sit in his high chair, he'd be there all day. He knows to keep the snacks at his little table in his playroom.

[kim]

same here. all meals at the table, but i will let him walk around with snacks. he's pretty good about not making a mess.

[Bev]

Mason and I eat 98% of our meals at the table, and the very odd time, if we are having like a weekend movie/takeout night, we will eat at the coffee table in the family room. Mason has a placemat and a little chair (he is allowed to have snacks in the family room at the same place) and I will sit on the couch or the floor.

Patrick eats 100% of his meals in front of the tv and once actually said to me that "Eating dinner at the table is inappropriate." Inappropriate! I don't know where he got that idiot idea! Certainly not from his mother, they ate at the table every night. She can't believe he said that. So, Mason and I have a nice enjoyable dinner upstairs at the table and his dad eats downstairs in front of the tv. Nice family/together time.

[areb]

No Kyle always eats in a high chair. We had a problem with him eating at the sitter on the floor or in the walker. So he now always eats in the high chair. I don't have time to chase him around the house to eat dinner.

[Michelear]

For the most part, Wiggles eats in his high chair. Sometimes we've both sat on the bed facing each other while I've fed him cereal or something. But he gets finger foods at this high chair. We don't have a table here. I'm staying at my moms and we're pretty confined to the bedroom because someone smokes downstairs.
But he's only a year and isn't feeding himself yet and I never let him eat unsupervised or where he isn't right infront of me.
At home we'll eat at the table most of the time

[HeatherT]

We do sometimes all eat dinner in the living room, with TV trays, and my son has his own little tray that he can sit on the floor and eat at. We usually do it when we get takeout food and rent movies. For regular dinnertimes, he eats in the high chair. My son and I have a "breakfast picnic" some mornings too, where we sit on the floor of the living room and eat breakfast and watch a Disney movie. :)

[Shanna]

We dont' have a dinner table at the moment b/c of space issues here. Jacob usually eats meals in his high chair and messy snacks, but other snacks he can eat and run.

[mcox]

Olivia eats all of her meals in her highchair. When she has snacks I make her sit in the recliner in our family room. That is where she sits while watching TV, so she is fine with that.

[Denise]

We eat all meals in the highchair. Snacks he can walk around freely with. It has been working for us. :)

[Tina]

Both of my kids eat at the table. That is the rule in our house, one from which I will not budge. They know if they get a snack or a drink it has to be at least in the kitchen if not at the table. That's my compromise on snacks :lol: . One of my friends lets her kids eat in bed, etc basically wherever they want & they are some of the brattiest kids I have ever known since she doesn't have rules for them. She (the daughter) called DH mean for making her sit at the dinner table when she had dinner with us one night :lol:. I guess watching my friend let her kids do whatever reinforced my desire to have everyone at the table. The only exception is if we have popcorn then we eat it on the couch but my kids (3 & 2) still make a mess because they fight over it! Whenever it is snack time they automatically run to the table. As I am pg with # 3 I don't have the energy to clean up crumbs everywhere especially from our playroom which is upstairs.

Tina

[Faye]

oh yeah! :nod: Emily is 21 months old and definitely eats mostly snacks while on the run now. I let her carry things around in bowls (crackers or dry cereal usually) and sometimes I will pull a chair out in the kitchen and let her sit her breakfast food there while she walks around and does things in the mornings while I shower to get ready for work and get them ready to get out the door. I made a vow not to be so anal about the small things while my kids are young, my mom was bad about that when I was growing up. :) And besides that, I have a broom, a vacuum and two of those brushes with dust pans attached. I can clean up a mess quick. Heck, I've even let my kids have cookies or chocolate for breakfast at times if they wanted them :tongue2: :lol:

[Isaiah's Momma]

Hum our house is brand new so I guess Id be afaid to let kids run around and eat things were it might ruin the carpet. Our couches are a few years old but still really nice too.

[magoo]

Jacob usually eats meals in his high chair and messy snacks, but other snacks he can eat and run.
Same for us :) Anna is a real grazer, so she would be in her high chair for most of the day, if we put her in it every time she snacked. :lol:

Sarah

[Becky]

at our house, AJ gets meals in the high chair and snacks on the run (except messy ones).
at my mom's it's pretty much the same, but at my il's (or with them at restaurants), if he fusses in his booster they let him sit on their laps and eat. this is the one i wish they wouldn't do at his age (because he still thinks he can do it at home)

anyway, i'm a big believer in kids learning that different places have different rules. part of life i guess.