I love to eat out. It’s basically my love language. True story, my husband and I got together because he used to bring me delicious food from my favorite restaurants at work. Of course, we now have four children, so eating out is much more difficult and it takes a whole lot more thought than just “where do you want to eat?”. Thankfully, I love eating out enough that I’ve learned how to make it work, and today I’m sharing with you my 5 crazy hacks for eating out with toddlers!
5 Crazy Hacks for Eating Out With Toddlers
- Pick a kid-friendly restaurant. We have a favorite restaurant that we go to with our kids, and our regular waiter knows us all by name. It helps when they know they need to bring 247 cups of apple juice to keep our kids happy!
- Come prepared. Bring your kids cars, coloring books, snacks, and binkies. Literally, if you can fit the kitchen sink in your purse, you might want to bring that too!
- Bring WaterWipes. I know I could have included this in “come prepared” but it is so vital that it gets to be its very own hack. These wipes are the best for cleaning up the kids and the table after we leave.
- Use the WaterWipes to clean the table and seats before you sit down. Okay, this might not apply to you, but if your kids have allergies you’ll totally understand this one! It is so important to wipe down the table and seats to protect your little ones from things they may have a reaction to. Also, germs.
- Request to sit in a booth. I used to be a booth-hater because I truly value my personal space, and then I had kids. You know what kids do with personal space? Chaos. So get a booth and squeeze your family in it with a parent on the outside of both sides of the table. Your kids won’t have room to go crazy!
- Order your kids food when you order your drinks and appetizers. They’ll get their food early which helps cut down the time you need to entertain them and helps them finish their meals since kids. eat. so. slowly.
We get our WaterWipes from Walgreens and love it! It’s so easy to make a quick trip when we’re on the way to the restaurant and grab what we need! Plus, Baby M gets to push the cart, which he LOVES!
Okay, I’m just going to level with you. Even with these 5 crazy hacks for eating out with toddlers you might occasionally face a meltdown. Kids are crazy and unpredictable, but I pinky promise these hacks will work more often than not! With these tricks we can go to a sit-down restaurant even with a toddler and all enjoy ourselves!
My favorite hack is definitely bringing WaterWipes. In fact, that’s probably my number one general mom-hack. Always have a package of WaterWipes in your purse. They don’t break, they stay wet, they’re chemical free with just two ingredients –water and grapefruit seed extract–and they get everything clean from messy pizza faces to messy bottoms at diaper changes. I love that they’re durable and effective without the nasty chemicals in other wipes. So if you only listen to one of these 5 crazy hacks for eating out with toddlers, make sure you grab some of these WaterWipes and you’ll thank me.