Spontaneous eating out with a baby

Spontaneity isn’t often a thing once you’ve got a baby. You need to plan ahead where will cater for babies, as well as making sure you’ve got all of the paraphenalia you need when out with an under one year old.

When N was about 4 months old, some friends invited us out for a quick meal with the kids. Turned out there would be 11 of us and they’d checked Pizza Hut could fit us all in. But because they don’t take bookings by the time we got there, there was a 45 minute wait which isn’t practical with a 3 month old baby and 4 other children including two 2 1/2 year olds.

So next idea was Frankie & Benny’s. But their set up is booths, so they could fit 5 of us in at that time, and the other 5 would have to wait another 40 minutes. Oh, and they couldn’t take a buggy and the car seat wouldn’t fit in the booths either. So basically they can’t cater for babies who can’t sit on a seat! Not a family restaurant they claim to be.

Final stop a pub on a big housing estate shopping parade.. They were quite busy but as lots of people were sitting outside they were happy for us to push couple of tables together. They even helped us move back a little to give us a bit more room. The food was good and cheap.

N was a star considering it was past his usual bedtime. He had his usual bottle, refused to sleep in the buggy, so spent the evening sat looking around on his dad’s knee. It was our first proper family outing as well which was nice.

I was a bit worried about how bedtime would go. We got him home, fed him another bottle after changing him, then he went straight to sleep at 8, and he slept until 6.30. Perfect.

It goes to show:

a) how some family restaurants really aren’t for children under about 2 years old if not older.

b) when places say they can cater for large groups even though they won’t take bookings, they won’t be able to due to sod’s law.

What was your first family meal out with a new baby?

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