table service with a 2 year old?!?!

[getfitmary]

Hello all,
I'm hoping you can help me not make the rest of you crazy while I'm at WDW....I'm one of those parents who scoops up the child having a meltdown at dinner, asks for a quick doggie bag, and leaves the scene ASAP...yes, even if I just ordered dinner.

I'm a foodie, so the idea of eating burgers and fries for lunch and dinner for 6 days is not my idea of fun.

Are any of the TS restaurants willing / able to do doggie bags or to offer take out meals if she is just too tired to sit through a meal?

She's usually pretty good whenever there is food involved, but I like to have an exit strategy, just in case!

Thanks,
Mary

 

[Daydreamer64]

Mom of three here and oldest of 18 kids- yes, I'm adopted and yes, my Mom was a crazy lady but she loved all of us!

Anyway, go for it! I love real food too, I like junk food but it makes me ill if I eat too much. The buffets may not let you doggie bag but all of the TS ones will if you are served only what you order ( not buffet )- we can never eat all of our food and often get it to go to take it back to the room for later.

So, some of my tricks are:

1. ask to see a menu ahead of time or look the menu up on this forum and decide what you might want to eat at the time of the meal- if you have someone with you, tell them to order your food, as well as the baby's, have them wait for the table and wait for the food to be served while you run ( outside ) the dickens out of the little wiggler so they are hungry and a bit ready for a rest when you sit them down to eat. When the food has arrived and is ready to eat, then bring in your toddler and set them down to a plate that's full and ready to eat off of, do not give snacks/drinks within at least an hour of eating- if my kids were not hungry, the meal was disastrous

2. most places have coloring papers and crayons to use

3. you can also take the crayons, ask for a big "to go" cup or other non-breakable cup with a lid- make a game out of pushing the crayons into the cup through the straw hole- pour out the crayons from the cup and start over again- kids that age love to manipulate items in this way

4. you could get a glass of chipped ice- make sure that the ice is very small- you can even bite it into pieces - give it to the toddler to play with on the table- my boys, including the youngest, would play with a piece of ice for ever- if you really want to drive a toddler to the brink put the ice in a real glass ( you have to hold it of course ) and let them try to get it out- the ice just slides around for a good few mins. and keeps the kids busy- they loved the coldness and wetness of it and were fasinated with it

5. Make sure that you have dinner/meals at the regular time- over tired and hungry kids can be big noise makers

6. A little humor goes a long way, my youngest DS loves for Mom to pretend to sneeze- it just tickles him to no end- another game we play is calling for our dog- he knows that the dog is not with us and has just started to laugh at things that he knows are not right- I call and call ( quietly of course ) for the dog and say things like- "where is that dog?" I look under the table, I look in his shirt, ear, mouth whatever until he can't stand it any more- he will giggle until he's bent over at Mom's sillyness-

7. Last but not least- sometimes you will be able to enjoy your meal better if you get it to go if the toddler is just not in the mood to cooperate- sometimes it's all right to give into the the dark errr I mean the toddler side and just chill

HTH-

 

[The Sweetness]

heres what I do with my antsy non- eating 2y old locally. I will do the same at WDW

1~ I bring toys

2~ I bring crayons

3~ I allow her to eat/drink anything she wants on the table , other than booze (which we rarely order anyway)

4~ When she completely refuses to sit in her highchair for another second, I sit her next to me or DH (or DD15) in the booth

5~ If she tries to escape, we take turns holding her on our laps (this works best at buffets, so no one ends up sitting w her while their food gets cold.

6~ at a regular TS (Fridays, Olive Garden, steakhouses etc) If I am holding her, DD or DH can cut my food, so I can eat while I hold her (Or I can do the same for DH)

All of these circus acts as I call them, combined, make the meal fairly successfull, and not horribly disruptive to others.
ESPECIALLY if the place is willing to give her a balloon

 

[IWISHFORDISNEY]

We did great with our 2 year old last year. We made sure that most TS were buffett type meals so we didnt have a long drawn out dinner. We booked CP for the Pooh and Tigger action (his favs), we did Ohana and he loved all the games, he did awesome at Boma the waiters sang to him and he played a little drum type thing. Our longest meal was at Alfredos and we had to bring out the DVD player for him so we could enjoy our wine and dessert. I think just come prepared and things will be fine!!!!!

 

[Forevryoung]

I had an idea from my only trip with kids (not mine )

Instead of having "tinkerbell" bring presents at night, the waiter "brought" a wrapped gift to them over at dinner from "mickey" or "cinderella" or whoever. Usually we had the waiter bring it over with the drinks when we were completely ready to order (that way the worst wait was ahead of us!)

It was always something they could use at the meal:
crayons and a small pad of paper
4 small finger puppets (big hit)
stickers and sticker book (dollar store)
travel colorforms

I'll keep thinking what else we had. Most of the stuff was super cheap and small so that it wasn't too bad carrying it around during the day.

 

[The Sweetness]

What a FANTASTIC idea

 

[Forevryoung]

I thought of some more stuff we gave them:

-those cups where you color the inserts and then stick them between the plastic of the cup and "design" your own cup. Then they got to use it through dinner (got them at michaels- came in a small box with the crayons and a few sheets of the paper)

-magic ink books (they have them for toddlers now)- she just had to scribble on the page and the picture would appear. We took the book apart and gave her one sheet at a time so it would last longer

-At the beginning of the trip we taught her "Simon Says", and when she would start getting roudy one of us would jump in with "simon says touch your nose" "simon says put your hands on your head" "simon says point to daddy"...

-we got her a cheap digital camera ($15 8mb internal memory, uses AAA batteries, came with software/usb cable) and she took pictures of all of us for awhile. I don't know how great the pictures came out because they were poor resolution (unprintable) but she had fun the rest of the trip using it as well. I know she still uses it sometimes.