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DS enjoys throwing food off his high-chair tray, like many (most?) kids. No big deal at home, but I am pretty conscious of the mess when we go out. But then, picking up bits of food off a public restaurant floor is also kind of gross. I'm never sure if I should leave it for the staff or do it myself.
What does everyone else do?
We went out for dinner tonight and Jack threw penne pasta EVERYWHERE! I picked it up.
I have done waitressing as a job, and I think it is only fair that a parent picks up food that their child has thrown. It can actually be a hazard for a waitperson or other customers to slip on food that is left on the floor.
ide pick it up. Also have been a waitress too and could think of nothing worse than picking up after someones child. It is also a hazard and i think its the parents responsibity.
If we are out for dinner I always pick up/tidy up after DD. I treat it like we are at home or at a family/friends place plus why should some poor wait person have to pick up food off the floor from my child. That's what I think anyway.
Good, I agree with you all. I always do pick up (usually use a wipe or something), but a few times I have got wierd looks crawling about on the floor and I wondered if I was doing something odd.
I pick up any mess that I consider to be "outside of the norm" which is things on the floor etc. I do generally try to pick up food and put it all on plates and tidy up a little to make it easier for the serving staff to clean up the table. I also clean up any food that just gets onto the tables and put that onto plates when we are finished too. I'm not a naturally neat person (I wish that I was), but I just don't want to make serving staff member's jobs more difficult than they already are. Although, if they are giving crap service then I'm not so eager to clean up mind you.
I generally will clean up as much as I can, Generally there is not too much mess as once DS throws a few bits on floor thats it I know not to give him more as he has had enough.
Like Danni if a place gives crap service or dodgy food I am less inclined to clean up.
Yup I'd pick it up. They're not my slaves ;)
When I was waitressing it was pretty rare for anyone to pick up after their child so I'm sure they'd appreciate your efforts!
i wish ds1 only threw food. :redface:
We pick up after him, one night though we went to an italian restaurant, a family one that had white paper on the tables as a table cloth and gave you a basket of crayons for them to draw on it with.
DS1 threw the crayon at the next table and it landed on someones plate - no food in there thank god, and the whole table cracked up laughing
We went out tonight and yup mummy was cleaning up after Sir Throws- A-Lot lol. Im guilty of when I take him to work and he makes a mess cleaning the whole dining room though.
I always have for the reason Raven said and also they are often so busy that they may not have time to do more than clear the table and I would hate to think that the next people that came along to that table thought the waitresses were slack or that the restaurant was dodgy because my kids threw food on the floor kwim.
i allways pick it up as i do it at home and what i do at home i implement when out lol that and if murray sees food he eats it kinda gross when ur out and u have a 2 and ahalf year old licking the floor
omg, we've been away for the last few days, and on friday night we stayed in a resort, matilda made this massive mess in the restraunt. i was cleaning it up off the floor and the waitress came and shooed me away so she could get it with a dustpan and brush. i always try and clean up as much as i can, and if the waitresses stop me, i apologise for my horrible children...
I clean up after them but usually I ask for the tools to do it. I couldn't be bothered scrambling around on the floor with serviettes so I usually ask for a dustapn and broom and if they spill thier food I'll get a cloth for it. If they do it for me I leave a bigger tip than normal.
We always pick up after DD, often a waitress will see & say 'oh dont worry we can do that' but I always pick it up as much as I can. Especially with my DD, she can be quite messy at times!
I pick up what I can. My daughter is a messy eater!
Yep I do.. It is my child, my job!
We went out with one of my bro's and his kids, and I was ashamed when we left with the amount of crap left on floor by them (DD wasn't eating at that stage, so didn't contribute to the mess)..
Yep I do it. But to be honest I wouldn't take my child to a restaurant other than maybe a fast food outlet if they were throwing food off the high chair. Its not just a messy problem its a food health safety issue. What if someone slipped on the food and burnt someone with coffee or hot food? I'd feel terrible. Crumbs, bits of this and that fine but I wouldn't let my child throw food off just for fun. Accidental mess is unavoidable.
I pick up the chunks and a majority, i don't go crawling around for individual tiny bits of rice or anything though. I have offered to use their vacuum cleaner to clean. At Ryans first bday party we went nuts and offered to clean the lot up, the resturant refused so my dad tipped them $50 for cleaning because, well, bday cake went EVERYWHERE LOL :)
Please don't think I allow my child to throw food off his high chair for fun, whether out or at home, although I understand how my post could have been read that way.:
Yeah, we pick up the larger chunks and wipe down the worst of it. Its not that DS is a food thrower its just all those bits that don't quite make it into his mouth and fall down onto his lap and then the floor. Most restaurant high chairs aren't adjustable to catch the spillages.
Please don't think that was a judgement directed at you either ;) As it certainly wasn't.
I pick it up. I hate doing it, but I can only imagine the wait staff must hate it more....
I went to a resturant in town that actually put down a plastic mat, set up his highchair and he got kiddie cutlery, it was a swish-ish place. They asked what the young master would be having that evening and cut his food up into little chunks for him, it was very cute! Some places are great with kids, others glare when they see you coming, I find if you go to the kid happy places they are usually used to mess and are happy to obligue the little ones rather than stare at you and make you feel awkward :)
If it's big, I pick it up. If it's a couple of grains of rice or crumbs of bread, I don't. I would leave that mess and not pick up after me!
Last time DS and I were out for dinner, he dropped a grating of carrot, 2 pieces of sweetcorn and spilt some water on the table. I mopped up the water (the waitress brought more napkins for me). I didn't pick up the food as that's "normal" droppage and vacuumed up at the end of the night.
Half his dinner on the floor or a few chips, I would have picked up.
Thanks, no worries :):
I pick up the obvious stuff but not crumbs or anything minor. They have the tools to clean up, we don't.
depends. I always go to the counter and ask for a sponge or broom to clean it up and 99% of the time they tell me not to worry about it.
That way I feel that I've offered, they've said no so I leave feeling ok with the mess left behind :)
I pick it up... But i also will go and ask for a dustpan/cloth etc and often am told not to worry.
It is disgusting the way some people leave their tables, especially the ones with Kids that should be able to eat without throwing food around... We were out not so long ago and there was a family with 2 kids probably about 6-8. they made more mess that MJ and honestly i reckon she had better cutlery skills than they did. I felt more embarressed for the kids than the parents... its just lazy not to teach your children how to have even moderate table manners...
I digress however
haha I did this the other night. We went out for dinner and Cohen threw chips all over the floor and I picked them all up. At the time I thought..."Is this normal" and I had a few glances....but I'd rather me do it than leave it a feel like a pig and have ppl look at me like I was rude.
we clean up, he's our son and our responsibility. wait staff arent housekeeping. also, we feel it's important to instill in DS that you dont make other ppl clean up after you. He's only 17mths but I hope he knows that mess has to be cleaned up. (He copies me wiping the mess off our kitchen floor!)
Always.
I think for me though it was just ingrained into me because I always watched mum do it and as I got older, helped her do it. There was one time before I was born though that mum needed to get the restaurants help - and mum almost never took any of us back to an eatery after it! My older sister decided to feed her fried rice to the fish in the fish tank and a chinese restaurant!
After that, mum got a chinese cook book and started cooking her own, lmao.
just for a laugh, wanted to share...
We went to the park the other day, Ashton sat on the foam ground with his curried egg sandwich, he made a mess, he crawled the couple of crawls to the pram and pulled out a facewasher all on his own then proceeded to wipe it all up (of course it was just getting spread everywhere) and it was soooooooooo cute!
me and dp went to the bakery last week and my son decided to choke on his pie was pretty scary well i scooped the offending food out with my fingers and chucked it ina bin well there was smooshed pie on the table where he had dropped it in shock so i started to clean up with his baby wipes the lady behind the counter came over and thanked me in front of everyone as apprently i was the first parent she has seen come in there actully bother to clean up
so dosent matter where i go i belive in cleaning up as i dont want to get germs i even wipe out the trolley befor ei put ds in it and after he gets out as he tends to get his juice everywhere and chewed up biscuit on the seat
its just curtisy my son dosent make a huge mess but they are toddlers they tend to make a lil mess that needs cleaning
and yeah wait staff arnt there to clean but its nice when they offer to help
Yep, I grab a wipe and pick it all up, not that we eat out often for pretty much that reason :doh:
I too pick up after my kids. I even wipe the high chair down before and after we've used it.