Eating Out During the Early Days

MiniMe and I have been visiting The Grandparents over the past few days.  I was slightly apprehensive about coping with her meals while we were visiting, mostly because we had quite a few restaurant meals on the itinerary.  I wasn't that worried about feeding her while we were in the house, I was a little bit worried about Grandad's kitchen floor and his reaction to the food being tossed overboard all over it, but I needn't of worried about that.  We put a large towel down under the highchair and just let MiniMe do her thing.  Grandad was surprisingly cool with the mess.  I was worried about feeding her while we were out.

Two weeks ago I would have just let MiniMe play with some toys while the adults ate, but after a visit from our Health Visitor I have been advised to make sure she is getting 3 meals a day.  While I'm sure skipping lunch on the odd day wouldn't really make a difference (she's still only experimenting with food) I have noticed that she is starting to EXPECT food if everyone else is eating. 

The things that worried me about offering MiniMe good while we were out were firstly, the mess and secondly having to choose my meal based on what I could share with her. Ok, maybe the second one is a little bit selfish of me, but it is actually really difficult some times, for example one meal I ordered a roast lunch thinking she would be able to have some of huge veg only for it all to be cut super small and cooked very al dente.  She did, however, manage to eat her way through a very soft roast potato on that occasion.  On anotther visit she gnawed away on some courgette rounds, basically sucking the juice out of hone, and when we stopped at a coffee shop for a break she had some of my teacake with  butter. 

The mess, actually, wasn't too much of an issue.  I did pick up all the bits off the floor when she was done, to help the poor servers.  I only offered her one bit of food at a time and handed it to her so that it wasn't sitting on the tray.  And I made sure to wipe the tray before and after eating with some wet wipes. Don't know if any of that really made a difference to anyone else, but it did to me.  

What was most difficult, and what I didn't expect, was how awful some of the highchairs are in some restaurants.  I know they can't all have the highchair we are used to, but some of them are just awful and I've had to bring a tea towel with me in our diaper bag to help prop MiniMe up!!!!