Survival Tips:How to Eat Out With Kids

Some people have great luck with babysitters.

No matter where our brother- and sister-in-law live they always seem to find some hard working girl who will come and sit their four kids for hours on end, feeding them, changing them, and when they are all asleep she will clean the house for them as well . . . all for a measely $2/hr. (Okay, so maybe they pay her a little bit more than that, but not that much more.)

We struggle to find sitters. We either have to drive 60 minutes out of our way to pick her up and then drop her off again, or we find someone who sits on our computer and im's her friends all night while not even clearing the dinner dishes. And we still pay extremely well.

It gets expensive and a little annoying to do all that driving. That's why we are usually that annoying couple in the restaurant with all of our kids present.

So, for those of you who want to go out but can't find a good sitter, here are some things we have learned along our way:

1) Remember you are going out to eat with kids. If you get a chance to enjoy a morsel of food and can savour the taste for 20 seconds, the evening was a success.

2) Choose a restaurant that is both dark and loud. This will help conceal the dropped and squished food (or the fact that your child has decided to hide themselves under the table) and the noise level will aid in covering up the shrieks and whining coming from your area of the restaurant. We have found bar and grills to be great choices for these reasons.

3) Go early. This is very helpful for two reasons: A) Your kids don't get restless while they are waiting for a table and start the meal already wiggly and whiny, B) The earlier you go, the less people will be there. We don't really care about the number of people we could potentially bother (although, that could be very considerate), we actually care about how many other people there need to get food before us. We have found that the earlier you go, the faster the food comes out and the less chance your kids are going to go stir crazy.

4) Bring lots of books and even buy a new toy. Yes, this gets expensive, depending on the toy, but think of how much you are saving on a sitter.

5) Upon entering the restaurant, grab as many candies/mints as are in the bowl for patrons on the way out. These will come in useful to bribe good behavior out of your children, or at the very least, entice them to come up from under the table.

6) Hot Sauce in glass bottles are not great toys to bang around on the table. Try a plastic ketchup bottle instead.

7) Tour the restaurant a few times. Take a good look at the restrooms, the kitchen, and the foyer.

8) Don't bother ordering anything for your kids. Chances are they are too full from all the candy bribes. And even if they did feel like eating, they probably rather eat your food than theirs.

9) Know when to exit and make it speedy. If you've been able to eat most of your meal and even taste a bite or two, you'll probably need to exit pretty soon. But don't let that keep you from eating dessert. When the server comes to clear your plates, order your dessert (because you have already checked out the menu online or from a previous visit)--be sure to get it to go, and ask for the check. In fact, if you really want to be fast, just hand some plastic over and tell them to run it for the check. While one of you is waiting for dessert and the card, the other can take the kids out to the car.

10) Put the kids to bed as quickly as possible upon returning home and then sit down and enjoy your dessert together. You earned a few moments of peace and probably burned enough calories to make up for the double chocolate fudge brownie with ice cream that you will devour. ;)