What is the consensus about a screaming baby in a restaurant? We are in the industry and have found that the vast majority of customers are considerate, but a few are not. When you politely go to the table, in several cases, they get indignant or even confrontational. As parents, we have all been through the “meltdown,” but…
When you go to the table what are you saying??? (even in a polite way)
I guess my first thought is to go to the table feeling their pain (knowing that there is a good chance they are embarrassed and annoyed by the baby’s screaming too!) and offering if there is any way for you to assist (even though they should be prepared with options themselves)
Sort of “Hi, your little one is adorable even when upset! So sorry your baby is having a hard time at the moment - been there, done that. Is there anything we can do or provide to assist you?” (crayons and paper or crackers for a screaming toddler, an empty quiet room for an adult to take the child to for a reset…)
Surely it’s not your obligation but in the end a helping hand/item might keep everyone (you, the guests, the people at their table) happier and more likely to come back???
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When our children were young and had a meltdown, one of us would take them outside to quiet them. If they wouldn’t calm down we’d either take turns finishing our dinner while one stayed outside with the child or would just ask for it to be packed up to go.
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We did exactly the same thing when our kids were young.
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We have taken our kids outside to quiet them down or talk to sense into them when they got older. The last resort is to leave, and we have had many forced take out or finishing our meals at home.
I don’t think I would say anything to parents who are having difficult kids. If it really bothered me I would ask the restaurant to change my table or say something to them. But most likely I would just suck it up.
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We also took screaming D outside and if she wouldn’t calm down, would have the restaurant box up the left overs, pay and leave. We were also careful about the type of restaurant we were taking her to and timing to try to avoid that if at all possible.
I have a personal pet peeve about parents who do nothing to try to calm a screaming baby/child in a restaurant so I feel you. IMO, it’s not fair to your other paying customers.
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Yes. We have a protocol for managers. First, we are patient until it gets egregious and other customers notice. We are sorry they are upset, and we offer crayons, carrot sticks, or a juice box. We politely suggest that if they can’t calm down, maybe take them outside for a few minutes or to an area away from the dining room. It’s very few and far between, but some people just let the kid scream.
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We had a few restaurant meltdowns when our kids were young. We always took them out of the restaurant to calm down, and we had our food boxed to go more than once. I am not sure how to approach parents who are too clueless to realize that they need to give their kid a break by removing them from the situation. I guess maybe ask kindly if there is something you can do to help with the situation? Just read your post above mine. It sounds like you are doing the right thing. I guess when they just let the kid cry, you have to determine whether making them mad by asking them to leave is more important than making the rest of the customers mad by letting the screaming continue. If it is over quickly, most people can deal with it … but if it goes on & on, the parents need to remove the child from the situation (whether or not they want to),
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The other thing you have to weigh is making one table upset (the crying baby table) and risk them not returning - or the many other tables in the restaurant who are affected by the screaming baby!!
And then there is “how long is too long” for screaming. 5 minutes? 10 minutes? Less? More?
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I think it’s inconsiderate to take screaming kids to high end restaurants. We have 20 months old GD. DS and DIL only take her to loud restaurants or eat at the restaurant patio most of the time.
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No screaming children in restaurants. If it can’t be stopped within 3 or 4 minutes, the parents need to ask for to-go containers and get out of there. I may be in the minority, but I think this applies to just about every type of restaurant. No one wants their meal disturbed by a screaming child. It is not a situation like on an airplane where I just feel sympathy for the poor parents, as they have no choice but to be there. Dining out is a choice (and a luxury for many).
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I have not been out on the floor for a long time. The handful of times I got to a point when managing the floor where I asked someone to leave mostly involved alcohol. I had to confront a table with a screaming kid only a couple of times, and I got a bunch of quiet thank yous from customers at other tables.
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I will say that I’m typically more understanding with a baby than older children. We had a horrific experience one year in Europe - Michelin star restaurant that explicitly said no children under 13, but they seated a family with three boys, probably aged 5 - 10. The kids were crawling on the floor having imaginary sword fights with demi baguettes and screaming at each other. At one point, they were running around the dining room, which was not very big. The parents did absolutely nothing.
There was another couple at a nearby table who we overheard tell their server that it was their first outing since becoming new parents and the woman was literally in tears. The staff did try to intervene with the couple repeatedly but to no available. That one family ruined the meals for everyone.
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Having 5 kids in under 7 years, I was very sensitive to this situation. Fortunately most were very well behaved. We went to family friendly restaurants (and of course the Chinese buffet where kids under 5 ate free 
, my twins still remember the Asian staff members taking them for a bit), I was always ready to take one outside if needed. My kids were into musical theater plus in choirs, at performances we sat near the back on an aisle, ready to pop out at any time. Having a big family I assumed most looked at us with dread.
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Long ago I read a rule of thumb…. don’t take little ones to places with cloth napkins.
Funny story - when older kid was away with a doting relative, we took younger one (about age 4 or 5) to a restaurant that had cloth napkins. It was a fascinating place with big fans swinging in the rafters that we knew he’d like… and it was Sunday brunch, not dinner. We figured it would be a fun treat. He had crayons and paper to keep him busy (can’t recall if from the waitress of from my purse). Imagine my shock when I looked over and saw him making crayon pictures on his cloth napkin. Oops.
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TLDR: Most of you will not like what I have to say, but I don’t believe children belong in any restaurant that doesn’t have a playscape. We did not take our son out to eat even once until he was old enough to order on his own. Had he ever misbehaved (cried), we would have left immediately in consideration of other diners.
I wrote an article once that included my views:
The Joy of Christmas
(Saving the World, One Lunch at a Time)
A few years ago, an unnamed supervisor of mine explained how each lunch hour was a “little bit of Christmas” in the middle of every work day. This supervisor went out to lunch every day, never sitting at his desk eating from a brown paper bag and, heaven forbid, working. Eventually, he convinced me of the error of my ways, and I often joined him on his mid-day holiday excursion. Over time, I learned the art of proper lunching and have endeavored to teach others how to keep the spirit of culinary Christmas alive in the work place. You, too, can pleasantly, if briefly, escape from the monotony of your dreary little life if you only follow a few simple rules;
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By definition, Christmas never occurs on company premises. You must leave the mind-numbing confines of the office and find a suitable restaurant.
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A suitable Christmas restaurant:
• Never, ever has a walk-up-to-place-your-order counter. (Which should make it painfully clear that a Christmas restaurant never has a king, clown, playscape, or drive-thru window.)
• Is not a ballroom-size walk-thru maze of steam tables holding industrial portions of over/under/poorly-cooked selections of artery-clogging by-products of the rubber plant or other foods so far from their natural state as to make Michael Jackson (in his current state) seem fresh.
• Does not serve soda in a can.
• Does not have costumed or chatty wait-staff who inject themselves into your Christmas experience. (It is preferable that you do not know the names of the wait-staff and that you never see them except at order and payment time. If they attempt to remove your plate while there is still one jalapeno left, you do not have to tip. The rules for wait-staff are too numerous to include here and will be covered in a later supporting document.)
• Has reasonable ambience (no harsh lighting or “Kids eat free on Tuesdays” smeared in day-glo bingo marker on the windows)
• Is not kid-friendly. Kid-free is preferable but would limit the number of potential establishments to almost zero, so you must be savvy enough to recognize these disturbing signs before you are seated: high chairs/booster seats piled against the lobby wall, stroller corrals, crayons and kiddie placemats behind the hostess stand. Once in the dining room, check for visible children. If you spot babies, you should probably leave at once. No good can come from dining among persons who cannot place their own orders or, worse, are currently enjoying their beverage from a human tap. If you encounter none of these egregious sins, perform a more penetrating scan of the dining room to see if the seating arrangement/type indicates the presence of “family” dining. Family seating is indicated by areas where the flooring changes from carpet to tile, is populated with large tables shading loose crayons and stray french fries plastered to the floor, and may possibly (best) be isolated in a “sun room”. If you detect these disaster zones and have not yet run for your car, make sure you are seated as far away as possible, preferably in a back booth (see below). Should a “clean” restaurant be defiled by the entrance of rogue children after you are seated, you will need a new set of rules that is beyond the scope of this document, but you are certainly within your rights to cast withering looks in their direction.
[Note: It is unfortunate that this bullet has to be included at all. The sad disappearance of the civilized three-martini lunch establishment along with the insane notion that kids have a right to eat in public have made it increasingly difficult to find a lunchtime oasis. Thus the need for the rule.]
• Has comfortable booths and no or few table-and-chair arrangements (which could indicate family dining, see above). Wily wait-staff who attempt to seat you at “this lovely table” should be told that you prefer a booth and will wait if necessary. There is no need for a hard chair in the middle of the dining room to take the edge off your noontime enjoyment. If the wait person is then able to immediately seat you in a booth (indicating that it was available all the time), you have probably chosen a sub-standard restaurant, one that does not intuitively understand the superiority of booths over tables or, worse, has insultingly judged you not booth-worthy.
• Has restrooms with multiple (no waiting) stalls and paper towels (no blow dryers unless paper towels are also present).
- Proper Christmas etiquette includes (but is not limited to):
• Never, ever mentioning work in any serious way.
• Never, ever answering a cell phone. (If you are on call, you simply forfeit Christmas during your confinement.)
• Never consulting your watch.
• Never constraining others by your meeting schedule. (If you have a meeting at 1:00, you need to seriously consider whether or not Christmas fits into your schedule that day, see bullet above.)
• Never delaying others’ celebration due to late-morning meetings that run into the Christmas season (fluidly defined as those hours spanning the middle of the work day)
• Never annoying other celebrants with your current bound-to-fail diet. You MAY order the plain lettuce wedge without dressing, but you may not call attention to it. If anyone asks, you are to say that your cancer has progressed to a stage where all you can stomach is undressed greens.
• Never nit-picking over the check. (Best behavior is simply splitting the check equally among the number of celebrants, regardless of how many appetizers celebrant #3 ordered or how few ounces of tofu celebrant #1 ordered. It is probably best not to celebrate with tofu-eaters.)
Disregarding any of these rules can seriously downgrade Christmas to the level of Kwanza or, worse, Festivus. Continual breakage of the rules makes your citizenship suspect–true Americans understand the pursuit of happiness—and qualifies you for the Christmas Wall of Shame.
The only side-effect of proper Christmas indulgence is post-Christmas come-down (PCCD). This is the feeling that generally hits as your feet drag your sated body back through the office parking lot, fueled by the depressing knowledge that there are still several hours left before you can go home (although Christmas done properly significantly shortens the work day, especially on Friday). Luckily, with proper planning, Christmas recurs within 24 hours, so suck it up, and Merry Christmas!
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This is because you were being considerate of the dining experience for all of the people in the restaurant and this is what those of us with manners used to do.
I had some flake behind me, in a booth, at a restaurant and the kid was screaming obscenities at the wait staff. The woman told her dining partner that her son was so “bright and clever” and laughed at the 3 y.o’s antics.
Given that I’ve had a lot of special needs students, I gave her some latitude. As the screaming continued, I told my husband I was going to say something. He calmly told me that he was sure that the woman was aware that her child had “problems”. So, as we left, the child was being given syrup, and we left her with her mess that I believe she created.
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I didn’t read the article but disagree with the two posters’ sentiments not to take children to restaurants with cloth napkins. Teaching children how to navigate in nicer places is a kindness. Why lower standards for children – that soft bigotry of low expectations mentioned decades ago? I think it’s better to train up.
And with that a story …
Dh and I went to a huge convention in a fancy Houston ballroom. I won’t go into details, but as ds1 was 5 we had to pay his way to all the dining events, including the banquet before the dance on the last evening. We paid for this kid so you better believe we took him to dinner with us. He was a delight, of course, dressed up and sitting at the round of 10 with others. The waiter arrives with the main course – a beautiful filet mignon. My 5yo surveys the table and says “Thank you. May I have some ketchup, please?” The server immediately brought out one of those little bottles of Heinz like you get with room service. Ds1 was delighted as he’d never seen such a thing!
Moral of the story: You can’t teach a 5yo taste, but you can teach a 5yo manners. Also, I am happy to report that this now-31yo eats filet mignon sans ketchup.
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@ABasket --I wish you were in my family! You are too good for this world! 
I do think, though, that some people just get defensive if anyone says anything to them that “tells them what to do”–no matter how tactfully phrased. Your way is most likely to melt their stony hearts, though!
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When my kids were little we took them to family restaurants. I think it’s ridiculous to have to deal with crying babies and misbehaved kids in any restaurant. Get up and take your kid outside. I think because people eat out so much more it has gotten worse. We were at an indoor/outdoor pizza/wine and brew place last fall. There was a group of adults drinking and ignoring their kids and it negatively impacted every other diner there. I know breweries in Philly have put rules in place about hours when children can’t be there because it was so out of hand.
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