Restaurants

I do agree that it seems a waste of money, but in theory there is nothing wrong with babies eating what is perceived as 'adult' food. In most countries babies just eat what their parents have, food is food (for anyone). Most restaurants will do a smaller or plainer portion of anything on the menu if asked. One of my DDs loved pasta, but it had to be plain, not even parsley sprinkled on it - our local Italian eventually managed to get it right!

I paid

Thanks all, great comments. To clarify, we were abroad, and that meal was from the child’s menu, £9 for a child’s pasta, I know!! It was a huge portion though of basically pasta in tomato sauce. However to be fair to the restaurant a child can range from 1 year old to 10 years plus. So for a strapping 10 year old lad he would have cleared the plate!

I totally agree with babies eating a range of food and that should come from a little bit off their parents / grandparents plate of food we know they like.

What do you think should have been done if they did in fact order a child's portion? Force feed the baby?

I should imagine there was too much food on the plate for the child so it might have been better for SIL to have asked for a smaller plate/dish. The baby might have eaten the smaller amount. Too much food on a plate can put anyone off.

Yes, it was an unfortunate waste of money. Perhaps SIL genuinely thought the child would eat the food.

Lesson learnt. Next time ask for an extra plate & share. Job done & no regrets.

Personally it does not bother me. I like to take the family out and if the grandchildren do not eat their meals so what. It is part and parcel of being a grandparent. The pleasure of having the rest of the family around is well worth a few pounds of wasted food.

I'm inclined to agree patclaf. not worth fussing about. Unless of course you can't afford to waste money and you know your children can't either, and many people are in this category.

Sharing food is the way to go.....just as Caro57 suggested, also offers valuable talking points about the "value" of food.

When my twin grandchildren were 14 months old we were lunching in a restaurant in Spain. They were having meatballs and several members of the party were hoping to finish leftovers. Not a chance the toddlers cleared the plates, and they weren’t tiny portions.

We always used to share with our DC from our plates when eating out, until they were around 5 or 6, and it's now the norm that all children, however young, choose their own starter, main and pudding as standard. The portions are invariably way too big, for the adults as well as the children, so there is either loads of overeating or loads of waste. I don't personally think it's a good thing to have the next generation thinking that either one of these doesn't matter.