What are we giving our babies to entertain themselves when in public.
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We order right away for starters. If we can, we don’t put her in the highchair right away. We’ll walk around if possible. We will bring a few toys. Sometimes we’ll give her the creamer and sugar packs and let her stack them. We have a little activity book too.
Everything. Spoons, forks, & straws are fun. Coloring works until she tries to eat it. Cars are cool when you push them back and forth. Wipes to clean the table or something she can put things in and pull them out. Basically, it's something new every few minutes or so. Sometimes, all she really wants is to dump her ice cold water in her lap :/ Yay, independence.
Snack cup and doodle board for my guy.
Tons of small snacks (our current go to are the fruit and veggie cheerios), a magnetic drawing board, a spinner (I attached hers to a pacifier strap so she can't throw it lol), a buckle buddy toy (we have Bruce the shark and it's her favorite!!! I don't let her unbuckle yet tho, cuz she got so good at buckling so quickly I was worried she'd unbuckle her carseat/stroller/highchair if she learned how, and considering she'll buckle herself IN to those now...), and then this cool small cube thing that has different fidget type toys on each side! Keeps her entertained for at least 30 minutes!! Then def always order an app as soon as possible. If she fills up, she'll still pick at everyone else's food to try something new. We def overprepare but, she does really well with those things even on flights (like the 3.5 hour we just got off lol). And she's obsessed with letters now so I can write parts of the alphabet on her board and ask her to find a letter, which will entertain her for as long as my sanity lasts lmao
The only downside to her buckle toy is that (other than potentially learning how to unbuckle herself from things) it's a stuffie, and the care says surface clean only, so once she starts eating it's a no go. I did throw him in the washer at my mom's cuz it doesn't have a center oscillator so it's more gentle and it did fine, but I probably surface clean that thing 5x a week. They make board ones that might be better for restaurants, I just don't know the company name (I also don't know who makes the cube but I'll ask my cousin who gifted it to us!)
Another thing we do is make sure we aren’t on our phones. I know that’s not really the answer to your question though. We are trying really hard to not have electronics for the baby when we go out, so we feel like that means we shouldn’t either. We talk, color, look around at the restaurant.
https://www.itzyritzy.com/products/itzy-pop-whirl This is the most valuable thing we ever bought. Like seriously have not had a single meltdown because of it. Plus the company is reputable as well!