Over the past couple of weeks I have had to remind myself of how important mealtime structure is, especially for my two-and-a-half year old. See, we had a baby two months ago and let's just say, we've let things slide a little bit due to being in the trenches of the newborn stage. We've noticed some bad habits forming so are planning to re-establish some structure around feeding and eating in our house…
There is a reason why I brace myself before we call the kids to the table every night for dinner. Actually, there are several reasons. Family meals with young kids, for the most part, aren't peaceful or overly enjoyable.
If your home is anything like mine, meal times are chaotic. We try to have family meals most nights, with our baby in her bouncy chair in the middle of the table (so that she's part of the action) and our three year old in his red "big boy chair" which, admittedly, is a glorified high chair that attaches to our table—it keeps him somewhat contained, otherwise, he'd be up and down a zillion times during our meal.