A quick guide to family-friendly restaurants

I never appreciated eating out until I had a baby.

My husband and I could dine anywhere up until my daughter was about two months old, when she would sleep peacefully in her car seat. (Ah, those were the days!)

Not my kid, just a pic I found from the Ikea site.

But after that ... she became aware of things, of other people – and wanted out of her seat, out of the restaurant! And so came the crying. And neither myself or my husband (or both) didn't get to eat.

Then when she started crawling at eight months, she wanted to explore. By a year old, she wanted to run around restaurants. And it doesn't matter how many stupid crayons and colouring pictures the restaurant offers, they just don't work!

So eating out for my family has been trial and error – but luckily, we've found a few successful places. At these restaurants, my daughter will sit still for most of the time. And when she signs "done", these locations are pretty cool about kids bobbing around. Here's my list:

• Ikea: Open space, bright lights and good food. Lots of high chairs available too! Great if you need to get some furniture shopping done too. (See my August 2012 post on Ikea.)
• Jack Astor's: It's loud but not annoyingly loud – just loud enough to cover your embarrassing moments. No one heard me sing ABC and Twinkle, Twinkle to my daughter, see?
• Pizza Hut: If we go, we eat there around 4:30pm (I know, we're like seniors!). So it's pretty empty then and if my daughter wants to walk, she can do so freely.
• Mandarin: Hello, THE place for walking around! And my daughter loves the food.

Am I missing any other restaurants? Let me know!