2. Encourage healthy teeth and gums by switching from sippy cups to small drinking glasses and/or ceramic mugs earlier. “Sippy cups were created to help children transition from a bottle to drinking from a regular cup, but they’re too often used for convenience,” says American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry (AAPD) President Philip H. Hunke, D.D.S., M.S.D. Sippy cups are linked to tooth decay in young children, and also prevent that great hand eye coordination that drinking from a cup provides. Of course, my daughter still spills her water sometimes, but she’s practicing her coordination, and everything stays contained in her Tidy Table Tray, so it’s worth the spill!

3. Make mealtimes enriching and stimulating by bringing your child to the family table. Two makes company, and company is stimulating… so even if it’s just you and your little one, or two of your children eating together, let meal-time be shared time!

2.  Speech Benefits:  Research reveals that babies who eat with the family achieve significant developmental gains–at an earlier age than the norm for those skills.  For example, group dining facilitates the baby’s ability to talk sooner and achieve a broader vocabulary.

3. Inclusiveness and Belonging:  The family dining experience can add to the fulfillment of the young child’s basic desire to belong.  Human beings thrive on feeling included.  Imagine the harmony in our world if everyone felt included from their earliest, primary experience.  Newborns recognize the sound of their Mother’s and Father’s voices, which informs the baby that it is part of a larger environment–the family–thereby, strengthening the baby’s association with the family group.

4. Imprinting.  Research confirms that imprinting occurs primarily in the first three years of life.  Within those 36-months, deep unconscious assumptions about the self are formed, internalized, and determine the basic framework on which the child will mold its future sense of itself.

5.  Higher Self-Esteem as Older Children and Adults.  Studies show that children who eat with family members develop a higher sense of self and self- esteem.

6.  Develop Better Decision-Making Strategies.  Children who are part of the family dining circle are more likely to make constructive decisions when confronted with critical, peer pressure, such as the use of drugs or drinking  alcohol.

7.  Better Communication with Parents.  Children who eat with family on a regular basis appear to have more open and honest communication patterns with their parents.  This includes turning to parents with problems or difficult, personal issues.

8.  Safety.  If your child is with you at the table, you have a ring-side seat to observe and intervene if the baby is putting too much food in its mouth or is having difficulty swallowing an oversized bite.

9.  Healthy Eating Habits.  Studies show that children who eat with family members eat healthier and more well-balanced meals.

10.  Etiquette.  Introducing this training at an early age fosters the likelihood that you won’t be saying to your teenager: “Chew with your mouth closed, please”.  By watching family members perform eating skills, the baby becomes nimble with mastering hand-to mouth coordination–and table etiquette is naturally reinforced.

There were definitely times when my daughter ate separately in her highchair while I washed dishes or cleaned the kitchen, but it was apparent to me that the quality of our interaction was significantly heightened when we dined together as a family: more frequent eye contact, extended word exchange, spontaneous smiles, and more laughter. I also observed that often my daughter mirrored our eating and verbal styles at the table. By the age of three, she had an impressive vocabulary, and was comfortable talking with people of all ages. I attribute some of that to the learning times that took place at the table.

I wanted to research the benefits of eating together after all my positive experiences, so I investigated published research records. Not surprisingly, virtually all of the studies I read solidly endorsed the benefits of the family mealtime experience, citing enhanced stimulation, closer bonding and more positive self-esteem as key, life-enhancing gains. I was already familiar with Marie Montessori’s perspective, which emphasizes the importance of contained, organized spaces for babies and pre-school-age children. Then, in March of 2000, Harvard published the results of their own survey by tracking 65 children over a period of 8 years. The initiative identified three activities, which consistently emerged as those most likely to maximize healthy, child development: play, story time and activities involving family members. The family dining experience was ranked Number One. (1, 2). Furthermore, their research reinforced the increasingly accepted position that children who share meals with family members develop better language skills as preschoolers. In later years, these children achieve higher success levels in school, better communication patterns, are more likely to avoid harmful substances, and generally make healthier food choices (2, 3). Armed with these and other control-study measurements, I became more convinced that ever: Bringing babies to the table is hugely beneficial!

Along with the acknowledged joy and undisputed developmental gains of eating together, came the unavoidable messes! As a first-time Mom, I was surprised by the amount of time I spent cleaning the table, clothes and the floor-area around the infamous drop-zone–both during, and after, Teghan’s meals. The wood finish on our dining room table was wearing thinner by the day from the many scrubbings I applied to remove eggs, oatmeal and other sticky foods. I tried every bib I could find but none offered much improvement. In talking to other Moms, I discovered that many had prolonged the highchair stage to avoid the messy clean-ups, but my daughter liked eating at the table. What to do? As a firm advocate that “necessity is the mother of invention”, I proceeded to place myself in a solutions mode. From that moment forward, the notion of the TTTray began to germinate.

The first prototype consisted of cardboard, duct tape, and toilet paper rolls! I decided to conduct a test-run with my baby. The experiment worked! I also saw that I was able to set up her entire meal in the kitchen and deliver the tray to the dining table–in one step. Clearly, the features inherent in my conceptualized model provided real time-savers: time I could be spending with my family at the table; and time other parents could be spending with their children.

Today, our daughter uses her Bambinos! Tidy Table Tray + Flexi-Diner for meal-time. Recently, while on vacation, I needed to send my Tray to our photographer for some last-minute shots. So the next morning, we improvised. Not surprisingly, I found oatmeal on Teghan’s dress, the floor and the table. The incident immediately brought forward a vivid reminder of the days before the Tidy Table Tray and all the clean up!

Megan Streit Wilson is the inventor of the Bambinos! Tidy Table Tray, and the president of Bambinos!, LLC. She lives with her family in Colorado.

1. Carter, Jaine and James D. Carter, Scripps Howard News Service. “Eating Together Strengthens Family Ties.” www.newschief.com/stories/022799/lif_family.shtml
2. Background: Research on Family Meals, Martha Marino, MA, RD, CD and
Sue Butkus, PhD, RD 3. Sanford, Carolyn. “Using ‘rare’ words at mealtime can enlarge children’s vocabulary.” record.wustl.edu/archive/1995/09-28-95/4234.html.