Eating at Restaurants with Kids in Japan

sponsored by squarespace this is what you need to know when going to a restaurant in japan with a baby [Music] so i wasn't planning on doing this video at this time but i wanted to spend some time with my son today wolfie and several the viewers have asked me about this video so here we are for all of you travelers i'm going to show you my personal tips on how you can bring your kid or your baby to a japanese restaurant but like always if you guys want to see what i'm doing on the daily check ou

t my instagram account if you want to help support the channel check out the japan merch and if you have any questions about japan or japan travels then check out my discord community let's get wolfie now and let me show you my tips if you're traveling to japan with kids dining out could be a little bit intimidating when you don't know what to expect to be completely honest it's still tricky for us too even though i've lived in japan for many years since it's different from restaurant to restaur

ant today though i'll share with you what i've learned during the last year and a half with my baby boy i'm sure some of these tips i mentioned are common knowledge worldwide but since i'm not familiar with the standard in other countries i'll simply share the specifics about japan and you can let me know how it compares to your country so today we're doing a video at a japanese family restaurant which is reasonably kids friendly but these tips will apply to most restaurants in japan oh damn i s

hould start by telling you that tokyo and many of the other larger cities are not the most kid-friendly places in terms of stroller access as many of the restaurants are tightly packed and only accessible by stairs the first thing that you need to know when coming to a japanese restaurant is that the strollers are sometimes accepted and you can actually bring them to the table but a lot of restaurants are a little bit smaller so you won't be able to bring the stroller in so before you're seated

make sure to ask what you should do about your stroller same thing goes for baby chairs some restaurants offer it but many don't so you'll need to ask at the front if you do know before and that you're going to a specific restaurant you can check online to see what they offer and if you can't read the japanese you can always try google translate but it will depend on the restaurant whether they have kids related info or not since a lot of the places make you check the stroller in we usually pack

things that we often use at the table separately in smaller bags the seating will be smooth without making other people wait we usually have two bags one is a diaper bag while the other has everything else this is what's inside instant bento box fruit pack juice pack utensils toys alcohol wipes and non-alcohol wipes also don't forget to bring some toys to entertain them i often just use my phone to let them watch netflix or youtube while i eat my food i find that carrying a little stand for the

phone is also useful ozaski style seating is also available in japan a common style of seating where you sit on the floor at a low table since you don't need to worry about chairs and parents can sit with their children it's often preferred by many japanese families so keep this in mind when you're making decisions about a restaurant one thing about japan is that many restaurants offer private rooms this is something we try to request when we're with our son so his beautiful addicts don't bothe

r customers also it's probably worth noting changing a baby's diaper in private rooms is still considered unsanitary in japan before going to a lot of these restaurants if it's not like a family restaurant then you might want to ask in advance whether or not you can go if you're making reservations then that's probably the best place to ask but if you're gonna do a walk-in then i would suggest just like asking them before you enter and like take a seat just ask them are kids okay or our baby is

okay and if babies are okay you want to say or if you want to say our children okay you would say it's probably like the simplest and easiest way to say it now let's talk about what kids can actually eat at the restaurant if you do go to a family restaurant like the one we're here today it's actually quite nice because they do have a kids menu but if you're not in a situation where they have a kids menu you can simply ask them if you can bring your own food it is polite manner to ask this shop b

ecause what we couldn't eat a lot of items on the menu even like especially when he was a lot smaller you would ask you know is it okay to bring in food at the end of the day if you did bring food you're inside before you start feeding your kid nice to be able to say hey is it okay to open up this food for my kid or this drink yeah you like it you need to be careful sometimes and just test the food to make sure it's not too warm we often experience wolfies food being extremely hot when served so

just be careful before feeding all right so now we're going to feed wolfie he has hypoallergenic set it is curry it has some broccoli it has some corn potato and rice see if he likes it customizing the menu or ingredients for your child is more than likely going to be difficult at a family or chain restaurant whereas you may have a bit more luck at a chef's own restaurant but again this is not really part of japanese custom so don't expect too much now if you have a baby who's still nursing the

most polite thing to do is find a nursing room but if not available then using a bottle would be preferred nursing at the table is still a bit controversial in japan so it's best to avoid it if you can asking staff for hot water or to warm up bottles is also something that most restaurants wouldn't be expected to do in japan so quickly before we continue on i want to give a quick shout out to the sponsor for this video squarespace if you all don't already know squarespace is the number one way

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red restaurants here in japan is that some of them actually prepare food for kids that are under one basically they're not actually gonna like make any food but they'll pretty much have the gerber like bottled food for you ready so that you can buy it and then serve it to your kid some of these restaurants are royal host fuji restaurant denny's kappa sushi coco curry marugan ramen and ikea so another thing that you should be aware of is kids amenities now if you have a kid that's over a year old

then usually they'll have kind of like the smaller forks and the smaller spoons and you know cups and stuff but if your baby is under like one year old then they might not have like the proper utensils or the proper like baby spoons and forks so you might want to prepare that just in case they have these kid junior coins that gives you free toys at the entrance so we're gonna go cash them in right now most family restaurants offer free toys or something to play with so if you forget to bring a

kids toy and you desperately need one japanese family restaurants come and clutch [Music] one thing that's really interesting in japan especially like in regular restaurants or like regular typical japanese restaurants is they don't offer napkins they'll have like a wet towel to start with but they usually don't have napkins so michael and i bring kind of like our own disinfectant napkins one more um luckily like these like family restaurants there are more like freely to give like napkins [Musi

c] this video is to be honest with you it's probably harder than i expected talking to you guys okay okay so i wanted to quickly talk about diapers more specifically changing diapers here in japan this one is like you get kind of like controversial points of view well the standard man in japan is that you don't change the baby's diaper at the table for sanitary reasons also a majority of the restaurants don't have a changing room so if you have a baby who needs a changing table you'll again need

to plan for this one often times though you can find a nearby changing room so in this case you can let the staff know that you're going to step out real quick and then come back many parents use an app called mama papa map to find nearby changing in nursing rooms that are available to the public it notes nursing rooms and bottle warming facilities as well we often use it ourselves as it's very useful so i think it's worth downloading before you start your food adventure and if you're really in

a pinch it's kind of in a gray area but changing outside in the baby's stroller could be okay there's no other options it should be quick without getting in anyone's way cool so that's what to expect at a japanese restaurant when taking a baby if you guys like this video help me out and hit that like button if you guys want to see more videos like this or anything related to japan hit that subscribe button and above and we'll catch you guys in the next one