Wanting a kid-friendly restaurant, look for the sticker

Mums and dads desperate for a night out, kids in tow, may soon be able to identify local kid-friendly restaurants by a sticker on the window.

Mother-of-three Juliet Potter was sick of turning up at local venues happy to accept her money but not prepared for little fingers wandering over sharp knives, fears of glassware toppling over or breaking fragile crockery.

Child-friendly restaurant Owner Danny Acioli and Anna Steele with son Morris Coffey and little friends.

"A lot of restaurants are child-friendly but I was out the other night and not in my local area when I was looking for a restaurant," she said.

"It's not until you get there until you realise whether or not it is kid friendly."

A trawl through local restaurants, by trial and error, is how we usually identify what works for families, she said.

She believes the nationally-recognisable free sticker was the ideal drive-by way for people to identify kid-friendly restaurants in areas they were unfamiliar with.

Anna Steele, mother of two and part owner of Prato restaurant in Sydney's Abbotsford, loved the concept.

"Kids are part of our lives and we have to be able to accommodate them," she said.

"But it is nice to be able to go out and relax and enjoy yourself with your kids and know that they are being looked after."

A motherdriven.com.au online poll of 5000 mums found only 7 per cent dine out without kids, 65 per cent feel guilty about it, 14 per cent have actually given up on dining out altogether, and 57 per cent only go out if they find a restaurant that caters for kids.

Top five tips to dining out with kids:

1. Call beforehand to make sure the restaurant is equipped for kids. Does it have a high chair, Are kids' meals an option?

2. BYO entertainment - an iPad, crayons, paper, whatever maintains the kids' attention for up to two hours.

3. Watch wanderers. Kids get bored easily and a restaurant is a busy place where the kitchen is often open and breakables and sharps are at their reach.

4. Grab-proof the area. Make sure the wine glasses, the water glasses - whatever's breakable - isn't within reach of curious little fingers.

5. Take screamers out, ASAP. It's time for a walk outside if your child opens their lungs, Jimmy Barnes' style, at the dinner table.