Reusable placemat

Abstract

A cost effective, durable, safe, and washable placemat that remains in place during use, contain spills that arise during meal time, and collects food and other debris before it falls on the floor is disclosed. In one disclosed embodiment, the reusable placemat has a substantially planar eating surface that is encircled by a spill retention rim with a food retention gutter detachably secured thereto. A resilient strip of material preferably encircles the lower side of the placemat thereby defining a non-slip foot. The planar eating surface may be substantially transparent, thereby allowing one or more activity cards to be displayed therethrough.

Description

REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60 / 715,053 filed on Sep. 7, 2005.FIELD OF THE INVENTION [0001] The present invention relates to a reusable placemat for use primarily by infants, toddlers, and the like. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] Children, particularly infants and toddlers, are messy eaters. They tend to eat with their hands, and they frequently do not effectively use bowls or plates. As a result, they tend to spill food on themselves and around their surrounding areas during meal times. [0003] In addition to this mess, childrens' eating styles tend to allow their food and beverages to frequently contact potentially unclean surfaces. For example, children often let food fall to the floor, and they are sometimes prone to retrieving these dropped items and eating them before a parent can intervene. Moreover, the general cleanliness of a tabletop in a restaurant is often undeterminable. [0004] Eff...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0008] Accordingly, despite the improvements of the known placemat designs, there remains a need for a cost effective, durable, safe, and washable placemat that remains in place during use, contain spills that arise during meal time, and collects food and other debris before it falls on the floor. In addition to other benefits that will become apparent in the following disclosure, the present invention fulfills these needs.

[0009] In one disclosed embodiment, the reusable placemat has a substantially planar eating surface that is encircled by a spill retention rim with a food ret

Problems solved by technology

Children, particularly infants and toddlers, are messy eaters.

They tend to eat with their hands, and they frequently do not effectively use bowls or plates.

As a result, they tend to spill food on themselves and around their surrounding areas during meal times.

In addition to this mess, childrens' eating styles tend to allow their food and beverages to frequently contact potentially unclean surfaces.

Moreover, the general cleanliness of a tabletop in a restaurant is often undeterminable.

While these protective cover solutions reduce the clean-up time and protect furniture and the like, they have several drawbacks.

For example, these protective cover devices do little to help contain spills or prevent food from falling to the floor during mealtime.

In practice, frequently washing large tablecloths grows burdensome.

While these types of devices reduce the workload associated with cleaning them between meals, they do little to help contain spills or prevent food from falling to the floor during meal time.

Some children will even pull up such mats while their food and beverages are resting thereon, thereby causing an even bigger mess than would have been created by not using the placemat at all.

Efforts to improve the basic design of a placemat have had limited success.

While the scoop helps collect some debris, these types of designs do little to contain spills arising on the mat itself, entertain the child during meal-time, or prevent the child from pulling up the mat during use.

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