Have you found an effective way to stop it? My one year old really likes to toss food. Usually it's when she's had enough, so taking it away doesn't get the message across. It's going to be a long time before she's able to understand why you shouldn't throw food... am I stuck with scrubbing dinner off the floor for the next year?
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We told ours that if she didn't want it she could hand it to mom or dad. Things still end up on the floor but much less often than before.
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We really just had to watch closely for the very minute LO looked like she *might* be ready to throw food. Then, I found that instead of yelling/being stern, it actually worked best to say something like "uh oh, food goes in our mouth!" in a sing-song voice and take an exaggerated bite of my own. If she did throw something, dinner was immediately over, but again in a calm manner "thanks for telling me you're all done!"
So it was kind of a combination of trying to prevent it, not let it happen multiple times in one meal, and keeping it from seeming like a power struggle.
Things that did not work: yelling "no!", getting angry, giving warnings.
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Get a dog? I'm kidding, kind of. T doesn't really throw his food but when he's done eating, he will start passing it to the dogs. Less messy floor that way though!
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@mrs. turtle: ha! we also have a dog, and whenever we visit my parents (or friends without dogs), i comment on how much more food we would have to clean up after meals if we didn't have one!
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@KayKay: Pretty much ditto this. We use an RIE (i.e. Janet Lansbury "No Bad Kids") approach to everything, so we just say "I see you're throwing food, so that tells me that you're done eating. I'll take your tray away now." So there only winds up being one or two things max that get onto the floor, that way. One-year-olds are totally capable of understanding that it's not okay to throw food! Little babies can understand a lot. Of course that doesn't mean they aren't going to test those boundaries, that is a natural part of toddlerhood.
We used to put all of DD's food onto her tray at once, and she pushed a ton of it onto the floor. Everything changed when we switched to putting everything on a plate or bowl and offering it to her and letting her grab as much as she could eat at one time, then offering more when she finished that. Now when she's done, most of the time she will carefully place the leftover food into my/DH's hand, then say/sign "All done!" It's pretty cute. Then she will immediately start playing with the puddle of milk in her bib, so we race to get everything put away.
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Put a plastic mat under the high chair. Then repeatedly remind her that food stays on our plate and if she's done she can say all done (or teach her the sign for it?) Watch for when she's Getting close to being done and ask her if she's finished and would like you to take it away.
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We taught her to sign instead. Now she signs all done.
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@Banana330: @KayKay: @PawPrints: yeah, we can sometimes get her to hand over food she doesn't want, but usually I don't have time to say anything before it's on the floor! Definitely only giving her one thing at a time, though.
@Mrs. Turtle: good advice! No more dogs for me, I think, but I used to have a pup and he would have loved to live with DD.
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@catomd00: that's a good idea! I'll have to try it, at least the floor will be cleaner.
@youboots: that might work too... she's into signing now so it might help.
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@Mama Bird: I don't have any great advice (we tried to mostly do what @KayKay: said) but I just want to say, it does pass. It's super annoying but it ends eventually. We had a dog and so much food got dropped or thrown that he started getting picky about what he would eat off the floor. Meat or cheese he would come over for but Cheerios he would look at it and be like, nah, I'm good.
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I think it just takes time and patience. Like others, we tell her "food throwing means you're all done" and we take the food away. She has learned to say all done and she now really likes to hand us her plate with her spoon and cup and says "all done."
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Nothing has worked well for us. Now he will start to hand food back to us. But he will throw anything he doesn't want on the floor. Or he'll do it because he thinks it's funny. I bought a mat for the floor but now most of it lands off the mat. Since it's summer we've been eating a lot of meals outside so I don't have to sweep/mop!
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@Foodnerd81: oh my
it's got to be bad when the dog is getting picky!@sapphire: @BeachMama: Yeah, just got to have lots of patience, I guess!
it's got to be bad when the dog is getting picky!Reply
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