My 18 mo loves to throw food on the floor. I'm getting down on my hands on knees after each meal and wiping the floor under her high chair. What do you do? Does anyone have a solution so that I don't have to do this each meal time?
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I know they sell those disposable or washable high chair mats. I have a dog so I usually just have to mop at the end of the night. But are you looking for something to curb the behavior? For example, telling LO that throwing food means they're done and want off and being consistent.
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Once DS starts throwing food i remove his tray and tell him no food if he is going to throw food. Once he seems to get the message, i'll put the tray back on, and remove it again when he starts to throw food. "Okay, are you telling me you're all done?"
Otherwise i would just get a cheap tablecloth and set it under the chair.
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I have no idea how anybody copes without dogs. Sorry!
Definitely hoping to teach her to throw food less in the future, but she's only 12 months so for now we're just trying to get her to eat as much as we can.
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@snowjewelz: @Freckles: if she's Eastern a little and then starts throwing food, I remove the tray. If she hasn't eaten at all and starts throwing food, I give in and start offering her all sorts things to get her to eat. Maybe I need to stop doing that?
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I have a messy floor?
Seriously though, our kids get food EVERYWHERE. I wipe down the boosters and the chairs and sweep the floor, but it probably stays a little sticky in between when I mop, which honestly isn't that often. If something wet spills I will wipe that up, but it is definitely not as clean as I would like it.
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@PawPrints: Seriously, haha. Anything she drops I go "Penny!"
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@Pumpkin Pie: It's so hard to stay consistent! Esp the part where you potentially have to see them stay hungry b/c they just keep throwing food.
Personally I had never gotten to that point. She never throws all the food but I know when she starts showing signs she's over this so we just move onto fruit, her favorite part haha.
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@snowjewelz: We have to shut them below the gate while DD is eating, otherwise she will hand them food directly into their mouths throughout the meal.
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@PawPrints: I think we need to start doing this bc my LO and our dog have a real good partnership going on right now and I would really like less of her food to go straight to the dog!
I've been looking into a mat bc some of our hardwood floors have tiny gaps in between them and so it gets stuck in between. But I like the idea of a cheap vinyl tablecloth and that could go in the wash too.
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i think the first feeding time floor mess is the moment my dog decided she liked the baby.
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Our two big life savers:
1 - A pack of baby wipes that stay in the kitchen. Its wasteful, sure but sometimes its easy to grab one, wipe the floor and throw the wipe and the food out (without rinsing a rag)
2 - The Bissell Steam and Vac in one. It picks up a good amount of crumbs (even dog hair) and then does a quick steam mop to get stuck on mess. The pads for it go in the wash.
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No dog, so we just clean the floor after each meal.
At 17 months, it is getting worse, so I've started doing a few things to combat it. First, I've started taking her tray as soon as she starts to throw items from it. What happens next depends on how much she's eaten. Sometimes if she's clearly done, it is gone for good and I encourage her to say or use her signs to indicate she's "all done", which she can usually do well. Sometimes we go back to one item on her tray at a time, which she is not a huge fan of.I have no idea if this is helping, but I often clean up the floor after I've taken her tray away but before she comes out of her high chair (which she's always dying to do!) so she sees me cleaning up her mess. I always use words to explain what I'm doing, something like, "Mommy's cleaning up the floor now, because you threw your food." Other times, I have her help me clean it up, which she is pretty good at doing.
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@T.H.O.U.: omg I know what is on my christmas list this year
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@Mrs. Lion: It was a LIFE CHANGER. I think it was maybe $150 at Costco. The costco version came with 4 pads which is great but I'm sure the functionality is the same as the walmart version. I seriously thought about going to buy a back up for when this one breaks. Shark used to make a vac/steam combo but they stopped making it.
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@T.H.O.U.: We have a steam mop but I only use it about once a week. I could see using this thing 3 times a day! Oh man. I am excited.
Its the little things...
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we have a splat mat like this: http://www.amazon.com/Sugarbooger-Jumbo-Floor-Vintage-Alphabet/dp/B003I85R6I/ref=sr_1_10_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1459796999&sr=8-10&keywords=splat+mat
and I just wipe it down after most meals. My LO doesn't really throw food though. it's just the typical toddler eating mess. If you're looking to stop the behavior, then yeah I might try taking the food away and asking if she's all done. When she stops, put the plate back. If she starts again, take it away agin. all the while asking, all done? etc. Repetition may help?
Also, I know how you feel about trying to offer her multiple options to get her to eat, but I have learned the hard way that it doesn't help in the long run.... -
We have a splat mat that goes under his highchair. We use the IKEA Antilop chair so it can be wiped down after meals and then most of the food ends up on the splat mat. We pick up the big pieces and then DH or I just shake off the crumbs or small bits food in the backyard after meals (we call it "feeding the voles.") Then every few days I'll throw it in the wash. We keep Lysol wipes on the kitchen table to wipe down the high chair and floor if something falls there and keep baby wipes to mop off any excess gunk off DS before we move him over to the sink. We also use one of those silicon bibs with the pocket that catches food so that helps. At around 16 months, we took the tray off the high chair and just scooted him over to eat off the table (we use the EZPZ mat) and that's helped with the throwing too.
We have this splat mat (but it was like 10 bucks when we bought it!) http://www.amazon.com/Prince-Lionheart-Multi-Purpose-Catchall-Stripe/dp/B004HKIB32/ref=sr_1_5_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1459797238&sr=8-5&keywords=splat+mat
Hang in there, the throwing food thing gets better over time!
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@BabyTsMom: If your kid doesnt eat, do you just let him go hungry?
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@Pumpkin Pie: I have done that a few times, yes. I have a lot of anxiety about his eating and have posted multiple times about it, so I get it! But yeah I don't short order cook anymore. I might offer a slice of bread or plain rice but usually when he's refusing, he's refusing everything.
I still get bent out of shape about it but I don't try to force him or make him something else. I just let myself get pissed and try not too show it, haha. Most of the times he'll make it up in the next meal, but if it's dinner he's refused, I have offered him milk before bedtime and he usually drinks that. -
We end the meal the third time she throws food and we ask her to help clean up her mess. Even if helping means I clean it and she pretends to wipe something up and throws the paper towel away. We started this pretty early on and at 2 she hardly ever throws anything.
Once it's cleaned up, if she wants to continue her meal she of course can!
ETA - we really don't offer alternatives either. We have started offering a regular night time snack before bed (about an hour after dinner) so if she doesn't eat what we serve, we tell her she needs to wait until her bed time snack. I wanted to space it out instead of offering an alternative at dinner so it didn't seem like we were cool being a short order chef!
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My daughter is 2 1/2 now, so her table manners are getting better and your baby's will too! I just got a piece of plastic lined fabric from the fabric store and cut it with pinking shears. I put it under my daughter's high chair at meals and then I can rinse it off in the shower and throw it over the bar to dry. I also used to take the fabric cover thing off of her high chair and feed her in just a diaper if I was giving her something super messy like spaghetti.
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