Little blighter driving me bats throwing food on floor

[OhGood]

DS is 1 and has started grabbing a handful of food / spoon / plate / watercup, looking me in the eye and chucking it on the floor. Even when he's hungry and it's chopped grapes (which is like me tossing fine sauvignon blanc down the sink.)

It's sooooooooo annoying. I have exacerbated situation by reacting, unfortunately.

So - please help me make a plan to deal with this? What's the best strategy for getting him to stop this, and still getting food into him? I still need to get him to eat, I mean, so I can't just take all the food away.

[Hatetidyingthehouse]

I googled this the other day. A couple if things.
Give them small bits of food at a time so they don't have the opportunity to throw handfuls and handfuls.
Also whoever it was said that when they start throwing food they must be full and bored, so take the food away.
I've been going with the second bit of advice.
My next job to do after messing around on mumsnet is to get the Hoover out and Hoover up the rice which was thrown this evening!

[GoogleyEyes]

Not much food at one time (even just one bit), no plate (or anything else throwable) and being 'busy' with the washing up / dishwasher / kettle when he wants it back, so he has to wait 30 seconds. And a washable mat (I used a cheap shower curtain) on the floor.

I also found teaching the baby sign for 'finished' helped, as it (eventually) replaced the dd2 sign for 'finished' which was dumping her food on the floor.

[OhGood]

OK, so the plan is:

calmly say no, we don't throw food on the floor
calmly remove food
be busy with washing up for a bit
calmly say Oh, you're screaming head off because you want delicious chopped grape back? Here you go

Rinse and repeat until I think he is actually finished, then sign 'Finished'.

So no-one's suggested putting baby on floor so he can fall on the food he has just chucked there and shovel it all into his mouth like a starving baby, making fatly happy noises as he does so because that works too?

[GoogleyEyes]

I wouldn't even do the first two. Serve up, leave to it. When all food on floor, be 'busy' for 30 seconds so it's not a fun game but an interruption to fun eating. At this age, it's not naughtiness but experimentation and the more you leave it to natural consequences (food all out of reach briefly) the quicker he'll decide not to.

I would tell a three year old not to drop food, but at this age I never found telling worked at all. Just not there yet, developmentally.

[Rosa]

After 5 minutes of food throwing you say ok your finished and get him down ....cue screams as they realise that the game is finished and actually they are still hungry ...leave to strop a bit before returning to chair and start again. Or place bowl out of reach and you spoon in the food ....that confuses as they want to do it themselves and they are hungry so which wins???? - You place tiny amount on another bowl / dish and place infront - with or witnout spoon as you prefer and wait ...don't watch... If he eats then give a bit more etc etc...food throwing starts you start the whole thing again.

[OhGood]

Googley - sounds like good sense.

And better hygiene than floor food.