How do you get through the on purpose dropping stage??

[Grassgreendashhabi]

My little one is 13 months she purposely drops things e.g she is in jumperoo and will drop dummy on floor. She will hold it over the outside of jumperoo and then drop it. Look at it for twenty seconds then scream. It's become a bit of a game.

At night she throws everything out of cot. And I sneak in after she is asleep and put them back in.

Now we have had to seperate the garden with a little 3ft fence as part of the garden is a building site but she now chucks everything she can over the little fence.

I've tried leaving things on the other side of fence but we have a melt down.

She thinks it's a game. How do I get her to not do this. Is that even possible. I must add it's not one or two things now and again she will literally collect and make a pile of stuff and start dropping or chucking .

[LillyBugg]

Mine is nearly 2yo and still does this. It's infuriating. Depending on what it is I now don't return the item. Which usually leads to a massive meltdown but he is starting to get that if he drops/throws something, mummy might not give it back.

Hopefully others have got some good advice I can use to!

[Grassgreendashhabi]

I've tried picking bits up and taking inside so they are gone. But it's a massive meltdown.

She also has attention span of a knat...

[Grassgreendashhabi]

Here hoping lilly

[Whathaveilost]

I ignored most things, even if they screamed.
The only thing I reacted to was if it was something that would break where I took it off them and put ir out of reach but made no comment and had an impassive face.

This phase will soon end!

[PerspicaciaTick]

This is a really exciting developmental phase, your DC is learning about do much stuff playing this game. The fact that objects can disappear from sight but still exist is amazing and funny, where does it go? How does mum get it back? Does it always come back?

I know it is really annoying, but it did help me to grit my teeth and play along when I realised how much my DC was getting out of it.

[skankingpiglet]

As with a lot of undesirable behaviour, ignore ignore ignore. If you pick it up, it'll become a game. I usually shrug and say 'oh dear, it's gone, never mind' then move on to distract and talk about something else. If there's a meltdown it gets ignored too with maybe a 'well if it's important to you, don't drop/chuck it' and I carry on with the distraction. She still does it but it's less of an issue than it was. She's 2.1yrs.

[isthistoonosy]

With my first I ignored it and say for exmaple, with the highchair he had to wait to get down to get it back. With my second, I still ignore it but DC1 gets it back so they now play the game but we are now nearly a yr in and even dc1 is starting to find it annoying sometimes, esp when its clear even to him that it wasn't an accident.

[Sleeperandthespindle]

Why would you ignore this? It's a developmental stage and essential in beginning to understand how the world works. It's not a 'bad behaviour' to be discouraged! Use it, interact, play (or at least encourage an older child to do so, as a PP describes).

[thescruffiestgiantintown]

Your DD, like all toddlers, is a little scientist. How disheartening that people are telling you to ignore!

The only thing I ever discouraged DD from dropping was food - with that, I'd put it back on her plate and say "food is for eating; if you're finished I can get you down" and it took about a week or two of that line on repeat for her to stop dropping food.

If you have stairs in your house, get a bag of cheapo ball pit balls and let her throw them all down the stairs - we used to spend ages doing this over and over!

[Runningbutnotscared]

My nineteen month old ds is still toying with throwing things away for giggles, although it has really calmed down in the last month or so.
I never made a big deal out of it, just picked whatever it was up and gave it back without commenting (although I also removed anything I didn't want to pick up repeatedly) he is my pfb so I had all the patience in the world for him and had read that it's an important stage in learning.
I am now clamping down on throwing away food he doesn't want to eat because he has shown that, on occasion, he is capable of moving it out of his plate and leaving it. Usually he prefers to fling it in disgust. I think (but dont know) that nineteen months is an ok age for trying to stop the throwing of food?
At 13 months I'd just give whatever it is back

[thescruffiestgiantintown]

Running yes I think so re food, we did it at about 14mo.