To wonder if it’s possible to stop a toddler from throwing food?

[Twopandemicpregnancies]

Am not sure if this is just terrible twos approaching and just par for the course or if we have a particularly angry and irrational toddler but almost daily she will decide she doesn’t want one of her normal favourite meals by aggressively hurling or flipping a bowl or smacking a spoonful of food out of our hands. She is 23 months old and has been doing this for 4 months but it is getting worse / more frequent. 4 months ago we figured we couldn’t really tell her off as she wouldn’t understand but now her language is pretty good so what can we say or do to improve things?

We are too soft to just terminate the meal if she throws food as we don’t want her going hungry, but equally I imagine by offering her alternatives to the thrown meal (sometimes 3 or 4 different batch cooked little pots until she deigns to eat something) we are letting her have all the control and encouraging this behaviour.

I am pretty sure she doesn’t do this at nursery or when her grandparents feed her - she reserves this behaviour for us parents.

Do we just have to live with food waste and wiping down the walls, furniture and floor every meal or is there something we can do?

Am gutted because she was such a great eater for the first year or so (did Jo Wicks Wean in 15) with all the sour veg and so many different flavours to avoid having a fussy child - and now mealtimes are just no fun at all

Just calmly say "we don't throw food" and "are you ready to get down?". She might not be hungry.

She basically is a really good eater - as in she eats lots of different things. The difficulty is knowing what she will and won’t eat on a given day. It will be much better when she can say what meal she wants (and if she then throws something she requested then she is being unreasonable).

Honestly no it won't be better when she can say, because she'll ask for soup and then when you give her soup she'll scream for pasta.

Or ask for the same thing every single day.

Or ask for cake.

You're expecting a toddler to be logical?! Haha.

It's not your job to be a short order chef anyway - that way madness (and dictatorial children) lies. It's your job to provide a balanced variety of food and snacks with things in that everyone likes, at the same times every day.

It's up to her if she eats it or not.

I love this book. Agree with all the other posters let her feed herself, don't react when she does throw food.

@Twopandemicpregnancies

Thanks everyone. To clarify she can and largely does feed herself with a spoon or her hands. When the mess becomes too much because the yoghurt-filled spoon is used as a missile we might take over spoon feeding her. Sometimes she passes us the spoon and says “help” when she wants us to help feed her. Often we begin the meal by giving her a spoon and bowl and we also have a spoon which is used to transfer more food to her bowl gradually if she is eating nicely (don’t trust her enough to fill her bowl from the start as it is thrown so frequently and suddenly)

If throwing her spoon results in you spoon-feeding her, and spoon-feeding is something she sometimes asks for, I think she’s chucking her food because she sees the attention and spoon-feeding as a reward. It’s less effort for her and she’s got your undivided attention. Toddlers are absolute tyrants sometimes and she’s pretty much getting what she wants by lobbing food around.

@FourChimneys we also have a 2 week old now - which has given us additional motivation to sort out the toddler’s food throwing now that we have limited energy to deal with it - and hopefully prevent baby 2 from going down the same path in a year or two!

Our DS did this when he was slightly younger than yours. We just ignored it basically, no reaction / emotion or commentary at all, hoping that he’d realise it was no fun for him and also he wouldn’t get any food (didn’t offer alternatives) it passed in a couple of weeks.

He’s almost 3 now and doesn’t throw food at all.

I agree with the person who said put the plate of food down and don’t commentate while they’re eating. Just put it down with a causal ‘here you go’ attitude.

@Excited101 I don’t react to the throwing but offer an alternative food, only ending the meal when I am all out of alternatives. DP huffs and puffs about the mess and asks her why she is doing it; he takes his time cleaning up before offering her alternatives (which results in her screaming because she is left waiting with no food for a minute or two). Neither of our approaches really works!

Toddlers want attention, good or bad. Focus on the good and stop reacting so much to the behaviour that you don’t want. It’s a minefield OP! Your DH definitely needs to stop making such a fuss.

One tip - instead of saying “don’t throw food”, say “keep the food on the table/spoon etc”. It is better with all kinds of behaviour to tell them what you want them to do, not what you don’t want them to do.

We have this same issue with our almost two year old. I have just this week decided it must end as he is no longer baby. So now I remain very calm and tell him: "if you throw food, you are all done." and I take his food away and take him out of his chair. I then tell him that if he throws food, he needs to clean it up. And he will pick his food off of the floor and put it in the rubbish bin.

I realised that he is far more capable than I have given him credit for and he is now also responsible for cleaning up his toys too. He seems to enjoy the responsibility for his things and loves the praise he is getting from us.

just to add, I agree with @SlipperyLizard. One of us will also be sitting with him when he is eating and if he picks up his food and is about to throw it we try to preempt it by saying, "food stays on the plate if its not in your mouth." This has cut down on the throwing of food too.

So no one’s actually telling her what she should/shouldn’t be doing? It’s fundamental- how is she meant to know what to do otherwise?

And no, don’t offer anything else- she’s got her food! All you’re doing is teaching her to chuck her food for something interesting and/or better to happen! Keep it calm and consistent and she’ll get it, but you have to tell her no!

My DD is the same age and doesn’t throw a lot of food - very occasionally but it’s not an issue for us. I have had other issues with mealtimes - screaming, refusing food etc. What I’ve found to be really effective in general around mealtimes is:

1. I don’t ‘overreact’ to negative behaviour - so I will say ‘food stays on your plate’ or whatever if she’s starting to get silly, but in a very neutral way. On the occasion she does throw I don’t react as I know this would encourage her to do it more
2. I don’t encourage her to eat in any way - I will provide food and if she starts to get upset I (cheerfully) tell her she doesn’t have to eat it, no problem, etc. but she will sit at the table and usually eat when there isn’t a feeling of pressure - this has been a big one for me!!
3. if she won’t eat there isn’t a second option. I will offer toast or porridge if she really doesn’t eat (as this is what I would do for myself, for example) but if she doesn’t want that either then I accept she just isn’t hungry and we move on
4. I will give lots of praise and attention for ‘big bites like a crocodile’, or very careful drinking, or good spooning, or whatever… but never comment on how much or how little she is eating
5. food is a bit of a trigger point for me so if I’m starting to get a bit stressed during a meal I will find a job to do somewhere out of the room and leave DH to deal with it while I go and calm myself down - this might be helpful for your DH
6. after nursery she gets toast/chopped veg/fruit/yoghurt generally - just picks at a plate of bits that are quite boring. She sometimes eats the lot other times hardly anything at all. But when she’s tired and already eaten well there I have totally stopped bothering with a ‘proper meal’ and it took so much pressure off her

Overall I think it’s really helped just to give her behaviour at mealtimes less power over me. When she was really screamy at dinner time I’m sure my anxiety was feeding into it hugely. Since I have been able to relax things have been so much happier. Good luck with it and congratulations on the birth of your baby!

Is she in a high chair or booster chair? About the same age I moved my toddler to a stokke trip trap. I didn't have a food thrower but did have a refuser so having a chair he could get up and down out gave him some independence.

My son couldn't tell me he was hungry but could get up into his chair and then I would feed him. At his age I didn't stick to standard meal times and still now at 3 - he eats when he is hungry.

So he wants lunch at 11 - he gets it.