Background....dd was very, very, very slow at getting established onto solids and was really not interested in non breast made food until she was 18 months, it took until she was 2 and a half to get her eating several times a day (which is when I weaned her in desperation) She is by far the fussiest of my children. We are pretty low key about it, we offer food it is eaten or it isn't eaten and we don't make a huge deal about it. Our kids have a fairly balanced diet but are also allowed occasional treats etc.
Over the last 4 weeks dd has taken to eating quite happily then suddenly she will puff out her cheeks and hold the mouthful. When she first started doing it, we ignored her but she took to spitting it out much later in random places. We handed her a cleaning cloth and made no big deal about it. It started getting worse and about 10 days ago we sat down and came up with a game plan. Whenever she does it she is led quietly to the toilet where she can spit out the mouthful. There is no more food until the next meal (she will often ask for something else straight away. We have explained that her body has told us she is not longer hungry. At the same time we have a chart up with 5 squares, she gets a picture in the square for every incident of polite eating we see and a prise after the 5 are filled. She is getting a prize every 2 days so out of 12 meals she has managed 5 nicely. We do not expect her to finish her food but we do expect her to say I have had enough and then finish rather than hold if that makes sense. On the other side of things we are trying to spend lots of one on one time with her and give her lots of positive attention in other aspects.
This is driving me a bit nuts, she does it when we are out, everywhere with food she likes and has eaten every bit of except the last bit.
She is just 4. Help.