Toddler throwing food

[googietheegg]

Dd is nearly two and generally very well behaved. I'd like to know how to discipline her about throwing food - she will throw her food when she's had enough and will tip her cup of water over the side of her high chair.

I don't give her too much food or water at once and I try to use interesting little dishes etc, so I don't think she's bored.

I say to just stop or give her cup to mummy when she's had enough, which she often does, but I want her to know that the throwing is really not on

What should a nearly two year old understand?

Watching with interest!

My 19 month does exactly the same. Permission to lurk on your thread?

same here - 19 months also - the throwing drives me crazy. I don't really make too much of a big deal about it other than telling him not to do it. Which of course he ignores entirely.

Ha! Let's hope someone helpful comes along soon as we're all in the same boat!

23m old still does this. We just try to watch fir when sge is bored and playing wuth rather than eating it. And then take it away.

Bumpety!!

Watching with interest!

This is just an idea, but could you leave her strapped in her booster seat or similar but pulled away from the table for a minute if she throws food? I think that at about 2 DD starts to get a few actions-consequences and we started to introduce the odd thing like that if it seemed appropriate. So, if your DD tells you she is finished or just pushes the plate away then she gets thanked for telling you nicely and can get down from the table, but if she throws food then the food is taken away but she isn't allowed to get down?

It's just an idea though, touch wood we haven't had this particular problem yet though we had a lot of squidging food and putting it in her hair () and I know at this age some children will understand brief time outs and others won't,

I have a 19 month DD that still does this and a 2.5yr old DA who mostly now doesn't - although he will occasionally sneak something he doesn't like over the edge of his high chair.

I can't remember when he grew out of dumping everything off the edge when finished. I think it helped when he learnt to say "all gone" when finished and I could then take the offending item off him before it got dumped. So just repetition and encouraging him just to leave unwanted food in the corner of his tray. So I'm not a lot of help other than - they grow out of it!

Ds 20 mths has just stopped doing this. But instead he pushes it away and waves bye bye. We slowly got him to do this by watching for when he slows down eating and gets distracted. Then started moving plate away saying bye bye. He grabs it back if he isn't finished!

Have you tried giving her somewhere else to put the food she doesn't want? Dd just hates having somethings on her plate if she doesn't want it, I found if I told her to just put it on her mat she was fine with that and stopped droping it on the floor.

She also does the pushing her plate away thing but I am trying to stop that as she tends to shove too enthusiasticly and ends up knocking things over.

We had constant issues with this until dd was maybe 2.1. We'd tried smaller portions, giving her a bowl to put the things she didn't like in, explaining that she could tell us when she was finished, making her pick up the food from the floor. None of these worked for more than a day. Eventually, I told her that we had a new rule: if she threw food, I would take her food away and she would go on the thinking mat.

She of course tested the new rule, and was quite shocked after being let off the thinking mat to find that her food had been taken away and the meal was finished. We only had to do this twice: she hasn't thrown food since. I wish I'd tried this approach much earlier.