Best way to handle food dropped from high chair (on purpose)

[hub2dee]

dd is 16 months. She doesn't do a lot of this, and it's usually just the odd bit of food rather than the whole bowl, but it's annoying nonetheless. I was wondering what was suggested 'best practice':

1. Ignore (it's just a phase, she'll grow out of it)

2. Say "no" / explain why (or maybe just say "no" with stern face and no other explanation / elaboration)

3. Remove baby from highchair (for how long - just a few minutes then put back, or end the meal prematurely ?)

(re: end meal prematurely: I don't think I could / would do this )

ta for any coments.

Message withdrawn

Rebecca is 13 months and does this A LOT, theres nothing i can do about it - we take it as a sign she has had enough!

It's a baby thing and a way of testing out cause and effect. I would just ignore it.

did have experience of pleading with dd to not drop food from high chair tray onto the floor....
She held my stare - eye to eye, whilst she felt around her tray for some food, found some, held it out over tray, still holding my look...and dropped it onto the floor!! Sure I could hear her mind demanding "Bring it on!"

nah, ignore it. Give her less food to begin with and add to it if she finishes it. Too much food at first is more likely to end up on the floor.

FunkyDude does this, I usually tell him "no we do not play with our food" and then remove it from the tray for a minute or two and then put it back. This helps as it takes his attention away from it and he will then play with a toy.

Sometimes he does it more towards the end of his meal, and like JARM, I see it as a sign that he has had enough.

Ignore it.
Also,it is an integral part of essential exploratory play.The baby as scientist and all that.

As someone who works in the field of child development (salt)I'd be a lot more worried about a child who didn't do this.

ishould add that becky only ever does it at the end of a meal, she is a piggie so will eat and eat and eat and then start chucking it on the floor!

Thanks for all input.

She dropped the spoon of her yoghurt this AM and intererestingly afterwards didn't want any more yoghurt (she'd had a decent amount already)... but did go on to eat other stuff...

She dropped some pikelet too but went on to eat a few more bits...

I reckon it must be fun just to watch stuff fly through the air or to get a rise from mummy or daddy LOL.

I think I might go for the practice of total boredom / ignoring. Whenever I've said "no" (in raised voice, or with urgency) for example when she's playing with a wall socket it seems to have no effect. Removing her from the situation without saying anything or just giving her a more interesting object seems to work much better and no raised voices, which is always more pleasant and more akin to my chilled out approach.

moondog - she often drops it, starts a stopwatch, stops it as it hits the floor, notes the time taken in a little notebook, then bugs me for a calculator so she work out varying gravitation pulls which she is trying to correlate with food stuff or day of the week. I keep telling her it's all to do with air resistance but she's having none of it.

(Am so sad that am actually trying to analyse the whole process in behavioural terms-my latest passion-and all before 9o am!)

My first daughter did this a lot. I think we used to put it back on her tray once and then if she threw it again, we took it away. I remember her dropping her water cup a lot too. It's a phase she grew out of.

Now DD2 (14 months) seems to have got over the phase more quickly. We took less notice of it. With 2 children dinnertime is inevitably a messy affair and we always have to seep up afterwrads anyway. DD2 does hand things to me and I make a point of giving her a huge amount of positive attention when she does that.

Sweep up afterwards - although I'm sure you worked that out for yourself.

moondog - is the "feeding of the parent" (you know, when they offer you a morsel of whatever they're scoffing) of particularly interesting psychosocial significance ?

Aderyn - hmm, I have a disinclination to sweeping.

God yes!

Denotes development of appropriate pragmatic,symbolic ans sharng skills.

Oh, and there was me thinking she was doing it because she thought daddy needed fattening up.

But, to avoid damging a fragile emerging mind, and to encourage dd to always be lovely to her daddy (hmmm, will it last till she's 13 ?), should I eat it or should I say "thank you, but that's for you, Mildred, darling" ?

"I have a disinclination to sweeping" yes, it would be nicer if all the mess seeped away somewhere.

we just groan or ignore, we groan more if its something messy like curry as the rice flies everywhere.

fortunatly she seems to have moved onto tipping the bowl upside down on the table when finished, we know that she has had enough then

DS does it so he can watch dog hoover it up. We're thinking about changing dog's name to Dyson!

hub - if she's offering something tasty, eat it!

ds (17m) sometimes varies the game - offers us something, but holds on to it tightly - and then takes it away and scoffs it himself - he finds this very funny

sometimes ds offers food because he's had enough - in which case we'll always accept it from him because otherwise it goes on the floor sometimes he's being cute, and then he stops offering after a couple of bits. sometimes it's hard to tell - we generally encourage him to eat it himself by the third bit.

I found rather than just saying no, offering something else to do with it worked. So every time ds put his hand out to drop food I put my hand underneathe and said "if you don't want it give it to mummy" and when he dropped it into my hand I praised him. Soon stuck, and then he stopped doing it anyway!

LOL - she dropped a bowl of melon this morning, dw was doing breakfast... I had to show her this thread afterwards.

My ds does this. (13months) If he chucks it then it's gone. Some meals he has eaten very little because of this, but he doesn't seem bothered. I also started just giving him a little and then adding more if he finishes it. I generally try to make very little comment about food and eating as I don't want to encourage overeating for praise (oh look how much you've eaten what a good boy etc etc) or giving him attention when he won't eat.

Ahhhh hub - now I have an idea. We'll give DD lunch when we come to yours, and you can see the mess she makes, and then you will learn to appreciate how neatly and tidily your DD actually eats!

get a dog