Mealtime behaviour

[endoftether82]

So my 3.5year old ds has ALWAYS messed about at mealtimes. He doesn't get up but he'll constantly be eating with his hands, playing with food, squishing it, shouting and making silly noises etc. He used to put his plate on his head or use it as a steering wheel but he's stopped that.

I know he's only 3 so up until recently I've tried to be patient. I us constant reminders and warnings that's not how we behave at the dinner table. But it's getting to the point where I feel like he's big enough to not squish his food or shout. We all eat together, I don't think there's any sensory issues. He actually eats the food pretty well, but he just needs constant cajoling and warnings. These seem to have apparently no effect though.

He CAN eat nicely. He does sometimes. Especially if particularly hungry, in fact I think that's half the issue. So if he's not massively hungry he's more likely to muck about. However I can't time every meal for him because I've also got a 2 year old.

I keep telling him that it's fine if he's not hungry, he doesn't have to eat all his food, he's just not to play with it.

It's obviously VERY tiresome for me, but it's more of an issue if we go round to friends etc. We're going away with friends later this summer and I really really don't want him pissing about and dominating every mealtime and making it tense.

I don't know whether just to come down really hard on it now. So as soon as he does something he's taken down from the table for example. Thing is he gets REALLY upset when that happens. But maybe that's what's needed. Or am I expecting too much? Just feels like every other child his age I see is perfectly capable of sitting nicely for a 15 minute period to eat / not eat their food.

Any advice?

Ignore him. Completely freeze him out. At first he'll get worse; he'll kick and scream and do anything to get your attention. Be patient, let him get over this, but keep freezing him. Then as soon as he gets bored of entertaining himself, suddenly stop ignoring him and praise him.
When he is eating as you expect him to, engage him in conversation which is nothing to do with food or table manners. Keep his mind on other things! Sometimes I find myself talking about the most ridiculous things with my dc to distract them from bad behaviour. Last night we talked about what the tooth fairy my do with all the teeth and how she gets all the money!
You could also create a reward chart.

So do you think keep him at the table or bring him down from it? We definitely try and distract him with mixed success. Think the problem then is he doesn't actually end up eating because he's then too distracted.

Just bumping in case of some more advice. Do I go zero tolerance on the discipline yet?

Is it just me who has terrible mealtimes?! I hope not

Just a hopefuls bump.

Does he go to pre-school /nursery and have a snack or meal(s) there? In my experience, my kids listen to their teachers more readily than parents so will have better meal time manners if their teacher is in the room.

Is he playing with his food because he's finished eating and it's a sort of "fidgeting" because he doesn't know what to do with himself?

Thanks for replying raining. I think he definitely sits and eats more calmly at nursery. If he's really hungry he doesn't play with his food as much, but even then he'll sometimes just squish it in his hands or fiddle with it. So for example tearing up his shreddies "to see what's inside".

Nope, endofthether, my 2 year old (2yr 6mths) is the same. Infact he'll even get down from the table which really angers me.

He will stay at the table and eat all his food at nursery. But at home is different. I've found it's worse if he's had an afternoon snack and if he's tired - he's transitioning to no naps in the day so by dinner time is very tired and that goes hand in hand with playing up.

I don't want to excuse the behaviour, however I UNDERSTAND. Therefore I will try and get him to eat what he can, talk to him, ignore the silly behaviour. But I stand firm on main rules - no pudding if he doesn't eat his main meal (he has milk before bed so am confident he's not going to bed hungry) and if leaves the table he doesn't come back.

I feel that if he's good at nursery then he's not really a awful dinner-table guest, just going through a phase that we all need to ride through. So keep some ground rules in place, but for sake of your sanity try not to loose it over every little issue.