throwing food at mealtimes

[Dolliebird]

Help me, my dd (16mths old) keeps throwing her meals on the floor - not because of my cooking I hasten to add , she does it with all food. Have tried saying 'no' in firm voice, taking her down from her highchair and away from the situation but nothing's working - any ideas anyone?

ignore it. try not reacting.

My DD has been doing this since 9months now 14 months. She doesn't talk much and its seems to be her way of telling me that she's had enough of that course and ready for the next. I gave up with saying no after about 2 months and now just ignore it or hold out my hand for her to give it to me instead (which works ocassionally). Kitchen floor and cupboards have taken a hammering!. Friends tell me they all do it and just grow out of it.

I've been ignoring this for about 8 months now but have just started to give my DD an empty dish just out of reach. When she doesn't want a bit of food now she sometimes (rarely) tries to put it in the dish (I give her a hand). It's progressively more sucessful, although I'm shortly off to mop the floor after this evening's dinner!!

Thanks for all the advice and thank god she's not the only one! I'll stop stressing about it - I was probably only making it worse anyway! I know what you mean about cupboards and floors 4jen, the wall behind our highchair is all sorts of pretty colours!

Yep Dolliebird it's the new interior design fashion!. I have also taken up raisin hunting and wish I still had a dog (the ultimate food hooverers).

I'm not sure there is much you can do. I have 14 month twins - one throws most of her meal on the floor and the other one doesn't. They've been raised in exactly the same way so I find it really frustrating, is obviously to do with their little personality rather than any external input. I find offering a small amount is better than a big plateful - I give her one piece of food at a time and wait till she eats or throws it before offering another.

Hoping she will grow out of it!

The good news is that it is only a phase and it doesn't last forever!! My ds did this but then just stopped. We used to say that if he did it then he'd get no pudding etc. It was his way of telling us he'd finished so we used to watch out and try and get to him before he did it. if he didn't do it we'd heap loads and loads of praise on him. Good luck and hang in there as I know how frustrating it is!

In our house we have a similar thing to gybegirl, we call it the table bin. DS is 4 and still can't tolerate bits he isn't going to eat on his plate.
He has stopped throwing food except when in a really silly mood and then we ask him to leave the table. But you're a long way from such drastic measures yet!

Don't know if this will help but I used to feed dd in her highchair away from the table using the highchair tray. She started dropping everything so in an act of desperation we removed the tray and seated the highchair at the table and we sat at the table with her, we don't always eat with her but do sometimes. Things really improved but obviously some things still get dropped but we've got to expect a certain amount of droppage - haven't we?

You may be doing this already but thought I'd mention it just in case it may help