How can I stop my 21 month old daughter chucking her unwanted food on the floor?

[Caroline1852]

We always eat together. She insists now on feeding herself and totally refuses help (mashed potato, yoghourt and soup are now something of a challenge). She attempts cutlery but mostly resorts to her hands. For the past few weeks, she has been dropping food that she does not want over the side (she sits on a Stokke Tripp Trapp right up at the table). We grumble and make cross faces (and she absolutely knows that this is not welcome behaviour) but she carries on. She did it again at breakfast this morning and mid grumble I realised that my complaints were something of a toothless tiger. Has anyone got any idea of how to prevent her doing this?

ignore it? she'll get bored and stop
maybe she enjoys seeing your cross face
"if i drop this carrot mummy will make that funny face"
sort of thing

My DS2 (16 months) has been doing this for the past few weeks and we have tried ignoring him, postive reinforecement, getting cross and nothing has worked, so will be watching this with interest.

give her another plate to put the food she does not want onto

and/or

be tough. say no, threaten to take the food away if she does it again. follow through so she knows you are serious but can bring the plate back to give her one more chance

and/or

allow her to control what goes on her plate

My 18 month DS does this too. He definitely does it to provoke me. I find that staying calm and asking him to give me the unwanted food or put it on another plate works quite well. He thinks it's quite cool to put his mushed up leftovers onto my plate. He gets lots of praise for this.

DD still does it occassionally but we broke the back of it in one day. I just decided that everything that went on the floor stayed there (she has a catch mat under her high chair) and she didn't get any extra. After a day of no reaction and no picking up/getting alternatives she gave up mainly. Now she just does it when she's full up.

DD is 15 months BTW. I also do the same as FA.

I'd go with the other plate.

When she throws it on the floor, say No, and show her the plate and put the food on the plate. Keep doing this. When she realises she has to put the food on the plate and she does, make sure you praise her and tell her what a good girl she is for not having thrown it on the floor and having put it on the plate instead.

My daughter does this! It is so annoying. I just say nicely to her, 'Please don't throw the peas on the floor. Are you finished eating the peas?' She indicates that she's done (although the throwing is the real sign) and I remove the offending dish from her reach.

It doesn't stop her starting to throw the food, but it limits what you have to pick up off the floor.

Ignore it. My daughter did exactly the same at the same age with same Stokke Tripp Trapp up at the table. She also used to spit out the food she didn't like onto the floor.

Make no fuss, clean up afterwards. She'll get over it.

Mine likes to throw everything over and say 'Uh oh'.

I got one of those big alphabet matts and put the table on top of it.

Also, we give her two empty plastic bottles to throw. And pick them up for her 3 times.

After that, we tell her, 'No. Time to eat.'

Agree with the others, but want to add she'll grow out of it, esp if you don't react much. Learning about cause and effect is interesting at this age - "oh look if I chuck this potato, it makes a nice splatty noise..." etc. If it's generally a sign that she's finished, then just clear away when she starts throwing food, and don't give her any more.

Thank you all so much. Will keep you posted as to Madam's progress.

make her pick it up again. Game gets boring very quickly then.

Mine does this at 8 months - we've started putting the plate infront of her for her to choose something and then that goes straight in to the mouth and then I take the plate away again and repeat! This seems to be minimising the droppage rate significantly. We also use a Tripp Trapp. DH started putting a couple of pieces of kitchen towel on the floor either side of it and it doesn't seem to encourage her to drop stuff but she does seem to get most of it on the paper. When she's finished for good though, she does do a lot of sweeping and dropping!

This is just so annoying isn't it! At first I kept coming back with alternatives for 'sir' but clearly he wasn't that hungry so now I see it as a sign of boredom and just whisk everything away!

It really is!!! They obviously haven't learnt the knack of comfort eating or not knowing when to stop. that clearly comes later

My DS2 is also 21months does this, was driving me mad and never did it with childminder, decided to do lots of praising and clapping when eating nicely and removing anything that goes on the floor and not replacing it, when threw plate last week took whole lot away and he got down while we carried on, bit harsh possibly but the praise thing seems to work and this week been better. I think the reaction of me getting cross was encouraging him!

Mydd 13 months does this, it drives me insane. Glad to know I am not alone...

My DS (age 2) went through a big stage of this and I was at the end of my tether, I had to sit and try to catch the plate/bowl as it went and as he is a poor eater this was often a full meal. I have started making him pick it up and put it in the bin, he now realises this is no fun and does not seem to throw it as often. This may sound harsh but it was happening soooooo much