21 months old, food playing and throwing....... help!

[shoptilidrop]

hi
hoping someone has some good advice.

my dd has taken to throwing ALL her food on the floor. First she takes it off her plate in handfuls and counts it. then she throws in on the floor ans says ' oh no on floor... bye' then waves.

it is not funny she has hardly eaten anything in 2 weeks! my mum was down yesterday and told me i needed to do something about it ( er yes mother i know!) and i should tell her no and she will stop doing it ( like i havent done that already)
arrrrggggghhhhhh.

she is at the stage where she just laughs when i tell her off, or shouts back at me ' NO MUMMY'

so does anyone have any tips to stop her doing this?
should prob say she hasnt really thrown much food before and can eat well with a fork and spoon too.

ok, asking her to stop or saying 'no' just turns it into a game so she will do it even more as she sees she's getting a reaction from you.

The best thing I can suggest is just to ignore it and clean it up when she does it without saying anything, when she sees there's no reaction she'll stop. And yes, its easier said than done

About the not eating, my 21mo goes through phases of eating loads and then not very much too. It is worrying but they will not starve. Will she snack at all? If so, just keep fruit and vegetables handy for her to pick at.

Sorry, bit of a long post but hth

Agree with rosmonster. We did this with DD when she was about 14 months old and it worked really quickly.

yes she snacks fine. i was thinking about stopping giving her snacks for a few days so she would be hungry and understand if she doesnt each her meal there is nothing else.

ive tried ignoring it. she just shouts ' OH NO MUMMY FLOOR' at the top of her voice until i do something, so its just to get a reaction. I know this for def as she doesnt do this at the childminders.

I guess then that yes, stop the snacks for a day or so and just clean up the food she does throw on the floor without comment.

But also say to her 'this is all there is, if you don't eat this, then there's nothing else'. I know they don't understand what you're saying as such but they understand the tone and once she's not getting any food she will start to learn what you're saying iyswim,

Out of curiousity, do you eat with her at all? I found that once I started eating with ds he didn't throw his food so much. I don't eat with him every day but just a couple of times a week might help.

yep we eat together, have done since she was about 6 months old.

i think thats what il do then:
stop snacks
tell her lunch/dinner what ever meal it is, is all there is.
if she throws it on the floor ignore it and her shouting at me that it is on the floor.

Hopefully in a few days it will have stopped!

good luck

My DS throws food as well...he does it for a reaction....I've started to just walk out of the room when he does it and he seems to get the message....he doesn't do it in nursery by the way - I think they just act up for us frazzled mums!

I did learn the hard way though, when ds was having his lunch once I started sweeping the floor and of course he thought it would be fun to throw something down to watch me sweep it up! I stopped that pretty quickly, he didn't!

shoptilidrop, my DS is nearly 21 months and is currently a nightmare with his food. he doesn't throw it as such but plays with it, mashes it into the table etc and barely eats a thing.
I read something that really reassured me though. Basically, if they're really hungry they WILL eat the food - if they don't eat it, don't sweat. At this age some toddlers stop growing at all for a few weeks, then they might have a short burst. In those weeks when they're not growing, they're not that hungry - hence the throwing/playing/cheekiness etc - and they don't need much food in this time at all so you mustn't worry about your DD not eating. She will when she needs to.

In the meantime, easier said than done - but try not to rise to the bait when she throws the food. If I find myself about to shout or get upset with my DS when he is being difficult at mealtimes, I leave the room - take a breath, walk back in and continue with my cup of tea.
If she won't eat what's in front of her, take her down from her chair. I'm sure it'll pass.