19 month old throwing food - Help!

[spongebrainbigpants]

My 19 mth old DS has just got into this really annoying habit of throwing his food at the moment - plate/bowl and everything - sometimes when he's hardly eaten anything.

He pretends to hand the dish to you and as you go to reach it he'll pull it back and throw it the other way while looking at you and laughing.

We're trying just to ignore it and hope it's a phase, but I'm getting a bit sick of cleaning the bloody floor every mealtime and I'm also not sure when he's hungry or not cos I don't know whether he's stopped eating cos he's not hungry or cos he knows he has to throw his plate before we take it from him.

Aaaaaaarrrrggghhhh!

If anyone has any strategies that work we'd love to hear them!

Tis a phase, they all do it when they're not hungry/have finished/in a cheeky mood. Repeat in a calm voice (with undercurrents of weary resignation mixed with well suppressed anger) 'no dear, its not nice to throw your food, don't do it please'.

DD is now 2.4 and hardly ever pushes her food away. When she first stopped doing it (i.e. just said she'd had enough, but didn't follow that with a violent shove/throw of food), we did make a big deal of it 'oh well done dear, you didn't push your bowl, how nice of you' etc etc.

But until then... hope you have wooden floors. We have carpets (somewhere under the sticky mess) and I'm just starting to wean DD2

Thanks lukewarm, my calm voice is starting to wear v thin I have to say!

How long does this phase last? It is soooo annoying . Do those sucker bowls/plates make any difference? Happy to try anything!

We do have wooden floors thankfully - had the carpet ripped up the weekend before we weaned him, best decision we ever made!

Tempers a little frayed in the sponge household anyway as DS2 is crap sleeper, so we're both too tired to deal with DS1 being a PITA .

My Ds2 is 27 months and does this, its annoying isn't it?

We ignore it now but its annoying having to clean up again. I figure he isn't hungery when he does it

My ds 2.2 still does this! We get round it as much as poss by putting bits from his plate on his tray and leaving the rest on his plate on the table then topping him up as he eats a bit of whats on the tray. This means if he does throw some food then it's not all of it and we can wait a few mins then give him some more when he's out of the throwing mood.

We also do the forced calm voice 'no, don't throw it please '. Sometimes if he demands the plate we offer him a smaller bowl with some of the food in it in case of a chucking fit. Fortunatley we have a dog so bending down to clear up the mess is minimal

Ah ha - I will persuade my dh to get a dog then!

..... and developing super fast reflexes helps, so you can catch said bowl of tomato based food (its always tomato) before it reaches the wall/carpet/ceiling/your face

This is bloody annoying when they do this. DS used to push it really far by grabbing my hair and trying to yank it out when I bent down to pick something up from under his high chair.

I used to just say that it was ok if he wasn't hungry but there was no need to throw. I also would explain that nothing else would be available and stuck to it.

Sorted itself out fairly quickly.

Oh yes - and mega small portions to be topped up as necessary rather than all invitingly on the plate in one go!

Lol at developing super fast reflexes! I have an image of me as a goal keeper, diving left and right trying to save DSs food before it hits the deck!

wasabi, yes he's tried the pulling hair thing too - now the food doesn't get picked up til he's out of the room and my hair is safe!