Throwing EVERYTHING from high chair

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Help!!! We're getting desperate - my husband is almost prepared to pack up meals when the baby starts throwing. Everything is thrown with great force - cups, food, bowls, cutlery. The trouble is, if I don't give her some food in a bowl to mess with she won't let me shovel anything else in. I've tried being very encouraging when she does manage to spoon food in herself / ignoring things going flying (even when they're very heavy & land on me). She's nearly 15 months and has always been like this. She does eat quite a lot. Sometimes I think it's when she's bored & wants some fun, somethimes I think it's raucous tidyness - she likes to give things back when I give her something new. In contrast her older sister has always been an incredibly neat & dextrous little eater. Any advice please???

Ah, ha, first of all head down to halfords and get a couple of Crash Helmets!, now being honest here, we never had highchairs for our 2, we had the clip on seat and then the cube. The first cube we had had a clip on it to keep the little honeys in the one place, they got better after they went into the cube, before that we had various things glued to the ceiling and we both looked as if we had been at a custard pie fight. Do you eat with her?, does she feed her herself with anything yet?, if she can feed herself to a certain extent let her get on with it and try to ignore the flying food (and exasperated husband!), it does get better. My son our youngest is still a messy eater and he has just turned 4, I sometimes feel like bringing in one of the catle troughs for him,but my daughter who is 5 is very neat like your elder daughter. Good luck.

Tigger, you're such a star! Thank you!! On a sample of 2 meals, she had a fairly typical lunch, where she threw loads of food around, though did seem to notice she was in charge, then ate like a little horse at tea time - I couldn't keep her bowl full quick enough! Also husband more relaxed as he can see progress & does realise things can only improve, especially if we all keep calm. Crash helmets still a good plan for her water bottle though..

From when she could first pick things up our daughter has been desperate to feed herself (her brother was the same). For the past few months (she's 17 months today) she has refused to let us feed her anything at all, and the mess has been incredible. We decided the only thing to do was to put the highchair on a large waterproof mat, stand well back, and let her get on with it - and try at least to be thankful that she's so independent! Yoghurts are interesting, homemade soup needs to be thick enough to stick to the spoon, and eating out is a challenge, but she'll get there eventually, just like her brother did. And we've some lovely photos to embarrass her with when she's older (Auntie Jean's chocolate pudding last Christmas particularly springs to mind ....).

WOW - reading these messages makes me both laugh and cry at what's in store. Our son Theo is only 6 months old and has been 'feeding' himself for a few weeks now. We bought him a high chair (Stokke Trip Trap) which seems to make him more determined in his quest for independence.

The decoy spoon seems to work well but you still have to choose your moment wisely or else take cover! We thought at first he was just gnawing on the spoon to help his teething pains, but it looks like he just wants to feed himself!

Mind you - we shouldn't complain as he still manages to eat well... bless him!

We're going through a bit of a thing at the moment where my son (11 months) refuses to eat anything from a spoon at all - he messes around a bit with finger food but most ends up onthe floor.
He is teething at the moment so this may be the problem
I'm running out of ideas for things he can feed himself - any help?

Chocolate!!!

Actually there's loads finger foods, any sort of sandwich for a start (torn into little pieces of course), raisins, french toast (eggy bread!), cake, and banana's the tops.

hmmm... the trouble is banana feels so NICE squidged between chubby little fingers, and just never seems to lose its attraction - then of course it's in more managable little blobs for easy flinging around the kitchen...

Kazack, my youngest is 10 ish months, and now I just empty the jar into the bowl and hand her a spoon. Yes its very very messy but she is surprisingly adept at getting it to her mouth, one way or another, and yes she uses the spoon. And she thinks she is really clever(which she is, not biased at all of course!!)
IMHO when they start chucking it all from the highchair its time to sit them at table, or thats what we did with the first two, at about 15 months and 13 months!

I was fairly lucky with my son in that I could hand a spoon over with food loaded onto it without the need for a bowl there for ages. I didn't actaully let him have both bowl and spoon till he was 19 months. Now he feeds himself fairly cleanly at 21 months. Leaving it late like this meant less mess and I feel was better because he actually had the manual dexterity to do it properly rather than just "hit and miss" but of course all kids are different.

A bit of mess is OK but I do think that you shouldn't just let them get away with throwing everything. If my son started acting up I would just take everything away and try again in a minute or two. Yes it should be fun at mealtimes but I do think the child shouldn't forget that the main purpose of eating is to put it into their mouths! If they play with it too much they probably aren't hungry and you are wasting your time anyway. Best to just let them play with finger food.

I find most baby dishes quite useless and instead opted for a very heavy crockery bowl. This meant that the bowl has never been thrown onto the floor and because it is deep it is actually easier to scoop food out of it. To prevent too much mess I only put a small quantity of food into it at a time.

Also don't overcrowd the highchair - just one thing at a time. Try giving a drink half way through the meal and then remove it. You do have to stand over them to some extent but it does mean less mess to clean up afterwards. Also the older the child is (say 18 months onwards) the less mess they actually want anyway. They will often put their hands out to be cleaned and will wipe the highchair themselves.

Thanks all
Had a great success yesterday with baby sweetcorn which he ate all of and threw none on the floor. Also made Some chicken balls and tuna balls which he loved and now have a full freezer from only about half an hours work so I';m feeling very virtuos and proud of myself - its funny how each stage really freaks you out for the first day or so - and then you crack it - until the next thing comes along.

Also second success - he ate something from a spoon too - although I am having no luck gettin ghim to hold the spoon himself - he just shakes it aroudn until the food flies around and hits the floor - oh well, one step at a time I guess!!

My daughter is 14 months and for the past couple of months we have had two bowls on the go. I give her a bowl to use with her own spoon and a small bit of food and I keep a bowl with most of the food in it. It works quite well. She stills likes to mess about and yes sometimes the food does end up on the wall or on the floor but I know she is eating plenty and in time will be able to feed herself properly in full.

We bought a tripp trapp chair thinking that our son would be encouraged to eat with family and feed himself. However it has proved useless as everything gets thrown on the floor, the table has to be cleared of any moveable object and he seems to hate sitting in it. However he loves the more traditional highchair with tray and will sit quite happily for ages playing with things on tray and seems to eat better sitting in one. I don't know if this is because somewhere new ot the chair is a novelty. Has anyone else found the tripp trapp chair as rubbish as I have?

As the first was such a success, we bought a second tripp trap for our youngest as we thought she'd love to eat with everyone else but have the same probs as esme - everything has to be moved from within her reach and other people have to eat out of arm's reach - not very easy on our tiny kitchen table.

Had this !!!!!! At 17 months, the only solution we found was to buy a chair from IKEA (£15) that looks like an adults but is higher. Wow!!!
Suddenly he thinks he is grown up and copies all we do!.
Hit on this by accident as needed highchair for youngest, but it worked!

My 14mo has been throwing his food from his highchair for a while now, and I am getting so mad! How long does this phase last! I'm not so bothered by the mess on the floor, I put down plastic sheeting over the carpet. I don't know why I let it bother me so much; he just laughs at me when I tell him to stop. I now try not to react at all, just pick the food up without a word, but even looking at him with a straight face sets him off. This all sounds really pathetic I know, but it makes my blood boil and I would NEVER smack him but I really feel the urge to and feel so guilty for thinking such thoughts.
It sounds silly but it reminds me of when I was a kid and my younger brother used to tease me incessantly and laugh when I told him to stop it - and I just wanted to hit the SOB with a cricket bat around the head! I never did of course, and we are great pals now. My ds is such a lovely boy in all other ways and I should really know how to deal with this as I'm sure there is worse to come down the line, but does anyone else feel like this and when will the food throwing stop??!!

Reading all this has given me a good giggle. My 3.5 yo girl has always been a very clean, tidy eater. Her Brother (20 mo) is the exact opposite. As soon as he has taken the edge off his hunger he starts to play with his food - mashing it up with his hands, squashing it into the table and then brushing it onto the floor. This means that after every mealtime I have a huge clean up operation. He does continue to eat whilst doing this. We recently put him in a Trapp-Trapp copy chair as he was a 'big boy' now - but with the same reults as evryone else. We are all crowded down one end of the table to stop him from getiing our cutlery/plates/food/drinks and he sits at the head of the table in splendid isolation. I've put his totally unsocaible behaviour down to boredom - he is very active and not into sitting down in one place for very long. I am hoping that he grows out of this SOON.

The phase WILL pass; I can remember having to put son upstairs in cot in case I REALLY lost it with him one lunchtime! Now 3, he's still not the tidiest eater....
However, I have one suggestion that my aunt gave me, too late for me to implement, but worth a try. Instead of laying down a plastic mat on the floor, put down newspaper. You can then chuck it in the bin after the meal.
Hope this helps someone!

By Aims on Friday 15 June 01 - 1.30

It's great to see that I'am not the only one with this problem, We have two beautiful little girls fifteen months and twenty two months in ages, both throw things on the floor, the eldest one only seems to do it when she's angry, which I can usually distract attention away from, the youngest throws anything she can lay her hands on at the time, with her sister I would just ignore it and she got fed up of it, this doesn't seem to work quite so well with no 2, and my nerves are frazzled, any advice please??

My son is now 14 months and I am still having problems with the tripp trapp chair. My kitchen floor resembles the Battle of the Somme after every meal and I have lost count of the times I sweep it every day. Tonight Tom knocked the bowl of fish pie that I had sweated over whilst he was having his daily nap out of my hand. Needless to say I was stupid enough to be using a breakable bowl so it smashed all over the floor. Every thing has to be moved as far away on the table from Tom as possible otherwise it will be on the floor. However it gets much worse Tom has now worked out how to climb out of the chair onto the table. As the Tripp Trapp chair has no harness its now just about useless. I should have just bought a normal and PRACTICAL high chair. Sorry I'm ranting!

My son is 23 months and I feel just as messy as he was 6 months ago with food down his face. Also he tends to finish his drink and fling the cup down onto the floor, often followed by the spoon. I would have thought by this age he would be getting tidier by now or am I being too optimistic?

Esme, your Tripp Trap should have D-rings on it to whcih you can attach a harness.

Sorry to laugh everybody, but these tales remind me so much of my own dear children!
Esme, we had a normal high chair for the youngest, but after he learned to climb onto the table that was it! He would just scream if you fastened the harness. So he had all his meals sitting on my lap when I was at home, which he is just growing out of, aged 18 months. I wasted many words trying to convince him that the table is for food, chairs are for people.
He also chucks his cutlery and crockery on the floor, and empties any remaining drink that he doesn't want out as well.