food flinging on the floor

[MistressMary]

Help - My little one is not eating that brilliantly, and he has a game of throwing his food on the floor - once he has had enough, (ususally about two mouthfuls) - the rest handful by handful flopped out onto the floor.
He is getting his independence and will feed himself a little.
He is 18mths, is he getting fussy?
If so he is chucking out all the food he has loved in the past.
Jacket spuds, daireylea, even bread and butter and banana is game.
And he does the same with his bottle.
I don't make an issue of it, I pick it up and put in the bin and say "on the floor and you get no more", and I don't raise my voice at all either.

Advice welcome,please?

Anyone?

get a dog
then you won't have to pick it up!

Entirely normal IIRC!

Or at least, a hand-held hoover.

I'm sure you're doing the right thing. Anyway, thats what we're doing too (ds is 20 months) so at least we're both doing it wrong.

I mean, what else can you do?

If DD throws food I do what they do at nursery: I say and sign "All done!" and take ALL the food away. And then I clean up the food on the floor. While she sits, foodless, in her high chair and can't interact with me because you can't see the face of somebody who's cleaning the floor. I don't fuss, I don't scold, I don't dawdle over cleaning the floor, but still, it's not much fun. Whereas if she says "All done!" herself, I whisk away the offending food item, offer replacements if appropriate, and if she is alldone-alldone, remove her to a more amusing locale with attendant cuddles before cleaning up. She's pretty good at handing me food items or saying "All done" these days (although you only get one warning, before she starts in on things like signing "All done" with the bowl in her hand -- as this involves waving it back and forth 180 degrees it is not an improvement over throwing from a cleanliness point of view).

Oh God, this drives me mad. We are at this stage too and its awful.
Im teaching/training him to put food on one side when he doesnt want it by just calmly saying to him "put it there". I stay with him while he is eating so that i can supervise and catch him prior to starting the throwing.
Today he threw half a tomato across the kitchen and i put him on the naughty step.
I think that the naughty step is going to be my best ally and he is understanding what it is now (22months).

DS is only 14mths old, but I have been left v frustrated when he has thrown his food on the floor..as he is so young he doesn't really understand what he is doing and is loving being independent and feeding himself.
I now divide his meal up into about 3 portions and fill up his bowl when he is ready and I am sure he isn't going to throw it on the floor, that has worked well so far. He also has a pelican bib which he throws food into then just scoops up at the end (Veg Curry and yoghurt.....yuk!!!!)

Thanks everyone for your thoughts and ideas.
It certainly is a frustrating stage.