I think I know the answer to this but is it normal for my 18mo to throw his food around rather than eat it?

[wasabipeanut]

He's only been doing it a few weeks but its getting worse. He eats breakfast fine but lunch is just a circus - today I got most of it thrown at me. I just give him toast or sandwiches and fruit for tea and he's fine with that.

The only way I can get anything into him at lunch is to give him a fromage frais or yoghurt which he eats while I get a few spoonfuls of his main course in. It feels a bit sneaky but he does eat it happily like that - and even holds his mouth open for more!

I'd prefer him to feed himself though. Is this a phase I can expect to end quickly or is this how it is for a while?

What sort of stuff are you feeding him at lunch? If he prefers finger food (or at least he doesn't throw it a round) then just feed him that for a few months and reintroduce sloppy foods a little at a time. It's quite common really!
He'll get through it, you just need to find ways to get through it too!

just normal stuff really - today I did fishcakes, beans and sweetcorn. yesterday was pasta bolognese etc.

He's always had his main meal at lunchtimes.

I don't mind how he eats it as long as he eats it! I've tried giving hima bread stick to dip into stuff but that seems to have worn thin now too.

Mine only did this once they'd eaten enough.

Typical meal: handle the food, squash it etc, eat a few mouthfuls and then start throwing.

Paranoid mummy alert - if they just have a few mouthfuls is that enough? I know they are the best judges of when they are full but I just struggle conceptually with the idea of my really active ds getting through the afternoon on a few mouthfuls of food.

Well, we usually have an afternoon snack.

Sometimes they are not full but they are no longer starving and bored of sitting.

Yoghurt plus some kind of carb (bread? breadsticks? crackers?) is a perfectly good lunch, IMO. Protein, calcium, carbs, and you can add some chopped fruit or fruit purée to the yoghurt or give him some fruit to hold if you think that would work better, for fibre and vitamins.

My daughter seems to exist just fine on a stupidly tiny amount of food so I'd say that a few mouthfuls probably is all right if that's what he seems to want, is pooing and weeing enough and is full of energy (sounds like he is what with all the throwing!). At that age, I think it's perfectly all right to let them have a small lunch and a substantial snack later if that's what suits him better. Plenty of time to get him into a more usual eating pattern before he starts school or whatever.

Also, you could try giving him fruit and sandwiches at lunch and his main meal at dinner time and see how that works. My daughter has never been big on lunch and it's always been a bit of a battle but she eats like a trooper in the evenings.

Yeah you're right - I'm fretting unduly I think. Will let him decide. Whatever he does eat is usually pretty nutritious - he eats lot of fresh and dried fruit and I make most stuff from scratch so he gets decent fresh food.

He'll be fine. He'c certainly not backwards in coming forwards in letting me know when he is hungry so I think I can rely on him to guide me.

Thank you for wise words all