Tell me this is a short lived phase, what do I do in the mean time?

[NoTeaForMe]

Hi,

My 10 month old daughter is eating really well, definitely has 'tastes' but that's fair enough. She has recently started dropping food out the side of her highchair. Just picking it up and dropping it. It's not because she's full and she doesn't do it and laugh she just casually picks food up and throws them down, doesn't even look to see where the food goes!

Do I tell her no, ignore it or what? If I manage to catch the food do I gie it back to her? A friend told me that they need to learn that that food has gone after being dropped, but this is her meal, isn't that a huge waste of food?!

Thanks

I would (and do) have splash mats on the floor, and dropped food gets handed back. I wipe the worst of it off after each meal and give a good wipe with Milton spray every night.

I think they're too young to learn that dropped food is gone, particularly if she doesn't seem to be doing it for effect.

My DD used to do this when I had put too much food out for her. I think she found it overwhelming and would just drop it out of the chair like you say.

I used to pick it back up once in case it was dropped by accident, and if it was dropped again immediately then I wouldn't pick it up again. I'd just tell her she'd dropped it on the floor and that's where it was now.

With us it helped to put food in front of her bit by bit rather than all at once. We found a lot less got dropped that way. When she got a bit older we would get her to help clear up any dropped food, which also helped a bit.

I agree with gastrognome about putting food out bit by bit. If you put five things in front of DS he'd drop four on the floor and eat the last one. However put it out bit by bit and he'll eat it all.

I've tried this and although it does help sometimes she's still just as likely to throw things on the floor! I don't know why I find it irritating but I do and my husband is another story!!!

Please tell me that by 11 months she'll be over it!!

Thanks