Food Throwing!!!

I think if you stop picking up the food and you don't give her any replacement food, she will get the idea and stop throwing food on the floor. i think she is playing a game with you and she is winning. AF

I think every child goes through this phase. When baby would throw food, we would take it away temporarily and give her a timeout on food. Then we would only give her a small amount at a time.

My daughter is now a 23 month old and the food throwing is a very distant memory.

Managing quantity was key at the beginning. If she only had a little, she would generally eat it. If she had too much, throwing would ensue.

i have a nearly 3 and 1/2 yr old, a 21 month old, and am due in less than 2 weeks so i feel your pain. unfortunately, though, the food throwing thing is just normal. they are testing boundaries and you just need to keep up with making her clean it up or saying no. just be firm in your no's and if she has a fit just be sure to ignore. at that age they stop eating a lot less and become so picky. just stand your ground and be sure not to give her something different if she throws what you gave her. this rewards her behavior. good luck!!

If you are letting her self-feed then take away the plate and feed her your self - this will upset her because she likes the control probably. Otherwise, just end the meal when she starts doing that. Keep her plate and if she is ready to eat again you can try again to feed her a little later if she is hungry. She will get the message in a few days that she shouldn't throw food.

My daughter went through the same thing at that age. She eventually grew out of it.

Are you sitting at the table, and eating with her? Perhps its just her way of getting your attention. When my daughter throws food, if I think she's done or not, she is put down. We wait about 10 mins. and then try again. After two tries, we stop.

M.

ok,
i feel your pain, my son who is almost three, likes to tell me he dosent like food that i made for him that was the same thing a week or two ago.

we do try and eat our meals at the table together and i think that helps especially when he sees dady eating the same thing.

but when he is in one of his moods we just move the plate away and make him sit there untill we are done. then we take him up to have a wash down (becasue a bath is a reward for him) and he gets to go to bed with nothing more than water.

like that other woman. the moment he starts to throw one of his moods we just take it away and tell him that he gets nothing else.

remember if you start out like a restaurant you will never close!

kids will eat the food you want them to eat when they are hungary enough. we also tell him that this is dinner time. if you dont eat it now you will see it for dinner tomorrow. then we take it away and wrap it up put it in the fridge and just wait till the next meal time.

i had to do this cos food is just too expensive to waste!

sometimes he decides that we mean business and asks for the plate back right away other times he could careless.

B.,

Throwing food at my house was quite a game for awhile. If I tried to say it had one cause or another, I would be wrong. The cause changed as the mood changed. Part of my problem was that I had two very close in age and there is often a pack mentality at play. Anyway, with my one daughter being underweight, food is a VERY big issue. The doctors, at one point had us giving enormous amts of pediasure daily and telling us to add butter and sugar to things to up the calorie count. You can imagine how things are going as we are trying to curb the "fun" foods and get her on a more reasonable diet now. We have a few rules that may help you - with patience. We cook ONE meal at dinner and we all eat together. The girls are given a smaller portion of our meals. IF they give our food a try (they are toddlers and may honestly not like it), they are offered either lunchmeat to go with the veggies on their plates or cereal. No other fast food restaurant options. If they are hungry, they will eat, if not then they will get not snack or dessert. We make a point to present dessert as part of dinner, not as a reward. "If your tummy is too full to eat any dinner, then you certainly can't fit a cookie into it." My three year old always asks, "Whatcha got?" if she isn't sure she is "hungry enough to eat the meatloaf. My two year old ends every meal with "I want vitimin." Since we started setting limits on what we would serve, and started repeating phrases like, "I'm not going to force you to eat...I'm not going to fight with you...I guess Mommy is the only one who is hungry enough for dessert tonight..." the food fights have stopped. The youngest was abt 20-22mos when we started this, so it might work for you.

It is worth a try. Anything is worth a try when food is flying <G>. Congratulations on your second. Have a great holiday.

S.

I tend to lean toward the ending meal time, but if you are like so many other moms that feel guilty for not letting your hungry child have food, you still need to 'punish' her for throwing, but maybe try taking the food/plate away each time she throws it for 5 minutes or so - leave her in the chair and don't pay attention to her when she says she is not finished eating...after 5 minutes, bring the food back to her on the condition that she not 'throw it,' but 'eat it.' So, if she wants to eat the food, it will be there for her to eat, but if she throws it, you will ignore her and take the food away for another 5 minutes. Pretty soon she will get the idea. If she doesn't learn after 2-3 times of 5 minutes breaks, then she really isn't hungry and she doesn't get the food back. Meal time over.
My kids used to sit too close to the tv, and I would tell them over and over that they needed to sit back....they are old enough to know better, so my husband came up with the idea that each time they were too close to the tv and couldn't reach the coffee table, then they would have to turn their show off for 5 minutes. Pretty soon they learned that they better be able to reach the coffee table! It was an easy solution that got the point across. It was also very easy to test - if they were sitting 'too close,' all we had to ask is, "Can you touch the coffee table?" If they tried and couldn't reach it, then they knew the consequence. I think an 18 month old will be able to figure out that throwing = no food or attention for a few minutes. Good luck!!

I am so glad you asked this question! It is a question I have been struggling with myself with my 27-month old daughter. She has been doing this for some time, and no matter what I do, she keeps throwing the food on the floor and even laughs about it! I can't wait to see some responses on this one!

My rule is if you throw it on the floor, you aren't hungry. Mealtime over. Let her be hungry a couple of times, she'll modify her behaviour. I have the most stubborn child on earth (she got it from me!) and this has worked wonders. Rather than fighting with her and getting myself all wound up. I tell her "Dinner is over." take the food and that's that. She pesters, but I remind her that she chose to throw the food on the floor even though it is against the rules.

Give her one item at a time. When she's finished that, she can have another one and so on. And let her know that she won't get her (whatever she likes best to eat) until she's finished the other stuff you gave her. A good reward system (meaning withold the reward she wants until she's done what YOU want) should fix this problem.

The fact that picking it up is fun for her is fine with me. She will still learn that when she drops something, she is to pick it up. It doesn't have to be a negative experience for her to learn from it.

I think it's important for them to mess around with food and such, but food throwing is not acceptable. Just tell her that we keep our food on our plate, if it continues, take her down without yelling, and end the meal. If she is throwing she isn't hungry.

The fact that she's 'looking you in the eye while throwing it anyway' is not an 'evil' thing... it seems like it because if an adult did that, we see it as defiance. She's not even 2 yet and although she seems to understand a lot right now, she really doesn't. Distraction and re-direction is best at this point.

I'd like to recommend a book, if you don't mind... Positive Discipline For Toddlers

Good luck!

UGH I'm reading some of the other replies now... Many parents don't realize you don't have to have a negative experience in order for them to learn. I also wouldn't reward for eating. That could start a whole ball of eating-disorder wax that you don't want to start. Just be consistent, offer healthy foods only, and eventually she'll do fine.

My children learned early on that if they threw food, they were done. Even if they'd had only one bite, they were done. Once they were down, there was no getting anything until the next meal - water in a cup was the most they got.

You need to be tough now because eventually it's going to be defiance about something really serious like the car keys.

YMMV
LBC

My 13 month old dd also does this, most of the time it's a signal that she is finished, but when she starts to throw her food on the floor during her meal with no intention of stopping, I'll unstrap her and put her down and leave her. She usually goes for the food that she dropped and starts eating some of it. The floors are clean so I let her have at it. It's pretty funny actually. I don't have the patience to "argue" with her about it since she is only 13 months. She won't starve.

when she trows, take all her food away. It takes some time, but she sould stop throwing it if you do this everyt ime she throws