How Can I stop my toddler from throwing her food on the floor?

ChristiNatal

My daughter is 22months old and she has been throwing her food on the floor. I am at a loss as to what to do. I've tried the whole telling her "we don't throw our food on floor speech" but that's not helping. Needs some advice please. 

magentawarped

When you figure it out, let me know. I even tried the plates with the suction cups on the bottom, they just ticked her off and she pulled them up and flung them.

jnnfrrose6

When DS starts tipping his plate over or throwing food, we take it away from him.  We tell him we don't throw food/turn the plate over and take it away.  If it's still early in the meal, we'll bring it back after a short time and tell him he can have his plate, but don't throw his food.  If he throws it, we will take the plate away again.  If it's later in the meal, then I just assume he's done eating and we keep the plate away and finish our meals.

MNmama7112

jnnfrrose6 said:

When DS starts tipping his plate over or throwing food, we take it away from him.  We tell him we don't throw food/turn the plate over and take it away.  If it's still early in the meal, we'll bring it back after a short time and tell him he can have his plate, but don't throw his food.  If he throws it, we will take the plate away again.  If it's later in the meal, then I just assume he's done eating and we keep the plate away and finish our meals.

This exactly. Sometimes it means he doesn't eat much, but he wasn't eating anyway! I've started to notice he does this when he's done eating OR when he doesn't really like what's on the tray. Good luck- I think it's just a normal part of toddler-hood!

traveltheworld

theresat858 said:

Logical consequences - she throws her food, then it means she is done eating and the plate gets taken away.  Now N just hands us her plate when she is finished.  If she throws food on the floor, the meal is over.

That's exactly what we do. DS gets one warning, then he is off the high chair and has to play by himself until we finish eating. That resulted in some massive tantrums initially but it didn't take him long to figure it out. If he does this at the beginning of the meal, we would offer him food an hour or so later.

APendola

Like other posters said...when she start throwing her food, I take that as a sign that she's done eating.  I'll take away the food.  I guess she'll eventually figure it out?

ALHickok1

jnnfrrose6 said:

When DS starts tipping his plate over or throwing food, we take it away from him.  We tell him we don't throw food/turn the plate over and take it away.  If it's still early in the meal, we'll bring it back after a short time and tell him he can have his plate, but don't throw his food.  If he throws it, we will take the plate away again.  If it's later in the meal, then I just assume he's done eating and we keep the plate away and finish our meals.

This from start to finish. DS started doing it early on, I'd say 18 mos. or so. He would think it was a hilarious game. We would take his food, and he get angry. We'd let him now that he can't through the food before we took the plate and before we gave it back. He stopped throwing his food after DH and I became very routine with it. It took about 2 weeks.

mypeanut22

I wrote this same exact post about a month ago. What worked for us was feeding DD later. I thought maybe she wasn't that hungry and that is why she was throwing the food. She is doing so much better now. She might throw one bite of food and I will ask her if she is done and she says no, so I tell her don't throw food and that usual works. So maybe try feeding her a little later and see if that helps.

zbeesma86

theresat858 said:

Logical consequences - she throws her food, then it means she is done eating and the plate gets taken away.  Now N just hands us her plate when she is finished.  If she throws food on the floor, the meal is over.

this.

harmonicbabe26

jnnfrrose6 said:

When DS starts tipping his plate over or throwing food, we take it away from him.  We tell him we don't throw food/turn the plate over and take it away.  If it's still early in the meal, we'll bring it back after a short time and tell him he can have his plate, but don't throw his food.  If he throws it, we will take the plate away again.  If it's later in the meal, then I just assume he's done eating and we keep the plate away and finish our meals.

This.

dpraseutsinh

We takethe plate away. It showed dd throwing food meant she is done, she got the hint lol

Maelien

All of the above are good suggestions.  Every kid is different and you'll have to adjust accordingly.  I did the taking the food away/meal is over thing and it was effective for a bit but eventually he just threw food as my cue to let him out of his chair.

Ugh.  Just typing that out raises my BP.  Meal time is the most stressful time of the day for me.

What really has worked for us was to say, "please don't throw food.  Say 'no thank you' or 'all done'"  then I would take the food and push it to the side.  I would emphasize that it can still be on his tray even if it is something that he doesn't want.  

That did not work overnight.  I started that around 1yo and he finally seemed to get it around 18 mos.  It used a lot of patience on my part but I think, eventually, it was more effective for us than just taking the plate away.

(my ticker won't update...DS is 23 mos now)

nschuetz01

ok, so you all say take the food away since its likely they are done eating anyway, which is what I have realized as well with my ds, but how do you change the behavior to something else.  For example, if I want my ds to sign all done instead of throwing his food....any suggestions.  I show him the sign and then take his food away and clean him up.  He is 13 months....ive been doing this off an on since 10/11 months.

traveltheworld

I think for some kids it takes them a long time to learn how to sign and throwing food will be a constant them for a while.  What we worked on was to try and decrease the frequency of it.

I started teaching DS to sign "all done" starting at 6 months and was very discouraged when I saw other kids doing it around 12/13 months.  DS started throwing food at around 11 months and it took months and months to correct.  Even now, he still does it from time to time.  DS also didn't start signing "all done" until he was about 15 months - by then he was also able to say "done".  So it was kind of pointless in a way.  But just stick with it.  He'll eventually get it.

iwantnoworld

Leftie22 said:

nschuetz01 said:

ok, so you all say take the food away since its likely they are done eating anyway, which is what I have realized as well with my ds, but how do you change the behavior to something else.  For example, if I want my ds to sign all done instead of throwing his food....any suggestions.  I show him the sign and then take his food away and clean him up.  He is 13 months....ive been doing this off an on since 10/11 months.

What helped me is when he started throwing food, I'd ask him "done?" And do the sign at the same time. Once he was old enough to say it, I don't let him out of the chair until he tells us he's done nicely (sign or saying "done"). I also learned to recognize when he was full and about to start messing with his food, and would ask him if he was done BEFORE I saw playing/throwing. I'd ask if he was done, and 80% of the time, he'd say done and I could let him down before the flinging started. It takes a while and some patience, but try to learn the cues, and then praise him like crazy when he tells you he's done before throwing.

+1

My DS still throws food, but this is the approach I plan to take when he can better communicate that he is finished eating.  Lots of praise for the right behavior and redirection for less preferred behavior.

But honestly, I have a dog that scarfs discarded food up before I could even think about having to clean it up, so it's not really a high-priority issue for me just yet. 

meg_2006

We put him in a time-out every time he threw his food on the floor.  Two meals of that (about 4 or 5 TO's per meal), and the habit was broken.  Now if he doesn't want something he says "all done," or hands it to us.

DS didn't do it out of boredom.  He usually did it because he didn't like one of the options in front of him, so he decided to dump it. And he knew what he was doing was wrong.  For months we tried the take away the plate thing, and he just didn't seem to get the connection.