[Jessica1501]

When my LO is full or gets bored of eating, she throws everything on her tray away.
So my question is when kids will understand that spoons and dishes are used for meals, not as toys so that they don't throw them away?
Thanks.

 

[mkmoro311]

My LO is 16 mo and does the same thing. When she is done eating all her left over food, utensils and sippy cup go on the floor. How can I make her stop?

 

[Shannie77]

I think my DD totally stopped just after she turned a year, maybe 14 months at the latest. Before she turned a year it's appeal had pretty much ended. We never reacted to it, which I think helped her get over that phase faster. DH and I wouldn't even look at her when she was about to dump something or throw a spoon etc. We also showed her how to put her bowl on the edge of her highchair table to indicate she was done.

 

[foodmachine]

DD is 15 months and over it now. We ignored the dishes that hit the floor and taught her to put her hands up to signal "all done".
This too will pass.

 

[lmk1]

We didn't really react when DS would do this, and he's figured out that he can hand things to me when he's done rather than throwing them on the floor. He's 17 months. However, if he's in his high chair longer than he wants to be or upset about something, he will throw food or his cup, etc. But he did stop the "drop everything on the floor" while bored. One thing we tried to do was NOT clean up the floor until he was out of the high chair so that there was no instant feedback to him as far as "I drop and Mommy picks up".

 

[shanniesue2]

We've been working on teaching "all done" and "more" signs to our 13 mo old for a few months now. And we only just started putting his food on a separate plate. Anyway, the upshot of it is... we watch him real close, and as soon as he give us his all done sign, we have about 5 seconds to clear away his plate before he starts throwing it around. We have to be on our toes, but we do have a lot less food flying around.

 

[ecoteat]

Uh... so what is going wrong in our house? DD will be 3 next month and STILL does this sometimes. It drives me bonkers, but I've developed lightning fast reflexes in my attempts to keep as few things from hitting the floor as possible. She learned the sign for "all done" when she was about 14 months old, but could say "all done" when she was 15 months old and stopped using signs when she started talking, so there was never any problem for her to communicate that she didn't want to eat anymore. Ugh.

lmk1, we took kind of an opposite approach--when dd starts throwing, it's clear that she wants out of this whole meal thing and is anxious to get out of her seat. So we don't react to her other than by moving everything out of her reach, finish our meals, and then move her chair over (with her still in it) so we can clean up the floor. So throwing stuff doesn't equal escape from dinner; she still has to sit with us while we all finish our meals. But she still does it sometimes, so I just don't know. I'll keep waiting for her to outgrow it, I guess.

 

[dancindoula]

Quote:

Originally Posted by ecoteat Uh... so what is going wrong in our house? DD will be 3 next month and STILL does this sometimes. It drives me bonkers, but I've developed lightning fast reflexes in my attempts to keep as few things from hitting the floor as possible. She learned the sign for "all done" when she was about 14 months old, but could say "all done" when she was 15 months old and stopped using signs when she started talking, so there was never any problem for her to communicate that she didn't want to eat anymore. Ugh. lmk1, we took kind of an opposite approach--when dd starts throwing, it's clear that she wants out of this whole meal thing and is anxious to get out of her seat. So we don't react to her other than by moving everything out of her reach, finish our meals, and then move her chair over (with her still in it) so we can clean up the floor. So throwing stuff doesn't equal escape from dinner; she still has to sit with us while we all finish our meals. But she still does it sometimes, so I just don't know. I'll keep waiting for her to outgrow it, I guess.

If she's going on 3 maybe it would help if she is included in the cleanup? Not in a punishment way, but in a matter of fact "uh oh, a mess happened and this is how we handle it!" way.

 

[LISSA~K]

My 21 month old does this al the time and it drives me nuts. Not so much the food throwing part, (our lab is great at cleaning up the mess

) but the food wasting part!