At wit's end with food throwing

I've probably given lots of sage advice to other moms about food throwing -- take the food away, pretend you don't notice, etc. -- but now Sarah is doing it incessantly and it's driving me nuts! DH and I agreed that we need a consistent response -- at the moment, sometimes we end the meal, sometimes we take the food away for just a few minutes, sometimes we ignore it, sometimes we pick the food up off the floor and give it right back to her, etc.

She doesn't do it only when she's not hungry or done eating -- she does it right at the beginning. Or she'll eat one bite, throw one, eat one, throw one, etc. So if we immediately end the meal every time she does it (zero tolerance), she will eat a lot less (and she's picky already), and every meal will end with a screaming fit, and then with her begging and trying to climb up in her high chair 5 minutes later.

I know she won't starve if we do this, but it just seems awfully painful. Would it be something like CIO where it is really painful but not for very long? Or are we talking about 6 months of screaming fits?

Help.... :wacko:

 

Oh man, that would drive me bonkers too! I would tend to go zero tolerance with it. I know, easier said than done, luckily we haven't had food throwing that bad. Maybe just doing it like that will send the message loud and clear that this is not to be tolerated and it won't take too long for her to stop it. I would tell daycare about your plan too and hopefully they will go with it. Good luck!

 

If it gets better at 18 months, mine are behind, LOL Mine still do it. Especially, as you mentioned, when they aren't hungry or when they are done.

 

One of my girls does this too, just like you said, where she takes a bite and then throws a bite. AND IT DRIVES ME BONKERS! She's only 15 months old though, so I'm not sure there's much I can do at this point. I always lower my voice and tell her no, and to put it back on her tray. And she usually does, but then she smiles sweetly and holds her hand off to the side again and looks at me to see what I'll do! She thinks it's a game, and doesn't really get that she's being naughty. At least I don't think she knows she's being naughty.

Sorry I don't have any advice - just wanted to let you know you aren't the only one!

 

I don't really have any advice either because mine are throwers too!! They kind of go through spells. Sometimes they'll do pretty well, then they'll start throwing again for a few meals. Mine are really picky, so I think that's a lot of the problem. They mostly seem to throw when they don't want what I'm giving them or if their tired and cranky. I've heard the advice about ending the meal, but that seems to be more work than its worth since IMO mealtime is the most work of the day anyway! Plus I'm always worried about them being hungry. So I tend to take away the bowl (if that wasn't thrown yet ) for a minute, then try to give it to her again. If she still acts like she's going to chuck it, I usually offer 1 other food option, then move on to the fruit, which they eat 99% of the time.

The major thing I've tried to do is not let it get to me! It really did in the begining, but after hearing others talk about the having the same issues, I figure its a stage and its just not worth getting upset over. Not saying I don't sometimes lose my cool...but for the most part, I just take it with a grain of salt.

Marcy

 

Boy, Alden...your girls are sure keeping you on your toes this week!

Mine are younger than yours, so maybe this is irrelevant...but I notice that if I put too much on their tray (especially at the beginning of the meal) they get overwhelmed with it all and throw (or do the eat a bite, throw a bite routine).

That being said, we still deal with food throwing, but as pps suggested, usually when they are done, don't want any more. I am hoping that this will improve with the ability to communicate more effectively with one another.

 

I have one that does this too, she started around 10.5 months. We have a no tolerance policy about throwing food. It's getting better now, but there times I want to pull my hair out. I'm sure what i do in my house isn't going to be very popular around here but I'll tell you anyway. When she goes to throw it I tell her no sternly, if she continues then I slap her hand. I have very head strung girls with a stubborn streak a mile high, so sometimes its a battle of the wills. But they are learning what they can and can not get away with. The key is consistency. I hope its gets better for you, good luck.

 

My kids still do it...including the holding it over the side and smiling at me to see how i will react. I also agree about the too much food on their tray at once thing...Here's what i do. I will take all of the food away, or push it to the far corner of the tray where they can't reach it, ignore the offender for about a minute, and then i will either put one piece of whatever she is eating on her tray at a time, or insist that i feed her myself..either using utensils, or putting the food directly in her mouth. I explain that since she will not listen, this is how mommy needs to feed her now...after a few bites, i can sometimes put some of the food back on her tray with no throwing...sometimes this doesn't work either, but it works more often than not. Good luck (my girls are 18 months too!).

 

QUOTE(Trish_e @ May 29 2007, 01:06 PM) [snapback]271333[/snapback]
I have one that does this too, she started around 10.5 months. We have a no tolerance policy about throwing food. It's getting better now, but there times I want to pull my hair out. I'm sure what i do in my house isn't going to be very popular around here but I'll tell you anyway. When she goes to throw it I tell her no sternly, if she continues then I slap her hand. I have very head strung girls with a stubborn streak a mile high, so sometimes its a battle of the wills. But they are learning what they can and can not get away with. The key is consistency. I hope its gets better for you, good luck.


I can't believe anyone would hit a 1 year old for doing something that yes, is undesirable but completely developmentally normal. I hope you will reconsider. If you hit your children, they will learn that hitting is OK. Is that really the lesson you want to impart?

 

I think 18 months was the worst food throwing time for my kids. I still remember the spaghetti dinner at my parent's house. One of my boys threw a whole plate full of spaghetti sauce and pasta at the wall. My poor dad spent the rest of the night scrubbing his wall! Now that they are 2 and 1/2, their table manners are much much better. They still occasionally dip their sandwich in their drinks or spill their soup, but things are so much better compared to a year ago.

When they were around 18 months, I just resigned myself to the fact that they were going to be messy eaters and let them play with their food till their heart's content. But I did try to make foods that were easier to clean up. (E.g. green beans rather than spinach, bread rather than rice, etc.) I also placed their high chairs in front of the kitchen sink so that alot of things they threw would fall right into the sink. Having a handvac and a basket full of rags next to the high chairs also helped in cleaning up quickly. I also made alot of picnic lunches and they ate at the park or in their strollers while I took them out for a walk. The stroller got messy but it was so much easier to clean than my floor! I read somewhere that kids this age are fascinated by gravity. It's such a miracle to them that things they throw always go down instead of up, that things they throw harder go farther. So maybe Sarah is a little rocket scientist in the making!

When my kids turned two, I got strict about not throwing food. I took away their food if they threw it and that was absolutely the end of the meal no matter how much they cried. My kids were pretty big for their age at that point and I didn't think they would starve if they skipped a meal or two. They were certainly old enough to understand my instructions and that there was a consequence to their actions. It only took a few weeks for the new rule to sink.

Good luck!

 

My Nate will put food on the floor if we put too much on his tray to start out with. Around 18 months is when I would take his hands in mine and make sure he was looking at me and say 'No!'. He will still do it occasionally now. Most of the time I have his highchair parallel with the table and encourage him to reach over and put the food on the big table if he doesn't want something. I make sure to say 'thank you' when he does this (positive reinforcement) - much better than on the floor.

It does get better, as they get older and being to understand more.

Holly

 

QUOTE(betseeee @ May 30 2007, 11:45 PM) [snapback]273948[/snapback]
I can't believe anyone would hit a 1 year old for doing something that yes, is undesirable but completely developmentally normal. I hope you will reconsider. If you hit your children, they will learn that hitting is OK. Is that really the lesson you want to impart?


I am sorry I offended you with how I do things in my house. I do not beat my children and I do not hit them to hurt them. Everything I do I do it in love. I WILL NOT have children who defy what a parent says. I believe in teaching children at a young age. Its funny, you never have to teach a child to misbehave but you have to teach them to behave. While this may be "normal" it is unacceptable behavior and there are consequences for this kind of behavior. One the same token, I also reward good behavior, I do believe in positive reinforcement. But I will not let a one yr old walk all over me, there are boundaries. I'm sorry but when my girls look at me and smile and do something I already told them not to, that shows me they know what they are doing wrong and challenging me. I am NOT teaching my children its ok to hit, I am teaching discipline and consequences. You may not like it, but honestly I don't care. I have very well behaved children that listen.

 

Everyone, thanks for the suggestions. At their 18-month checkup on Tuesday, our ped suggested this plan: Whenever she does it, immediately take the food away and say "no throwing" (or whatever phrase you want to use) -- then wait a minute or two and give it back. The nice thing about this is that (unlike ending the meal completely, which is more of a production), it's easy enough that you can really do it immediately -- yet it's not permanent, so she still gets a chance to eat if she wants to. We've been trying to do it really consistently for the past few days. I can't tell yet whether it's working, but it makes us feel better to have a plan!

I also like the idea about just accepting it -- I'd be willing to do that if I felt confident that she was really going to grow out of it. That's been our approach about other kinds of messy food behaviors -- I don't mind if they play with their food or even pass it back and forth, if that entertains them and makes them think that eating is fun. But I'm pretty sure that the throwing, specifically, is a testing-boundaries thing, because of the way she looks at me with that twinkle in her eye just before she does it.

But it would be cool if she were a rocket scientist in the making! It runs in the family -- DH, both his parents, both his siblings, AND their spouses are all physicists!

 

I haven't read all the replies so I may repeat but here's what we do...

The plate goes away for a minute or two, no matter how much they fuss. Then they get it back with a warning that if they throw food it will go away again. They get one more chance after that and then meal time is over. Typically by the time the three chances are up everyone else is done eating too. I think you just have to a pick a way to deal with and stick with it.

 

I know it's not convenient, but how about giving her 1 bite at a time for a few meals? That's the only thing I can think of :hug99: Sorry!