Help me tame a food thrower

[Anonymous]

My just turned 2 year old has decided it’s fun to throw food and dump her plate at pretty much all meals. She likes to feed herself and would prefer not to eat vs let someone else feed her, so I don’t know how to break this bad and disgusting habit because she clenched her jaw shit and refuses to eat if I don’t let her have her plate.

I have tried to praise her when she eats nicely and doesn’t throw/dump but it does not seem to help. Have also tried ignoring the food throwing/dumping but that isn’t getting us anywhere either.

Ideas?

[Anonymous]

Take the food away. She's done. Don't make a big deal out of it. Give her a healthy snack later if you think she's still hungry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Take the food away. She's done. Don't make a big deal out of it. Give her a healthy snack later if you think she's still hungry.

note: the snack needs to be a less desirable food than the dinner so she doesn't interpret it as a reward

[Anonymous]

So I recommend starting to fix this at breakfast. She'll be hungry.

When you sit down with her, you say: Your food stays on your plate, or goes in your mouth. No throwing. If you throw your food, breakfast is over.

Then just wait. She'll probably throw food.

When she does, you say, calmly, not frustrated or mad AT ALL: "Uh oh, looks like breakfast is all done!"

Then clear her plate, clean her up etc.

If she gets super upset, then console her. "Don't worry honey, we'll have a snack in a little while, and you can try again."

If she does not get upset, then she probably wasn't hungry to begin with.

If she doesn't eat anything, or just a little bit, then you can try again in an hour or two. She might whine and be grumpy, but she will learn quickly this way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:So I recommend starting to fix this at breakfast. She'll be hungry.

When you sit down with her, you say: Your food stays on your plate, or goes in your mouth. No throwing. If you throw your food, breakfast is over.

Then just wait. She'll probably throw food.

When she does, you say, calmly, not frustrated or mad AT ALL: "Uh oh, looks like breakfast is all done!"

Then clear her plate, clean her up etc.

If she gets super upset, then console her. "Don't worry honey, we'll have a snack in a little while, and you can try again."

If she does not get upset, then she probably wasn't hungry to begin with.

If she doesn't eat anything, or just a little bit, then you can try again in an hour or two. She might whine and be grumpy, but she will learn quickly this way.

PP again. I meant to say that you should start at breakfast because as a parent, it's a lot easier to say a meal is over when you know you can just do a snack in an hour or two.

If you try this at dinner, and she throws something right away, you have to be committed to sending her to bed hungry.

This only works if you mean what you say. No second chances etc.

[Anonymous]

One last thing. You can also give her a small "discard" bowl, so if she doesn't want to eat something on her plate, she can put it in the bowl.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So I recommend starting to fix this at breakfast. She'll be hungry.

When you sit down with her, you say: Your food stays on your plate, or goes in your mouth. No throwing. If you throw your food, breakfast is over.

Then just wait. She'll probably throw food.

When she does, you say, calmly, not frustrated or mad AT ALL: "Uh oh, looks like breakfast is all done!"

Then clear her plate, clean her up etc.

If she gets super upset, then console her. "Don't worry honey, we'll have a snack in a little while, and you can try again."

If she does not get upset, then she probably wasn't hungry to begin with.

If she doesn't eat anything, or just a little bit, then you can try again in an hour or two. She might whine and be grumpy, but she will learn quickly this way.

PP again. I meant to say that you should start at breakfast because as a parent, it's a lot easier to say a meal is over when you know you can just do a snack in an hour or two.

If you try this at dinner, and she throws something right away, you have to be committed to sending her to bed hungry.

This only works if you mean what you say. No second chances etc.

This is great advice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So I recommend starting to fix this at breakfast. She'll be hungry.

When you sit down with her, you say: Your food stays on your plate, or goes in your mouth. No throwing. If you throw your food, breakfast is over.

Then just wait. She'll probably throw food.

When she does, you say, calmly, not frustrated or mad AT ALL: "Uh oh, looks like breakfast is all done!"

Then clear her plate, clean her up etc.

If she gets super upset, then console her. "Don't worry honey, we'll have a snack in a little while, and you can try again."

If she does not get upset, then she probably wasn't hungry to begin with.

If she doesn't eat anything, or just a little bit, then you can try again in an hour or two. She might whine and be grumpy, but she will learn quickly this way.

PP again. I meant to say that you should start at breakfast because as a parent, it's a lot easier to say a meal is over when you know you can just do a snack in an hour or two.

If you try this at dinner, and she throws something right away, you have to be committed to sending her to bed hungry.

This only works if you mean what you say. No second chances etc.

This is great advice.

Yep, really great. One thing we do with our food thrower when we can see him getting bored and or done with his meal (which is when he would start tossing) is say “hands high, touch the sky!” And he throws his hands up for long enough to us to get to the plate and move it out of reach. We used to say “hands up!” but that always ended in him touching his hair with dirty hands ... blech

[Anonymous]

Toddler Nanny here and I will agree with what the previous poster wrote about consequences, but I would like to add that preventatively I find that young kids are much more likely to get distracted and start playing when they have a lot of food on their plate. So I typically serve like three things at a time but I put the things on one plate and then put a different empty plate in front of the child and add one or two bites of each thing.

So the plate that’s actually on the high chair tray would only have like two raspberries, two chunks of sweet potato, and a little bit of shredded chicken. then when they finish what’s on the plate I let them choose what they want to have more of and give them a little bit more. You have to keep constantly refilling, but the fact that they look down at their plate and don’t see any extra food that they are not interested in eating helps them to focus on eating instead of playing.

[Anonymous]

When the child starts throwing food, the meals is over. Repeat.

[Anonymous]

Agree with the previous posters, but if it's a problem at dinner, I have found it also is helpful if they start throwing food and haven't actually eaten to take away the plate and instead just give them one piece of food at a time. They need to ask for more if they want it. Absent a developmental delay, 2 is old enough to understand the words "I can't give you the plate back because you keep throwing the food," and learning from that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So I recommend starting to fix this at breakfast. She'll be hungry.

When you sit down with her, you say: Your food stays on your plate, or goes in your mouth. No throwing. If you throw your food, breakfast is over.

Then just wait. She'll probably throw food.

When she does, you say, calmly, not frustrated or mad AT ALL: "Uh oh, looks like breakfast is all done!"

Then clear her plate, clean her up etc.

If she gets super upset, then console her. "Don't worry honey, we'll have a snack in a little while, and you can try again."

If she does not get upset, then she probably wasn't hungry to begin with.

If she doesn't eat anything, or just a little bit, then you can try again in an hour or two. She might whine and be grumpy, but she will learn quickly this way.

PP again. I meant to say that you should start at breakfast because as a parent, it's a lot easier to say a meal is over when you know you can just do a snack in an hour or two.

If you try this at dinner, and she throws something right away, you have to be committed to sending her to bed hungry.

This only works if you mean what you say. No second chances etc.

This is great advice.

+1