A Little Advice Needed--Dinnah Time
This is not a huge deal, but I could use a little advice. My little guy (Hank, 13 months), who is still nursing about 4 times a day, is developing some pretty annoying food habits.
Here's the deal: Whenever I give him something that he doesn't like, or whenever's he's finished with whatever's on his tray, he launches his food--throws it to the floor, or across the room. I keep saying: No, Hank, don't do that. It's rude. But my otherwise sweet-natured Hank doesn't seem to be willing to be reasonable about this.
My MIL's advice is to keep making/offering different foods until we find one that suits him--as in, if you don't like soy dogs, "Mommy" (or whoever) will make you a Boca Burger; and it you don't like that, we'll make you a cheese sandwich, and if you don't like that, we'll make you some beans and rice. Now, is it just me, or is that just CRAZY? I mean, I'm barely good for getting even one meal together, much less four or five. WHo the hell has time for this? (Besides, there's a part of me that really believes that this is a terrific way to turn him into one of those children who won't eat anything).
My mother says to swat his little hand and/or spank his little butt. NOT an option. But then again, this is the same woman whose weaning advice (which she thought should happen at, like, FOUR MONTHS of age) went something like this: Just stop breastfeeding him. Just stop. Suddenly. and without warning. This was how she "weaned" me (and all I could think was, well, Jeeeezzuus. No wonder I spent most of my 20's fucking anything that moved!)
Anyhoo. As most of you already know, I'm a first-time mother (no shit, huh?). So I spend a lot of time wondering what's "normal" behavior and what's beyond the pale. Can y'all please offer your advice on this? Thanks, E
turn your house into a restraunt. NO BODY has time for that!not saying to starve him, but offer him food and he'll eat.Some times my son will eat barely anything and throw the rest but like this morning he ate all of his eggs toast and bacon! Go figure I dunno he is 18 mos!! My son throws his food all the time. my girls never did that so it was new to me. I hoping it'll pass! good luck and DUCK!!! I hope this helps probably not really but Youre not alone!!
but 13 months is tough. you can't really "teach" a kid that young, she's only just now forming associations and doesn't really consider consequences before acting. he will not, no matter how much you smack him, anticipate punishment before throwing the food which is, i'm sure you know, not an act of malice or rudeness or hostility or anything. just an impulse that he carries out without consideration.
starting at about 5, when my daughter had the option of getting her own ass to the fridge and fixing herself a peanut butter sandwich when she doesn't want what we're putting out in front of her. but she's not allowed to be rude or wasteful, she has to do it before anything is put on her plate. but she is older and able to comprehend all of this. i do think kids need to learn that they aren't going to get their favorite food for each and every meal, and it's ok for them to eat something they don't particularly like, that's not an earthshattering consequence. it wouldn't be abusive to insist that the child eat what you made him. he won't starve. he will eventually get hungry enough to eat it. on the other hand, i don't advocate being totally inflexible either. i'm not dr phil.
"I've done a lot of things in my life I ain't too proud of, and the things I am proud of are disgusting." - Mo Szyslak
"I've done a lot of things in my life I ain't too proud of, and the things I am proud of are disgusting." - Mo Szyslak
13 months is too young for a time-out (IMO).
For the food throwing, as far as I was concerned, when they started throwing it on the ground, they were full and done. I'd take the highchair tray and let them down. End of story. No smacking, just a big "Oops, you threw your noodles on the floor. ALL DONE!" Then a quick unbuckle.
Since he's so young, you're probably offering food at least every 3 hours. He'll be fine and eventually the throwing food/toys phase passes.
"I've done a lot of things in my life I ain't too proud of, and the things I am proud of are disgusting." - Mo Szyslak
i worked in child care while i was in school, and let me tell you, there is a particular personality type that time outs work with. the rest, forget it.
he's a year old, that's really a baby. the only thing i can remember making headway with at that age was talking, a lot. in a conversational, teaching tone. much the same way you say, "this is shampoo, it makes bubbles and cleans your hair when i rub it on your head" using that tone really seemed to get her attention. and when you get attention, you redirect the behavior, because they have attention spans of gnats. next thing you know, he's listening and eating. but i wouldn't say that would work in anything of a reliable way. i really don't think anything will. it'll pass, and he will develop another endearing habit, like wiping snots on walls.
"I've done a lot of things in my life I ain't too proud of, and the things I am proud of are disgusting." - Mo Szyslak
So I probably don't know anything, but he is starting to throw the little bites of food I give him around. I've been thinking out my solution to this (and I'm not sure if it's going to work or not cause he doesn't eat that much yet). I am going to get some kind of tarp or peice of plastic or old wipeable table cloth and set that on the ground. Then I'm going to put him on that with his food. Lower to the ground means that the launching of food will be less efficient in covering horizontal distance...therefore, I am hoping that if the plastic is about 4 feet long or so that this will take care of most of the damage (and the linoleum will catch the rest). Then, I was just going to give him little bits at a time (since he loves food). He only gets more if he eats what he has...but if he wants to throw it around and play in it, that's okay too (as per my naturopath...I dunno about this yet).
This plan may have some major flaws. I'll let you know how it works...hehe
"You can cut all the flowers but you cannot keep spring from coming." Pablo Neruda
"Fundamentally the markswoman aims at herself" DT Suzuki
The flaw: What will keep him on the tarp? If that were my baby, he'd grab the food, run off while giggling, and smear it on the nearest wall. Then take off all his clothes and rub a bit of the food on his tummy. While running and screeching.
In my experience, babies have to be strapped into something to make it work. And they all throw their food. Since they can't say "Thank you for the nice dinner, mother. I believe I am full now", they just toss a bit on the floor.
I'd take that tarp, and put it under his highchair. It would save you a lot of mopping.
Most kids go through a stage of throwing or dropping food. It's cheap entertainment to them. And if he's coordinated enough to be throwing, congratulate yourself on what a physical genius he is.
He's probably not in a growth spurt right now, which would mean he's not very hungry. Offer him a *very* small portion (why should you clean volumes of food off the floor?) and if he's hungry enough to eat, he can have another very small portion. If he throws, he's not hungry. Take him out of the high chair and turn him loose. Don't worry that he won't get enough to eat -- kids are excellent at self-regulating their intake of food, unless we screw around with their natural instincts. He will, as my mother always says, eat when he's hungry. That was her experience with three kids, and my experience with three kids -- millions of years of child-rearing experience, so bow down!
Obviously, don't spank or smack him. He won't "get it" anyway, and you'll just start food issues for later. And whatever you do, do not keep offering him more food. You will make yourself nuts and he won't eat anything extra anyway. You are not a short-order cook; don't make yourself into one.
Do some deep, deep breathing. This is a frustrating stage because he's not yet old enough to understand when you say, "Please don't throw food," so you have to deal with the same irritating behavior over and over. But he will get through this stage, I promise, and there will even be a time when he will use proper table manners and you will be so amazed ...
I TOTALLY agree with you about not becoming a short-order cook. I let mine nurse as much as she wanted, then offered her basically just what I was eating. I make some exceptions--keep some stuff on hand just for her, like plain yoghurt (which most babies love--so no need to go the extra sugar and fruit route). Mine is a great eater, and already eats adult foods at every restaurant we eat at, generally thai and indian foods. (almost 2 yo)
As for the throwing stuff on the floor, it's normal. I think it's something kids grow out of, more so than get trained out of. There is even a PSA now that talks about how kids do certain things over and over to learn about their environment. I mean, for all your kid knows, the next time he chucks the food it may float up and hit the ceiling. The message of the PSA is YOU know this stuff, just like you know those cheerios aren't going to stay on the tray for long, pan to a shot of a kid tossing a bowl of cheerios off the tray. Just say no everytime, and accept that like most things with toddlers, the way they learn is by hearing no aproximately 1400 times. I am kind of of the mind of figuring out whether things are a disciplinary problem (starting fires) or a developemental stage (saying NO! hitting, for toddlers) if it's a developemental stage, I continue to set my boundary, but accept that it's something only time will cure. Really, kids don't start understanding/responding to "no" until 18 mos, so you're better off just redirecting until then...maybe learning when he's about to chuck the food and removing it first.
I think you sound right on. You know what's up, way more so than grannies, IMO.
1. Ignore him tossing his food on the floor. All kids go though stages like this. The more you escalate the more attention he gets for doing it and it just becomes a circus.
If you have a dog, let them lay under the highchair and clean it up. If you have no dog, get an old sheet and put it under there and then just throw it in the wash.
2. We offer S at least three foods at every meal. Now that she is older and eats a lot of different foods it isn't as big of a deal but we always made sure we gave her something new to try, something we knew she would eat that was healthy and then something that would balance it out nutritionally.
2.5 S is now 21 months and is conversational. Now we ask her if she wants a or b to give her a choice. 13 months is kinda young for that, though.
3. We gave S the food we were eating.
4. Someone told me to look at nutrition in a 48-hour cycle timeframe. If you are offering healthy foods they will usually balance what they need from them but it might take the whole 48-hours to do it.
They all do the dropping thing. He's learning about gravity. For some reason this is enormous fun for toddlers, mine (14 months) has just discovered that if she throws something over the gate at the top of the kitchen stairs it will bounce all the way to the bottom. Whee! What a rush!
You are right in not wanting to cook whatever will make the little one eat. We jsut cut up whatever we're eating. This will save you ENOMOUS hassles, at least until he starts school and has his own new list of foods that he previously loved but some kid or another has now deemed gross.
It's totally normal. Annoying, but normal. And I echo Sunshine Daydream - it is SO much easier if you get a dog.
"Step off my big ass."
- Anthromom
Okay, I haven't read all of the responses, but I also have a food thrower, and she is now two years old, and has been throwing food that she doesn't want for the better part of her life, and I have tried various things with various rates of success. But nonetheless, she still does it from time to time (and after more than a year of trying to explain why we don't throw our food, believe me, it is irritating, to say the least). Anyway, what I did initially was trying to curb it before it happened by saying something like, "If we don't like our food, we set it down right here, or we ask mama to take it from us." When my daughter didn't like something, she wanted it as far away from her as possible--off her try and out of her sight--so I had to give her another alternative place to set it down--the table, a stool next to her, etc. If she threw something, I reminded her calmly where we put things that we don't like. This worked to some degree. But what I also found was, basically, I could not be too far away from her while she was eating. I had to be right there to catch her arm, to stop her from throwing. After one or two thwarted tries, she usually quit (for that mealtime, anyway).
As I said, she still throws sometimes, so no method is perfect. Good luck, mama!
Mine doesn't actully throw it she just shoves the plate as hard as she can and it usually ends up on the floor. she does this when she is finished eating as well, not just for things she doesn't like. I have found you can't make them eat. I try and mix it with something she does like. for instance instead of a burger, I make hamburger helper. She loves mac-n-chesse of course.This works with boca burgers as well.I will mix peas in with her spaghetti. I know this is weird but she eats it.I've also gotten her to eat things by putting a little catsup on the side for some reason she likes to "dip"her food in it even if it doesn't usually go with catsup.Don't know if any of this helps but ya never know.
Jessica
The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind...
MLK Jr.
Jessica
Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind~~Dr.Seuss
We do the dips for stuff. Ketchup, dressing, etc... becarful though cause oogie soon discovered he could just dip it and suck all of the dip dip (what we call it) off the food and never actually consume it.... we had to actually sit and watch him going okay no more dip till you take a bite of the food..... etc
At first mine would just dip her fingers in it and lick it off. So i made a big deal of me doing it with the food so of course she wanted to do like Mommy.Also if you act like you don't want Dd or DS to have it it may make them want it.
Jessica
The old law of an eye for an eye leaves everyone blind...
MLK Jr.
Navigation
Who's online
Who's New
- BeachBunny
- gayle.mallinger
- Mamapocket
- mjcwriter
- addie smith
Good to know it's not just my kid!