Food on the floor..

Some advice please ladies. It seems impossible now to give Theo finger foods, which I would usually do for lunch he will eat a little bit and then just start swiping his hands at a speed across his highchair tray causing the food to fall on the floor, of course he finds it funny and he leans over the chair to look at the cats eating his food :angry:

Will he always do this? or will he grow out of it? I am getting so sick and tired of picking it all up off the floor only for him to throw it on the floor again and again, this lunchtime I picked it up once and when he did it again I swept it all up and put in the bin like a mean Mummy!

if kaydee throws her food on the floor i throw is away unless it was a true accident. i figure if shes throwing it on the floor shes either bored, not hungry, or just not interested. i will not give it back to her though cause then she will know that she can just throw it over and over again and i will pick it back up, it becomes a game. so now she doesnt throw her food on the floor any longer because she knows if she does i will throw it all away and take her out of her high chair! (im such a mean mommy!)

Audrey went thru a phase of throwing everything on the floor to watch you pick it up, soon enough I had had enough. She'll still throws food on the floor if she is not hungry or unwell (ie, teething, illness). At the start of it, I have fed Audrey myself most times and to get her used to feeding herself I would let her eat easy things. She is now able to pick food up with her fork, but spoon still needs some teaching. Anyways you have to become the parent, which means you can keep picking it up for him, or tell him enough is enough and he'll just have to go without, or next time you'll have to feed him yourself...whatever works for you

Oh another thing you can do, is just put a little bit of food at a time for him to consume, that way he isn't wasting his entire tray of food.

Georgi - I have the same problem with Owen and I've started doing what Gutter suggested. I only put 3 or 4 pieces on his tray and that seems to help a lot! Owen has always been fascinated with different textures and I think he likes the feeling of squishy, sticky food which just makes meal time even more chaotic! I also spoon feed him in between him self feeding. It speeds up the process. He still gets the practice at self feeding but I get him fed fast enough that boredom doesn't have time to set it.

I hope they will outgrow it soon because it IS a pain!!!!!!! : )

Good luck!

Oh Georgi, can i EVER relate!? Thane throws his food all the freakin time! I have spanked his hands and yelled at him "DO NOT THROW FOOD!" and he does it anyway I don't know what to do ... if you find something that works let me know :'(

I had exactly the same problem with Molly. She is growing out of it but I just did the same as Gutter. I just thought that if she is that hungry she wouldn't do it. I stopped pudding too if she did it as she was soon learning that if she threw all of her other food, I would get pudding out so she had some food in her belly. I think all Mums would agree that it's totally normal, even though it is really annoying when you spend time preparing nice things that they just throw.

Thank you ALL so much for the advice. I think you are right Gutter if Theo was really that hungry he wouldn't do it, I never actually thought of that I just put it down to him being naughty.

I have been giving him tiny amounts at a time for the last couple of days suggested by Lou Lou and I 'think' that is working, certainly he does eat more BEFORE he throw it on the floor but at least this way I am not wasting loads of food