more mealtime advice needed

I know I've asked previously, but the problem seems to keep evolving so what works one week doesn't the next.

Ella's had eating issues from day 1- I won't bore you with a repeat of them all! Anyway, she was off to a bad start, and I can see that in desperation we made some mistakes with her eating and we are paying for them still, at nearly 2 yrs old.

Her diet is good - varied enough considering her allergy, and healthy. Her eating habits stink. Still, most every mealtime, the food gets thrown on the floor or against the wall. She only does this at home, interestingly. It seems like real attention-seeking behaviour to me, but even with me sitting there giving her 1:1 the whole meal through, she still does it. So it's puzzling.

So far we've tried: take the food away (she never minded that); time out (unsuccessful); completely ignore the bad behaviour (didn't work one bit); OTT praise for doing things right at mealtime, and Jono and I making a fuss of each-other for it too, in front of her (seemed to have some effect, but the problem remained); teaching her how to signal she's eaten enough by pushing her plate or saying 'enough' (she does this sometimes, but still throws food); giving her choices, ie: what to have on her toast (but she doesn't actually get much choice about what she's served, as she'll have me being a short-order chef, experience has shown); a sticker for every mealtime with no throwing (worked brilliantly for a couple of weeks, then she stopped caring about the stickers); and even a smack on the hand for throwing food (absolutely no effect). I feel like I'm out of options, but there must be something we can do! I did stick with each attempt for a number of weeks, and had a zero-tolerance for food throwing for each thing we tried. What am I missing here? Ah, if I could call in SuperNanny without the humiliation of being on TV I so would do that!!

I've tried to decipher what she's 'saying' with this behaviour, and if it's not 'I've eaten enough' or 'give me attention NOW', then I come up short. This morning I had a smashed plate and weetbix everywhere... the issue really gets to me.

Have you tried halving the size of her meal?  Obviously she can have more if she wants but less on her plate means less food to throw and maybe atm seeing so much food on her plate is overwhelming for her because she might think you expect her to eat it all.

Does she help you prepare food?  This is a big hit with Michaela, especially now she and I have matching aprons.  Some meals she can make herself (she makes her own toast and in the weekend she topped her own pizza) others I get her to help with parts of the meal (tonight I'm making chicken fingers so I'll get her to help me beat the egg and shake up the seasoned rice crumbs) other times, when she can't help, I just run some water in the sink and she "supervises" while playing in the sink.

Michaela loves playing with her drinks as well, pouring, splashing, dipping food etc they get confiscated immediately and she's now getting better.

Also, and I may be burned for this, we sit at the table with the TV on at dinner time.  I know it's supposedly naughty and not condusive to family conversation but I don't want conversation, I want her to eat, and having the TV on gives her something to focus on while she eats.  Also turning the TV off when she displays bad behaviour works a treat.

Edited by MrsMojo

Sorry Andie, no advice for the food. But with the drinking,..there is NO WAY I would give Isla a cup without a lid. I dont know any kid their age that doesnt use some sort of sippy cup. If Isla finds any sort of vessel that she can pour something out of she will! She usually has those $2 straw or sippy cups at home, and when she tries to tip it out she gets a warning and if she does it again I take it off her, and make her go and get a tea towel and clean it up herself. Seems to work for us. We always do the supernany thing of dropping the tone of our voice when shes done something wrong too,...and often Islawill go to the other parent and laugh and want hugs,..so we both have to say that we arent happy. We use the words 'thats naughty behaviour' too, so she is hearing those words and asscoiating it with the bad behaviour,..and along with the tone of voice difference hopefully she figues out we arent happy.

Lol! Its very easy to squeal and yell,..but Isla definatly listens and takes more notice,..also thinking about dropping your voice and using adiff ne usually gives me a second to think about what Im gonna say too.

The sticker chart worked great for getting Isla to stay in bed in the morning. Supernappy recommends nly having 3-5 space on the sticker chart, so we did 5, and I got some cool new stickers,..then when she got 5 she got to have a special outting to the beach with mum and dad. It was a week yesterday since I started putting her back to bed, back to bed etc til 6am,..cos now she can get out of her cot she was coming into us between 4-5am,...she was again sleeping through til 6am within 4 days! Woo hoo!

good idea jo about the meal size.. if it doesnt fix the problem at least you will have less to clean up.

i have experimented with the tone of voice thing and it really does work here too.

my other thought is does she eat at the table or a highchair? if highchair would at the table be better?

when my kids have gone thru the throwing food thing i used to take it as the meal was over and take the food and get them out and clean them up. and yeah once the drink got tipped up that was gone too...

or maybe give her one thing at a time to eat... instead of a plate of food.

...at least that way the food would already be on the floor!!    We've done that a couple of times - Ella is up and roaming the room the whole time, but since it's an occasional, that doesn't worry us. It's just hard keeping her off the food!

Deb she sits at the table - works out better for her than a highchair, though she's in a booster seat and strapped in! I've tried her little table & chairs too but she can't stay sitting to eat at all, so that's just for play now.

Thanks for the advice so far, guys. Much appreciated.

LOL Kellz.  It's a learnt skill.  Michaela's learnt that if she doesn't sit down at the table an eat her dinner then it gets taken away and she doesn't get anything else.  Luckily it's just me at home with her at dinnertimes as her daddy thinks I'm terribly cruel and our liitle girl will starve to death overnight if he doesn't intervene by giving her sandwhiches and/or lollies bless him.

sorry to threadjack.... Xavier did this for a wee while too because he saw that it upset me. When i decided enough was enough and got tough on him he thought it was hilarious and carried on doing it.
Eventually i ended up telling him in a very serious super nanny voice (which i find hard not cracking up with ) that it wasnt acceptable, he refused to clean it up so he would sit on time out (which he didnt mind) for 2 mins and not get any more dinner. Once he figured out there was no more food for the rest of the night.. (this took a few weeks of him being hungry before he clicked to the connection of him throwing all his food away) he started eating his dinner. I also cut down his portions as MrsMojo said to stop the massive wastage of food so maybe that helped too, i just didnt think of it at the time.
It could just be a stage they grow out of and we still have dinner battles of him staying at the table and not eating under it with the dog, but at least it doesnt end up every where else but his tummy
Good luck!!

Kellz wrote: yes I have a sandwhich giving husband too

He he... I have a chippie-giving husband! So naughty!

I didn't mean to make it sound like she gets a cup normally - it's usually a sippy. She loves normal cups though, and asks for them, only to tip the whole thing over her meal - that's just a game she enjoys (and only she enjoys!). So it's nearly always the sippy... I just know she's capable of more, grrr.

Nah T, she doesn't get to eat floor-food. The cat tries to, but even he gets kicked out for it, because then Ella thinks it's just delightful to 'feed the puss'... . She does usually do the throwing once she's eaten enough - it's crusts that get chucked rather than toast, that sort of thing. But then there's some foods she begs for, likes to suck on and chew a little, spit out, and beg for more... very odd. Today I'll start with the wee portions and keep reinforcing how to signal she's had enough. She's been off her food this week, so seems to barely eat at mealtimes already - so there will be much opportunity to say 'enough'!