13 Month Old Dropping Food onto the Floor!

Don't pick up the food until she's finished with her meal. This lets her know that you aren't going to pick it up when she throws the food on the floor. Or, you can take the time to show her what "clean up" time is all about. :D

If I remember correctly I would take that as a sign of being done. I would calmly say "all done" and take him out of the high chair. If he fussed I'd say "please don't drop food on the floor or you are all done." This seemed to work.

I would take the food away and take her out of the chair. My son we start doing that when he wasn't hungry anymore. However, whether she is still hungry or not, after a few times she will correlate that when she drops food on the floor she will be "all done"!

Your daughter is likely dropping food on the floor for two reasons. First, it's an interesting concept that if she lets go of something and she can watch it drop all the way to the floor. In some respects, it's part of her development: She's learning the physics of gravity and that she has power to do something she thinks is entertaining. The second reason she does it is because it's a fun game. She drops something on the floor, mommy picks it up. The more attention you give to it, the more she things it's a game and will continue to drop the food.

Unfortunately, I don't think you can "make" her stop. All kids drop food on the floor and eventually stop. At 13 months, she isn't old enough to understand the concept of table manners and I think it's unfair to expect her to. In every book I've read, and in my own experience with my 15 month old, it's simply a part of feeding baby. My advice is to place something on the floor (a drop cloth, old towel or something) and ignore the behavior. Eventually, she'll get over the novelty and since she no longer has a participant (mom), it's no longer a game. It's important to igore the behavior **compltetly**. No smile, no grimace, nothing. Just pretend it didn't happen. Any reaction, be it positive or negative, is what she's after.

[chuckle] I'd suggest that you buy a dog and get ready for a 1,000 mile tune-up on your mop because there is not a darn thing you're going to do to handle this situation!!!! This is just another one of those "fun" stages (fun for THEM . . . not so much for us!).

The only thing we did was institute a "you chuck it, you lose it" policy. Anything that's deliberately thrown is taken away. They learn pretty quickly not to throw something they want to keep. And if my boys start picking up handsful of food and throwing it, that's the sign they are done eating.

LOL! This is so normal for this age. My 18 mo daughter still does it, and her big brother did it for a long time, too. It is fun for baby to do, and even MORE fun to see the cause-and-effect when mama picks up the food everytime!

The thing to do is just say cheerfully, "ok, when you throw it on the floor, it means your dinner is done!" and take away her food or plate or whatever.

If she's really hungry still, then feed her again in an hour.

Eventually she will get the message, or else get bored with the game. In the meantime, just remember that this is a very common phase that every parent has to go through with their child!

totally normal - i second the "dog" vote... that is what I did.... :)

Yep! Classic "Drop it and Mommy Picks it up" game! EVERY child goes through this!

1. Give her less food when you sit down for meals. If dropping food is a sign that she is done, then she has too much to start with.

2. Don't pick up the food when she drops it. Make a statement that food is for eating and then have her help pick it up after mealtime is over.

3. End mealtime if she throws it on the floor more than once. ALWAYS warn her after the first throw and then tell her why you are ending mealtime. She may only be one, but she's capable of understanding the equation: throwing food=no food.

4. Give her responsibility with the food. Have her help clean her mat or chair afterwards (it may not be a good clean, but she'll feel involved). Praise her for keeping food on her plate and, of course, eating it. Don't go overboard, though. If you get too excited, she'll expect you to clap about everything she does. Just praise her at the end of the meal.

5. Have fun with her. Even at mealtime, interact with her about her food, your food, what you are looking at, etc. Talking during mealtime is a regular family event.

Hope these suggestions help. She will stop at some point. Just remember this for round 2...in about another year and a half!

when she drops food meal time is over. take her out of her chair and she will learn.

oh my goodness, so normal!!!! it is a game...they are learning about cause and effect. they let go of the food, it will drop to the floor. then mommy picks it up. do it again, so fun! i usually just leave it on the floor until the meal is over. you dropped your food--oh well, you don't have it any more. they grow out of it. i am not going to slap her hand for dropping her food. she is not being bad, she is learning and testing boundaries. in fact, it usually means the meal is over, so when she starts dropping her food, i say "all done?" and take the highchair tray away, and we are done with her meal. she's usually fine with that because she is not interested in her food any more anyway.

No disrespect C. but babies like to see that they are actually in control of something falling from where they are and hitting the floor, it turned into a game when you continued to get it for her. She will still continue to do it at times, but do not pick it up and say "oh no, all gone- yukky (letting her know its on the floor now so she can not have it anymore) it is trial and error but with consistancy you will pull through- im going through the same thing right now too. It will be fine dont worry-
A.

So many great responses! She is old enough to understand "If you drop your food on the floor, mealtime is over" followed by removing her plate. It is a learning "game", just like throw the bottle from the stroller, the toy from the crib, etc. She is trying to learn cause and effect as well as boundries. Be consistant with what is ok for you and FOR GOSH SAKES - DON'T HIT HER. She needs to learn by teaching, not fear.
God bless you, and enjoy your little one, as they are little for such a short time!

It's a game and she has got you trained! Our daughter would do that with anyone who would fall for it and it wasn't just food!

Here is what we did that we found to work. We would pick up the food and tell her no or her food would be taken away. We would give her 2 warnings and then take her plate from her. She did not like that and after a few minutes we would give her back her food. We went about it like this until we were done eating. If she wasn't, then we fed her (she is very indepentent and did not like being fed).

Since she also did this with toys, we would not pick up the toys for her. However, she tried this trick with anyone she could sucker in:)!

Good luck!

It's actually a learning milestone for her. She's not doing it to make you mad, she just is figuring out gravity and what happens when she drops things. She is also learning that mom will pick it up. :-)

This will pass, but in the meantime, try just giving her a little of her food at a time and leave the dropped bits on the floor. After her meal, teach her that it has to be cleaned up and have her help as much as possible (at 13 months, their motor skills range quite a bit). But give her a rag or wipe and have her follow along with you (or more if she can do it).

Don't sweat it. All kids do this at this age. Your little one is just learning. Cause and effect. She picks it up and drops it. She drops it and you pick it up. She is playing. She is normal. Just leave it all til she's done.

My daughter did the same thing around that age. She likes to see cause and effect. She drops the food, you pick it up. Well, she needs to learn another effect - her hand gets slapped.

I know it sounds like a mean thing to do to a little one, but it only took a couple hand slaps for my daughter to learn that it wasn't okay to do that, and it stopped. We focus on making meals enjoyable family time, and just explain to our kids from the time they join us at the table in their high chairs what is appropriate behavior and what isn't. We can even take the troops out to nice restaurants because they know what is expected at mealtime. It's a joy!

C.,
This is normal behavior and all children go through this.
It will go away in time (when the novelty wears off.
I used a drop cloth, made of rubber/plastic that I purchased at Babys R Us specifically for this issue.

Good luck!

C., are you kidding me? Every child goes through this at around your little one's age. It is a very normal part of a child's development. Kids at around a year old are starting to realize that they can manipulate and control their environments. For many kids, dropping things--food, toys, whatever--becomes a game. Please try to be patient and consider this behavior totally acceptable. Eventually, the novelty will wear off and she will move on to something else. I know that some of a young child's quirks can be frustrating. But remember, this is how kids learn, and repetition is a big part of that learning process. Since meal time is not really the time to play, it might be good idea to simply not pick up the food. I wouldn't take away her food unless she has had enough. Parents may claim to have the answer to this, but in the end, I bet she won't be doing this long, regardless of what you do. I do hope you can find some down time for yourself. It seems that you may need it, and you certainly deserve it! I wish you luck with both of your little ones. :)

PS: I hope to God that Amber's response is a sick joke.

My almost 2 1/2 year old is still interested in the physics of dumping, dropping, pouring and splashing anything and everything she can. At the table I find that she does it when she is done eatting or if she is lonely because I am doing things other than sitting with her. I have resorted to giving her "time out" right at the table, I turn the hight chair around so it faces away from everyone else and tell her why she is on "time out", tell her how to properly behave when she is done eatting, like setting the food she doesn't want back on the plate, moving the plate and utensils to an area on the tray and say that she is done.
Then I find other ways to let her enjoy the process of learning. We have a big dish pan that I put on a step stool and a towel under that and she has cups and bowls and a little bit of water so she can "do dishes". She wanted to go to the beach and throw rocks one day that it was raining and windy so we filled the tub and threw dominos into the water instead. I gave her a dish of uncooked rice to play with in cups and bowls and she dumps and pours like playing with sand. Our newest toy is cheerios on a ribbon. I tied a large knot on a thin ribbon and then use the other end to thread the cheerios through (I have a kind of small knot on the threading end that has a long tail going to wards the other end that helps to chatch the cheerios so they don't fall off, but I don't know how to explain it) this is both a toy and a snack, but she is still young to do the threading herself and gets frusterated but it is fun for her as a safe alternative for playing with beads.
Enjoy your babies! We just spent about 15 minutes laughing and saying "gulp"! She gave me a sip of juice and I said "gulp" she thought it was hillarious "mommy sit down. play gulp with me"
Oh yeah, the mats under the chair are great, but we just use a folded old sheet.

Sounds like it has become a game to her. I had a child that started doing that, I found that if I sat at the table with him next to me in his high chair he was less prone to try it. If he did start to do it I would take hold of his hand and tell him it was not alright to dropo food onto the floor. If he tried again I would then remove him from his chair & reinforce with words that the behavior was not ok and that food was not to be played with. it was for eating. If he didn't want it that was okay but not to drop it onto the floor. If he was still hungry then I would put him back into his chair, give him food and I would as long as he ate it. I gave him more but as soon as he started to drop it onto the floor I removed him again. He finally did figure out that I was not going to put up with him dropping his food onto the floor. Also, I never used the high chair for anything but eating. Just know that this stage will pass! My children are all grown & have their own darlings to teach. It does get better!
I hope this helps.

A little about me: Mother of 5 grown children & step-mom to 7. Grammie of 8. Stay at home taking care of my mother.

Stop picking it up. She's leading you into the game, and she is winning. If she throws it all on the floor, then she's done eating. Believe me, missing a few calories will not harm her in the long run. Winning a power struggle with you definitely will. Give her a healthy snack as a "fun" thing later -- not enough to interfere with her appetite for the next meal.
My favorite response is: "I'm sorry -- your food is on the floor. Bummer." Or: "If it goes down -- it stays down!" It's really true; the only way to win the game is to not play the game.

I have seen this LOTS of times-- your daughter is not unique.
This isn't a behavioral issue, if that helps. What's happening is normal toddler development. She's learning about cause and effect, so, look at it this way-- your daughter is actually "supposed" to be doing this for the good of her development! It's interesting to(and extremely commmon for) toddlers to drop food or cups, etc from their hands while eating. If you watch, she might even be looking to see what happens. Please keep in mind that, no matter how frustrating it can be, she isn't "misbehaving", and her intent isn't mischevious. With children this young, this isn't a discipline issue, as it might be for a considerably older child.

What you might try doing is not picking up the food. This will help her learn that when we drop things, they land on the floor and stay there.(As your pregnancy progresses, you will be glad that you aren't bending over repeatedly, and when baby comes, your toddler will need to keep her food on her plate because you will be too busy to play this game with her.) When you continue to pick it up, it becomes a game to her, a different sort of cause and affect. "I drop it and Mama picks it up and gives it to me again." To her toddler perspective, this scenario isn't any different than, say, rolling a ball back and forth. So do your part by not returning the food to her reach.

I personally don't encourage ending a mealtime for a very young child (up to 2 years) who is just learning to feed themselves. Toddlers are very clumsy; dropping food is sometimes a mistake, or a learning experience, and I don't believe in depriving children of food/ having them go hungry, because they aren't exhibiting "perfect" table manners. We often have some pretty unreasonable expectations of very young children. If a child is throwing food, however (and not putting any in their mouth), chances are that they are bored and then it is right to end mealtime and move on without much fuss.

If you are concerned about the cost of the food, just keep the floor relatively clean and, at clean up time, rinse off the discarded food to put away for later use. Also, I like to limit the amount of food on the plate/table/tray. Children do well with just a few pieces at a time, and they do enjoy some sensory exploration of their food. I hope this helps.

I learned that my kids started dropping things when they no longer wanted them. The first time she drops her food, the meal is over (unless you want to feed her yourself).

Well Im sorry to say it but you have turned it into a game. IF you reach down and pick it up as soon as she drops it, she sees it as a game. Assuming you dont have dogs, I would just ignore it. Once she realizes your not going to play the game she should stop. When she gets done eating clean it up, but not while shes sitting there eating because she'll see it as your playing with her.

Very simply, it's a fun game to her. She drops it, mommy picks it up.
Don't pick it up. When she purposefully drops it say "If you drop your food on the floor Mommy might have to put your food away for now."
If (when she drops it againg) "One more time and Mommy will take the food"
When it happens again (and we all know it will, she's just a baby!) say "Ok, I guess you're done for now!" Take the food and clean her up and take her from the table.
Now it's not saying you can't put her back to the table in 5 minutes and feed her more, it's just putting the point across that you are not appreciating the fact that she is throwing food down from the table.
Good Luck!

I was taught in my Early Childhood Education classes that the main reason for this is that the child has learned to pick up an object and then release it. Toddlers are also fascinated by cause and effect, so they may do things that can be completely frustrating for the parent, and then do them over and over. If you think of this as a developmental requirement, it can help. She will do this as long as she needs to, then she will move on. This doesn't mean that you are obligated to allow this, however. Maybe you can find some other situations that would allow her to work on that same skill. Do you have a sandbox? Does she have items that she can move back and forth? I have taught toddlers for years, and that is just what they do. They spent hours moving things from one area to another, dumping and pouring, refilling, then repeating. They love containers with objects to put in and take out. I hope this helps! I remember how frustrating it was when my daughters did it, too. God bless you and your little one(s)! :)

When she drops the food tell her food goes in your mouth or on the table, if it goes on the floor, it means you are all done. Then when she drops the food again, take the food away, wash her up and get her down. Tell her she is all done. I worked for over a year as a lead toddler teacher of 12 - 20 month olds. They had their own little table that they ate at, no strapping them into high chairs. It was amazing how quickly they understood that if they got up, their food went bye bye, whether they were actually finished or not.

Hello C.,
A suggestion that I have is for you to have her pick up the food when she drops it rather than you. Another idea is to take her down from her highchair. Let her know that mealtime is over when she starts to drop or throw food.
Good luck!
J.

Tell her to stop dropping her food on the floor - it doesn't belong on the floor. Then if she does it again, tell her she has one more chance - don't drop food onto floor, then mommy will take food away and your done. Then she continues, then take food away and tell her she's done. No more food. It's not a game.

Be firm, consistant and follow through. Same thing everytime. One of these days maybe even the next time or two that you feed her - she will get the message. She may not be able to communicate to you in our language, but she understands and will respond. Just remember to be consistant and always follow through.

C.

What your child is doing is totally normal! Just like a couple of other people said, the child is just learning cause and effect. It is a phase and it will end. I don't believe someone needs to slap the childs hand.....but a simple no and to take the food away for a minute or 2.....to show when you drop your food...mealtime is over....but don't let your child stay hungry...LOL Just a few times of that and your child will learn......just remember they are learning and they think it's a fun game to play. Let them have some fun but then correct it and teach them. :)

Hi Crysal,
This may not be anything, but we have a family story about my mom:
She was dropping anything and everything off her highchair tray, and my grandparents were getting rather frustrated. So my grandpa watched for a little while and realized she was 1) getting a kick out of hearing the things land, and 2)confirming to herself that things will always fall down. He couldn't do much about the need to confirm gravity, but he could take the fun out of it... He handed her a napkin, which after the initial surprise (repeated several times) got boring. And the behavior stopped. The process took some repetition, but it worked.
I don't know if it will help but, good luck.
L.

C.,

This soooooo!!!! sounds like my 14 month old daughter. She's been throwing her food on the floor since she was old enough to feed herself. It was her way of telling us that she was all done eating. Talk about the messes all over the floor though.

The past few weeks we've been trying to teach her the sign for all done, and that is helping to keep the food on her tray and not all over the floor. When all the food was off her tray and on the floor, we'd take all the food away and get her down. Telling/signing all done.

Hold your hands up about chest level and oscillate them like what the washing machine does on a wash cycle. It's an average speed movement. Babies tend to modify it into just moving their hands back and forth across their fronts, but it gives them another tool to communicate.

Hope this helps,
Melissa

Hi C. :)

Lots of good responses here, and I think it's important to remember to parent in a way that you feel is comfortable and appropriate for you AND your child. What seems to work well for me and my daughter (18 mos) in most situations is "positive-reinforcement." We try our best to give her praise when she does good (keeping food on her tray), and try to refrain from negative reactions (like when she thinks her corn needs to be stirred sooo fast that it all flys out of the bowl), when she does something wrong. Now that my daughter is understanding more, I find that saying something like, "Keep the milk in your cup," instead of "don't pour it out" or something similar, works pretty often... I can see the wheels turning in her little head--- don't do what? You mean this? Oh look, Mom, there's milk on the floor!!!

What I personally like most about positive-reinforcement, is that there is no "bad girl!" (although we will say that something is bad--- "hitting is bad, hitting hurts"), and that if she is doing something repeatedly to try to get mommy to do/say that again, it helps to keep my frustrations at a minimum because instead of focusing on how nothing I'm doing is "working," I'm trying to focus on keeping my "poker face" on.

Ultimately you gotta do what feels right for you, but just remember that being a mom will be a messy job from time to time (well any time there's food around really) and that your baby is thrilled to learn about what happens when she does this-or-that. And will it happen again??? Having two young ones will be even messier- BUUUT- they will grow up very soon, and one day it won't be such an issue- you might even get them to clean up after themselves one day!

EDIT----

Donna L's response is great--- we did this with our daughter too, when she was younger, and it worked well.

End the meal. I know it sounds harsh, but if she drops/throws it and you pick it up, it is a game for her and WILL CONTINUE. I would just say "food stays on the table" and then take it away the 2nd time she does it. She will eat more later/snack time. I found that kids just do this. This approach prob wont 'stop' this behavior, but it may reduce it a bit!

Dropping food has become a game to her. she drops it you pick it up she is getting a response and she will feed on that so when she does something like that ignore her dont even look at her or give her any clue that you know what she did it will become less appealing to her once she knows you wont respond. All babies go through this well at least I know my two did.

Hey C.,
I can empathise. Both my kids did this, and, as someone else suggested, they do this for a couple of reasons: because they can, and, mostly for control. Even at this young of an age, kids are looking for limits. The only way to stop it (and this must be 100% consistent between you and your husband) is: when she drops the food, say, "Oops! Remember, (insert name or term of endearment), we keep our food on the (plate, tray, etc.). When you are done, either leave it on the plate or give it to (mommy/daddy)." Then, when she remembers to give it to you, or leave it on the plate, make a BIG deal about what a good job she did remembering to give it to you, leave it, etc. Find any small/short time she does this and praise, praise, praise. In the meantime, when she doesn't remember (and she won't, most of the time, at first), allow one drop, picking it up and saying (again, consistency is key, here) something similar to my suggestion above. If she drops it, again, then, without getting mad or annoyed, just pick it up and say, "Okay! I guess you're done with this!" Then distract her with playing....get her out of the seat and move on to something else. Keep it positive. She will not like you doing this, at first, but, ultimately, she will get the message. DON'T GIVE IN, though! This could take several weeks' worth of consistency! It's worth the effort and dealing with her disappointment. If you can distract her with play, this really helps. Oh, and, don't worry if she doesn't eat as much during this time; it's all part of the process. At some point, (could take up to 21 days) they get the message. =0) (This tactic works well for the tipping the sippy cup over, too....).
This was a bit long, but, hopefully, it helps. =0)
Feel free to ask further questions, if needed. Just remember, they want attention, they'll take whatever attention they can get, so it might as well be positive, as much as we can!
L. =0)

Hi C.,
My daughter had the same problem at about the same age. Oh it would make me mad, bc she would look at me while she did it, even though she knew she wasn't supposed to! I did a couple of things: I provided a space that she could reach (in this case, an unused cup holder on her tray) where she could put food if she didn't want to eat it. We had to practice for a while (she put out her arm to drop food, and I would grab it and hold it over the cup holder, and say, If you don't want it, put it here.) Over and over. A couple of times, we actually had to end dinner early "If you drop anything else on the floor, then it's the end of dinner." (I figured that if she didn't want to eat it, she probably wasn't that hungry.) And last, I made it a habit never to pick up anything from the floor until after she was done with dinner. "Oh, you dropped your spoon. Now you'll have to eat with your fingers." "Oh, you dropped your banana. Now it's all gone." If it was truly an accident about the spoon, she could have that back. Once. But it took maybe 1-2 months before she really consistently kept her food on her tray.

Very annoying habit, though! I'm quite glad that she's over that one (MOSTLY!!!) :)

Jennifer

At least you can be assured that shes normal.

I am not sure there is an answer to this age old problem. Kids always do these things. It how they learn and grow. She won't always do this. She is just finding out how things work and what happens if she does this or that. My son is still doing this. He eats a bit of food and then tips over the little bowl it was in.. It is always something to clean up. He is 20 months and keeps me busy. Good luck mama

Some suggestions that worked for us:

-- One Step Up has an art mat (it's clear plastic with a felt border -- you could also use a plastic tablecloth?) that I received as a shower gift and it just always remained under my daughter's chair unless company was coming over. You can pick up any food that gets dropped, and just hose that sucker off (or wash it with a wet cloth) when the mat gets really messy.
-- I repeatedly would tell my daughter, "Oh, no, baby: Food does not go on the floor." If it was something that could be picked back up and put on her tray (since it was falling on the art mat), I would do it.
-- Our yellow labrador Amiga -- want to borrow her? :) Seriously, I have a family member with twin girls who often says she wishes she had a dog to pick up after her little ones!

My son did that.

Stop picking it up.

They love the gravity discovery. It's just helping them figure out the boundary between play time and eating time. Give her big bouncy balls to drop from the couch...

hello ,
i have a 1 yr old and she often does the same thing of course we have a dog standing by just waiting for her to drop him a treat. I do notice she drops food when she is losing intrest in eating and more with playing however this is also a big sensory stage they like to feel and smoosh.... it is hard because yu want them to eat but on the other hand have eating time be a fun exploration time so what i do when she stars with the droping game is i take the food off her tray and give her 1 piece at a time or even give her the bite myself to see if she is still wanting to eat. good luck no one said life with kids was clean:).

If it were me, I would tell her "If you do it again, that tells me you're not interested in eating and your meal will be over." Then you have to follow through. Don't worry about her not understanding, she will. Don't worry about her going hungry, she won't.
Nip it in the bud now. Good luck, C.

Hey, she just had involved you in a new game and looks like she has fun. Just stop taking part of the game and wait for the results - no fun, no game. Meanwhile buy few plastic tablecloths from a dollar store and put them on the floor under her chair. Or get a dog, that way the floor will stay clean ;-). Good luck!

My toddler did that too for a while, but now seems to be over it. I just ignored it, no reaction at all. Sometimes I took it as a sign that he was done eating. After I got him out of his high chair, we would pick up the dropped food together and drop it into the trash can. Now, he does this clean up on his own after meals, if anything happened to land on the floor.

Kids are FASCINATED with gravity. Our preschool teacher said that it's important to give them lots of outlets for dropping/throwing. E.g., rocks into puddles, rocks into lakes, pennies into fountains, slinky down the steps, shoes down the steps, wadded up paper into a laundry basket... whatever you can think of. We did that kind of stuff every day for a couple months. Now, like I said, he seems to be past that phase and is even reliably using a plate on his high chair tray without any interest in tipping it over.

Good luck