not sure if this goes here or in the discipline section... so feel free to move
my ds (15 mos) keeps dropping food off his tray. i know this is nothing new to the toddlerworld, and that it's developmentally important for him to check these things out.
i just have a question as to how to handle this. i read in "just two more bites" that we should take his food away when he throws it, to be calm and not make a scene, and to just matter of factly say "bye bye food"
my question is, if i offer him three or four different things and he just throws one cause he doesn't want it, should i just take IT, or ALL of the food. i don't want him to go hungry. i wouldn't care so much if it happened at breakfast or lunch cause i can follow with a snack later, but dinner... we eat at 6, and bath and bed is between 7 and 7:30, so not much time for a snack there. i also don't want him to think "o mommy will just feed me a snack later"
sort of the same thing with his drink. if i give him a drink in his chair, he'll just drop it and then make a game of it. so we've been letting him have it out of his chair, at which point he'll walk and drink at the same time, and will eventually shake it, which annnoys me to no end as i haven't found a truly spillproof cup yet. we take it when he's shaking it, but how can i get him to sit down and drink? if i make him sit, he'll just rather not drink, and that always worries me.
any thoughts anybody? i'm sure there are lots of tots out there that do/did the same thing, so i'd love to hear some ideas on how to handle this.