Throwing food dilemma

[phirey]

Our pediatrician explained that the reason you limit milk intake to about 24 ounces a day is because toddlers need to learn that lifetime nutrition comes from FOOD, not a breast or bottle. Made sense to me, but it presents me with a problem:

From everyone's helpful posts, I've already gathered that Margot's throwing food habit is normal. She feeds way more to the dog than to herself. We're teaching her the sign for "all done" but she rarely does it on her own -- and not always at what seems to be the right moment (for example, if she signs "all done" and I take away the tray, about 1/10 of the time she grabs for the tray, trying to get it back).

So anyway, my problem is, if I take away the food, does she still get her bedtime bottle? It seems to me that she may be rejecting dinner food knowing full well a nice warm bottle is coming up. DD is an early bedtime girl -- she's ready for sleep no later than 7 or 7:30. That means lengthening the interval between dinner and bedtime is not really an option -- our schedules generally won't allow for us to feed her before 6:30.

So what to you ladies all do when your toddler is throwing food? Do you take it away but still follow with bottle/breast?

Thanks for your help...

[Momof3Labs]

We take away the tray for a few minutes, but if we suspect that Colin isn't finished, we do give it back. Actually, we rarely have to do it anymore - after a few days of doing this, his food throwing diminished tremendously, much to our dogs' disappointment.

If you choose to not give her the tray back, I'd definitely still give her the bottle - IMO, that's too much consequence for a one year old mind to process.

[lisams]

My DD is the same age as yours, and we have the same dilema. She will throw food after just 4-6 bites of dinner. I then take away the tray. I still breastfeed her before she goes to bed though. I know that if I didn't nurse her, she would be up within an hour hungry. This is just my opinion, but I don't think a one year old is capable of thinking that far ahead and planning to save room for the bottle. It just seems to me that my DD lives in the "here and now" and that at dinnertime she just isn't as interested in eating. I have noticed that if we have dinner a little later (6:30 instead of 6) she seems more eager and serious about eating. Sorry I don't have much advice for you, as we too are going through this!!

Lisa