High Chair Boot Camp

Because yeah… boot camp is hard….. or so I hear. Really, I'm told it sucks, um grass minus the g and the r. (See? I'm doing really well with this not cussing thing.)

As I complain about constantly, the girls throw so much food on the floor at meal times. I think it's just become a habit. They even throw food they like, just to watch it fall to the floor. Especially Sophia! She likes to make sure I'm watching before tossing her cheerios or whatever she is eating. Then she laughs at me when I tell her not to do it. It's awesome! Morgan likes to pretend she's going to take a bite and then she tosses it over her shoulder and doesn't look back. She's even got this arm thing going on where her head will be facing toward me and I see her little arm just fly up into the air to the side…. then there goes her cracker, or egg, or whatever she doesn't want. She does it with such grace and style too! She's going to be a dancer for sure!

Then there is Rachel. She pretty much only throws food she isn't going to eat. If it's something she likes, it usually stays on her tray until it enters her mouth. However, we all know she is the picky eater anyway. Did you hear she's also a food therapy drop out? That's right! She refuses to go. Haha… okay kidding, I have decided to ditch her therapist. Frankly, I don't like the woman and she's completely not understanding of the fact that I have more than one toddler to feed. I'm not convinced anymore that Rachel has issues that I can't fix myself. I think she's just picky.

Okay, so back to my point. The food war continues. They're still winning, but I think I'm gaining some ground. This past Saturday, Bob and I implemented "High chair bootcamp."

Dum, da, da, daaaaaaaa.............

What is high char bootcamp? Well, it's a made up name for us to get the girls to stop throwing their food. My friend, and fellow triplet mom, has been coaching me on what to do. If one of the girls throws any piece of food off of their tray, we take them out of the high chair and put them in the "pack in play" play pen on time out for one minute. We tell them they are on time out because they threw their food on the floor. After their minute is up, we put them back in their high chair and we say we're going to try again. We say, "eat your food, do not throw it on the floor." (Cheerfully, of couse.) If they throw something on the floor again, we take them back out of their chair. Yeah….it's made for some very long meals around here, but they are starting to get the point.

We started on Saturday morning, and much to my surprise, not one of them threw food during breakfast. It was a first. I started to wonder if they heard us talking about our master plan the day before. hahahaha….. At dinner time that night, Sophia was taken out of her chair 3 times. When put back in her chair after her third time out, she didn't throw a single thing for the rest of the meal. We've also given them less pieces of food to lower the temptation and break the habit. Morgan has been put on time out a few times too. We decided that we're not doing this with Rachel yet. She's still not eating many finger foods anyway so she really doesn't throw that much at all. We'll work on her later if it is a problem. Anyway, today was the third day and I'm happy to say that our floor is much cleaner. They still forget and toss some over the side, but then I can tell they know they've done it! They look at me like… "Okay mom, take me out of my chair." Sophia has also caught herself pre-throw and then stopped herself from doing it. She's utilizing the cup holder in the tray now. If she doesn't want something, instead of tossing it over the side of the tray and onto the floor, she's just putting it in the cup holder area. It's fine with me! Less for me to sweep and she's really learning her lesson.

I'm not expecting things to be perfect, but WOW…what a difference a few days makes. We're going to keep doing this until we can sit down and eat like civilized toddlers. (Do civilized toddlers really exist? HA) Seriously though. I've been avoiding play dates recently because the girls' food throwing had gotten so out of control. I just didn't have the energy to deal with it. Now that we've started boot camp, there's no turning back now! We're going to see this through!

My next goal is to get rid of the high chairs and put them at the table using their booster seats. I'm not going to do that until the food throwing stops! Hopefully, it stops soon. I want my kitchen space back!

We're on our way for sure!