Toddler dinner strategy question

[cricketwife]

DS is a fantastic eater in general. But dinner is usually his smallest meal.  Lately, he doesn't even eat his dinner at all and just throws it everywhere. I don't care if he doesn't eat.  I'm even really good at just saying sweetly, "oh? You don't want any? Ok. Wel'll get down."  I don't get outwardly upset or anything. I offer food and I'm not going to make it a battle. However, when oatmeal is slung all over the dang living room/dining room, it's annoying.  And Inwardly I'm super annoyed. It is just such a mess to clean for nought. Would it be do bad if we just skipped dinner for a week or so? He drinks milk in the evenings. I just do tired of cleaning it all up. Is there a better way to handle this? 

[Deleted]

It is really really normal for kids to eat their biggest meals of the day at breakfast and lunch and not dinner. My pedi said once adults would be much healthier if they'd do it too.

As for dinner, when my kids where in that one-ish age there was sometimes I didn't really feed them if I knew they were too tired/not into it/running late. I tried not make it a habit because I want meal time to be important.

I just fed my kids non messy stuff that wasn't hard to clean up. Here have some peas. Have a cheesestick. Plain noodles. Strawberries. You get the idea.

[catbus]

We would say, "We don't throw food," repeatedly, and would remove the food after a bit if he kept throwing it and wasn't eating it. But it was important to me to continue offering.

At almost 2.5, there are still nights--probably 1/3 of the time--when the kid is just not hungry. And that's normal.

[cricketwife]

Yeah, I'm totally fine with him not being hungry. It's the throwing good that's making me nuts.

[darnkatz]

It is completely normal for dinner to be the smallest meal of the day. It should be for all of us, but alas.

If my toddler starts throwing food, I take it away immediately and meal time is finished. I also explain when I put food on the tray that we don't throw and to just say all done (I also showed her hands up in the air for all done when she couldn't talk) if she doesn't want it. That has helped a lot.