Are you using the baby led weaning approach to feeding your baby? Or do you have a toddler who has taken up food throwing as his favorite activity? Cleaning up a huge mess after each and every meal gets tiresome. Today I’m sharing 5 ways to minimize mealtime mess with your little one in hopes your meals can be a bit more enjoyable for you and your baby.

5. Ditch the plates and bowl. 

Serve food directly on the tray or use a Happy Mat (they suction to the table, how cool is that?!). Baby can make a much bigger mess if she can pick up a whole bowl of food and toss it!

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4. (Un)Dress baby for meal time.  

This one will save your baby’s wardrobe! Take the time before meals to undress your little one down to her diaper. You can still use a bib if you want, but you can’t stain their clothes if they’re not wearing any! If it’s winter time and diaper-only dining isn’t an option because of the cold, try a Full-Coverage Bib instead.

3. Don’t linger at the table. 

If baby/toddler stops eating and starts throwing, meal time is over.  Clean up and take baby to go do another activity. This will also reinforce the fact that your little one won’t get a reaction when he throws food, and might help curb that behavior.

2. Save clean-up for the end of the meal & use a Splat Mat!

Picking up every piece of food as it hits the floor can get very frustrating. It also tells your baby that if they throw something you will pick it up, which can quickly turn into a game! So, stop spending all of meal time under the table and clean up once instead.

Using a Splat Mat will make that one-time cleanup even easier! Simply place it under the high chair and when your little one is done eating, roll it up and dump all those pieces of food away. This also prevents things that “splat” from staining or damaging your floors which is super handy if you have hardwoods in the kitchen like me!

1. Give one piece of food at a time. 

Babies can become overwhelmed if there is too much in front of them. This can lead to lots of food throwing and not very much eating. Or it might just mean a fussy baby who winds up not eating very much. Spend meal time at the table with your little one and offer him one thing at a time. It’s a bit time consuming, but I promise it will minimize the mess!

Have you found any strategies that work for minimizing the meal time mess? Let me know in the comments below!