My toddler is learning to feed by herself, and is at the stage where a fit of crankiness can cause her dinner plate be upturned or to go flying across the room.

One solution seems to be to fit a gyroscope stabiliser to the bottom of the plate. By doing this it will be difficult to to flip the plate with a sudden movement. If it flies off the table, it will land face up.

The gyroscope assembly could be integrated in with the plate, but perhaps removable for plate cleaning.

A retrofit version for conventional plates could also be deployed.

As the child gets older the thing could be used as a gyroscope teaching aid.
-- tonywells, Jun 28 2003

Gerber Training Plate... http://www.drugstor...le_training_rim.htm
"...with Suction Cup Base and Detachable Training Rim." Popup warning. [phoenix, Oct 04 2004]

A gyroscope might keep a spinning plate balanced, but if someone's sending a plate of food across the room, there's still going to be a mess to clean up.
-- snarfyguy, Jun 28 2003


Plates designed for children have a rim to help prevent food flying off the plate. The younger the child the higher the rim. These are the plates I had in mind.

There are some suction-addons for some plates which work ok for a for a few minutes, but from then on, they just add mass when the plate goes flying.
-- tonywells, Jun 28 2003


If her fits of crankiness have no result, your toddler will either learn that she has no effect on the world, or that being cranky doesn't matter, neither goal being one I imagine you desire.
-- DrCurry, Jun 28 2003


Well, [DrCurry], I'm not sure if you are a parent. Fits of crankiness near food always have a result. In the issue under discussion, there is a generally a flurry of activity involving a trash can and cleaning fluid.
-- tonywells, Jun 29 2003


You throw your daughter in the trash?!
-- Shz, Jun 29 2003


Hey, don't knock it. It worked for me...
-- RayfordSteele, Jun 29 2003


Why didn't I think of Suction cups? That's Brilliant (maybe why). Food catching chairs that also have a shower attachment would be nice too.
[DrCurry], I thought that an acceptable approach is to ignore some not-prefered behavior, while celebrating & rewarding prefered behavior. This seems to work pretty well If you can grit your teeth and bear it for a while (poor carpet).
-- Zimmy, Jun 29 2003



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