to set a time limit on dinner?

[familyfun]

dd1 is a good eater in that she doesnt refuse many foods except onion but she is very slow, mainly because she talks too much, messes with things, always has a toilet trip and takes her time, whines for help, rocks her chair, taps the table, sings etc.
she is 5.
dd2 is a good eater, gets on with it, eats quickly and then wants pudding mainly yoghurtor fruit but sometimes chocolate), she is 19 months.

aibu, if dinner is at 5.15, to say that dinnertime ends at 6 and if you havent finished or had time for pudding then its too late.

last night dd2 had ate her dinner and pudding within half an hour, dd1 was still eating dinner at 5.50 so i said she had 10 mins left, she hurried her dinner and ate a bit of pudding.

dp thinks i shouldnt give dd2 pudding if dd1 isnt having it but why should dd2 wait when shes ate her dinner. not sure whether i should limit dd1s time. she is a slow eater but if she just stopped talking/singing/messing about she would finish quicker.

genuinely not sure if aibu?

If she's a slow eater, she's a slow eater. And anyway, eating slowly is good for the digestion. Meal times should be a social occasion for the family to take time over and discuss events of the day etc. Why rush her? Do you need to do something at 6?

45 minutes seems like a very reasonable amount of time to finish dinner. It's nice to sit and chat but messing and whining and dawdling is just boring. YANBU.

My dd2 is quite slow (well takes about 30 mins) while the other 2 (dd1 and 3) finish quite quick. But i wont serve dessert until the three have finished as if dd2 see's pudding she wont finish her food. Can you maybe set a timer so that when it pings she has 5 more minutes to finish or its too late? Then its giving her a warning (i'm assuming she can't tell the time?)

Forgot to mention, when they are playing out with the little girl down the road, i will shout them in for dinner, then 5 mins later she is knocking to see if they are done, then 5 more mins then another 5...does my head in, she must wolf her food down.

I seriously considered this with DD. A friend brought me to my senses and made me realise this was a little bit odd. So although I know why it may seem like a good idea it is a bit extreme and there are other ways of achieving the same goal. So yes, YABU.

she knows 6 oclock and i warned her she had 10 mins to go thats why she rushed.
they have their bath at 6.30 so id like dinner to have gone down a bit iykwim.
if she was eating slowly and chatting id have more patience, its the loud singing, rocking the chair, kicking, tapping the table, spinning the knife and her famous trick of tapping her head so dd2 copies covering herself with dinner, that bothers me.

I was a painfully slow eater as a child but I think it's a good thing.

Not sure about the 'pudding' because I don't think they're necessary anyway.

We only have them at Christmas, Easter or if we have guests to dinner.

Meant to say though, she needs to learn table manners and stop the rocking/singing/tapping etc.

Perhaps that'll speed her up too.

Please dont do this meal times are meant to be enjoyed and relaxing I am sometimes a slow eater I would have a fit if somebody took my plate from me , as long as the kids are happy eating dont rush them, we dont have pudding every night infact it is rare in this house to have pudding ,

mostly pudding is fruit/yoghurt and they dont have to cleat their plate to eat it, just have to say they have finished dinner.
im quite a slow eater but 45 mins is plenty surely.
im fed up of nagging her, stop singing, stop rocking, stop tapping etc so thought if i told her the time limit then left her to it she might learn that messing about meant she missed her yoghurt so might get on with it in future.
if im bu then i wont do it.
dp thinks dd2 shouldnt get pudding till dd1 does, but this would mean taking dd2 from table then putting her back later for yoghurt which seems strange but maybe fairer.

I take it she doesn't she mind that her food has gone a bit cold?

id like us to sit and chat, as it is dd1 chats endlessly, occasionally interupted by us telling her to stop messing and eat.

It isn't so much slow eating as time wasting. Is she not hungry perhaps?

I don't think a time limit is a bad thing. 45 minutes is a very long time for a child to be sat at the table, especially a fidgetty one. I know eating slowly is a good thing but there is slow and there is slow. Nobody would be in any way rushing if they had that long to eat their food. Maybe if she doesn't get to eat her dinner a few times she might realise that slow eating is one thing but time wasting is quite another and you can't be expected to put up with it. It is a question of table manners and you have to ask yourself if you were in a restaurant or out having dinner somewhere, would this behaviour be acceptable. Clearly it wouldn't.

FWIW, I don't think you can expect a 15mth old to be waiting at the table that long and why should she be doing without her pudding? I would have given it to her too.

Table manners and a slow eater are totally different things.

One is ok and the other unacceptable.

If one of mine was doing what you say your dd was then dinner would be in the bin. I can't stand messing around or bad table manners do its a definate discipline issue with me.

Slow eating is fine, accompanied by gentle chat, lovely.

We don't have puddings either except at christmas, just added sugar, fruit to go for us or nothing.

sugarice, she tends to go to the toilet and take upto 10 mins then mess about and then leave most of it, she doesnt eat a big quantity, never has, probably less that little sister.
i think she purposefully takes ages so dp helps her by spoon feeding or says leave it then.

Hi OP, I give my DD1 (4) a cut off time of 6pm (food goes on table at 5). She's not a 'slow eater' per se, more an 'inveterate faffer'. Its bloody annoying, which I generally manage to hide. We do puddings in this house in order to get 5 a day/enough milk into diet and I give DD2 (8 mos) her's when she is ready, not when DD1 is ready, otherwise it starts looking like a treat, reward or bribe, instead of a simple second course. Five sounds plenty old enough to get an idea that just as there is a set time for school, etc, there is a set time for meals beginning and end, and 45 minutes sounds fine to me.

If it is her messing about that is causing the slow eating then yes limit time on dinner dont wait for her to finish carry on with the babies dinner and afters she will soon learn to catch up

in restaurants she sits lovely and eats fine, she knows how to behave, she has lunch at school every day and has always been good.
its time wasting rather than just slow eating yes.
she says she is hungry but doesnt seem that bothered when food comes even though she likes it.

Feel your pain. DS wolfs food down so fast, I can't believe he has chewed it & DD fidgets, picks up grains of rice at a time & is so slow, I can feel my bum going numb!!!!

I spend meal times trying to slow DS down & get him to chew properly & chivying DD along. I do allow DS to have his pudding even though DD hasn't finished & I will allow him to get down after half an hour, even if DD hasn't finished. I find if I allow DD to take her time then she usually finishes or eats a sufficient amount. If I rush her too much, she just says she is too full & doesn't eat enough (she is like a tiny sparrow anyway).

So, not great tips - but hope that helps. (Mine are 12 & 10 btw and have always been like this!)

DS2 was the same - messing about, singing, desperately needing the toilet, chatting endlessly.

We eventually did the timing thing 'cos it was getting beyond a joke. He would also then say he wasn't going to eat any more as it was cold. Now I am a very slow eater, and am usually last, but I'd have finished and 15 mins later he would still be messing.

We set a time limit of he had to finish with 10 minutes of me, and I would remind him - 10 minutes to go, come on get eating, only 5 minutes to go, etc. This worked well for him. he also has to eat all his vegetables before he can have his afters (usually fruit and a yogurt).

He is now 10 is is a great eater.

I think sometimes they get into bad habits and it's easier to nip in in the bud, than to let it drag on (for what seems like forever).

i think she sees dinner time as her time to get us as a captive audience and performs,
last night she had done sports day and then an hr gym class till 4.45 so should have been hungry.

could you give her a smaller portion One of mine was such a fussy eater that in the end I just left her to it she did eventually eat without a fuss took me a while to realise

Slightly off topic but is pudding really that bad?? We always give something (yogurt, fruit, jelly, sometimes a treat like chocolate), I don't really see why the kids shouldn't get something sweet to round off a meal. They are both extremely active and certainly not fat.

she has the same portion as dd2 and dd2 finishes first and normally eats more.

All I can think of to speed things up is to work on the 'at home' table manners and cut out the pudding.

Fruit can be eaten any time surely?