To ask if your 4 year old feeds themself?

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My DD, recently turned 4, is the world's slowest eater.

We ask her to feed herself entirely. She is just so slow and it drives me up the wall. Is it normal for a 4 year old to feed themself the whole time or should we loosen up a little and feed her when she asks a bit more? I do feed her a bit sometimes actually, and she does eat a lot quicker. But left to her own devises she just puts one forkful in, drops all cutlery, plays with her hair / clothes / nose etc and takes about 10 mins and a bunch of requests to pick cutlery up and continue eating.

It leads to lots of upset at meal times as DP or I end up barking at her to pick up cutlery and get the next mouthful ready, then put it in without it all falling off, then actually chew.

She's got no SEN, is slightly podgy but weight fine generally. She's a pretty good eater in that she'll tey most things and eats a good range. And we never want her to finish her plate - it is the speed which is the problem from the first mouthful, this is not about getting her to eat too much.

The only thing she will eat quickly is pudding...

Am I expecting too much? If everyone thinks so that will be really helpful in persuading me to chill out.

If I'm not expecting too much then any tips in getting her to focus at a meal time? We've always eaten meals together, so she watches me and DP eating every day, modelling some great fast eating for her!

She'll easily take 30 mins or more to eat a smallish plate of food

Definitely stop feeding her. If she’s ‘podgy’ as you put it she’s not going hungry so no need to worry. My kids have always been very food motivated and fed them selves from 12 months and still eat fast. I sometimes wish they’d slow down and enjoy it so every DC is different. I can understand if you need to be somewhere but otherwise leave her to it. Go and do the washing up or something, she’ll probably speed up when she hasn’t got a captive audience.

Have you tried setting a timer? You can get visual timers on apps e.g. for iPad. Set the timer for the same amount of time every evening, explain to her that when it's finished it's bedtime, and let her get on with it without any pressure from you at all. I mean you might need to remind/re-explain a few times till she thoroughly understands, but in a calm positive way, not a hurrying one.

I hesitated before doing this with my DD as "timing" meals felt a bit wrong, but it's made a huge improvement to our morning school run!

Oh and I wouldn't stay at the table, I would busy myself in the room. Eating all together is great but not necessary 100% of the time.

Could she have a nap at nursery so she can stay up an hour later?
My 17mo has been completely feeding himself for a month now, won't even let me feed Nina yoghurt. Yes it's messy and takes ages but I don't think its something that should be rushed or discouraged.
Do you tell her she must clear her plate or do you let her decide when she's had enough?

Nina = him a

I could have written your OP, except that with us a meal can easily take two hours. Mine will happily just do without food for days though, and I tend to crack and feed her a bit when i feel she's not eaten enough. I know we need to sort this before starting school in September, so will be reading this with much interest!

My always son ate his evening meal so. so. so. slowly until he was 12 years old. He took forever. We'd eat, chat a while, get up, clear the table, do the washing up, etc while he finished eating. It was really annoying (especially for his sisters who were doing the washing up).

Then he hit the 12 year old growth spurt and now he wolfs down his food faster than anyone else.

Perhaps she is full after nursery? They do often eat a substantial meal in the afternoon, so all you are doing is shovelling in surplus food she doesn't need or want? See how much she eats if you leave her to her own devices.

30 mins to eat a meal isn’t slow. If anything you might be eating too fast. Let her eat at her own pace.

My DD was the school's slowest eater in YR and is pretty slow still at 11!

Don't let it turn into a stress thing as she'll realise it could be a power thing. Give her 15/20 mins then a 5 min warning, 2 min warning, clear away. Not in a telling off, just neutrally. And I agree with PPs, don't watch her, potter about. One of mine ate better alone as a toddler so I would pop in and out.

Feeding her earlier is a good idea.

Give her half the amount and stop the pudding

I'd say this is good advice, especially if you're saying she's a wee bit podgy.

My three year old stepson completely feeds himself. And I wouldn't worry about her being a slow eater. I'm in my twenties and am always the last one left eating at the dinner table.

Thanks for all these ideas.

A few answers : we never ask her to finish her plate. We'll say she needs to eat about half the veg, then as much eg meat and carb as she wants. If she only eats one single chip we'll ask her to eat two more, but these are the quantities we're talking about!

We only give her pudding at the weekend. Sometimes she'll ask for fruit or plain yog after dinner, and we'll sometimes agree but more often than not say no. So maybe 3 puddings a week?

The amount of food isn't the problem, the meal sizes are pretty small. She's podgy from being a gigantic EBF baby- was off the chart. She loved her boob milk! And she's been slowly slimming down but is not quite there yet. She's also more of a booky child than a running about one so doesn't burn as many calories as I'd like. We're working on ways to improve this, but as I don't drive and we get out every day she does quite a bit of Walking so I assume that'll sort itself out when the time is right. She's just got really into her scooter which helps too.

Thanks for all the ideas, but mainly for the message that this is normal. I see her cousin and a couple of friends who wolf down huge dinners in seconds so maybe I've been comparing her unfairly.

I'll leave her to eat slowly with a gentle time reminder at 5 and 2 mins, and see how we get on

Fret not, 30mins is nothing! I was an awful eater and so is my eldest. Not picky, but had no impulse to chew and swallow. Easily used to take an hour to get her to eat a decent sized meal. I grew out of it aged 15, she thankfully is mostly out of it now aged 7. I just never got hungry (God how I wish that was true now!). It wound me up when HVs used to always trot out the mantra 'a healthy child will never starve themselves'. There is a vast difference between eating enough to keep breathing and eating enough to thrive and develop physically and mentally. Mine would happily go for days eating literally 3 mouthfuls, she was cranky, didn't sleep, she was losing weight, it was all a vicious cycle, so I ignored the HVs and fed her. Worked for us. Helps that I remember being the same. I hope you find a happy solution that works for you.

DD1 is just 4 and I haven’t fed her since before she was 2. DD2 is 2.5 and I have literally never fed her! She’d never let me. Mealtimes do take a while though, and can be frustrating. DD1 in particular just loses focus and will faff around for 10 mins without anything going in her mouth.
However mine eat at 5 (I’m a SAHM) so it doesn’t really matter if it takes a while.

Oh and DD2 is podgy, despite eating healthily and being very active (she hasn’t been in a pushchair since she was 15 months and we walk everywhere). She was EBF and put on 1lb a week for her first 6 weeks! 98th centile. She’s slimming down and I assume she’ll continue to do so.

I have to feed my almost 3 year old or he wouldn't eat anything. He's extremely fussy too. He has nursery for 2 days and hardly eats at all there. I'm planning to use a reward chart soon to get him to feed himself but I'm working on getting him to eat more variety first, It kind of breaks my heart,

Eating slowly is a very good habit to get into. I wouldn't rush her, but you could remind her not to do other things while eating. Sounds like concentration is the issue.

In answer to your question though, I did BLW and have never once fed my DS, not even at 6 months old. Unless a child has SEN, you don't ever have to do it.

Chill out! Don't rush her. It would be moving backwards to feed a 4 year old. Just ignore what she is eating and focus on your own food and family chat. You can make a natural end to meals say 30 mins and after a few days of having the rest of her meal taken away, she might speed up a little. I had throw out dd's united food at the end of the meal as she'd got into the had it of just eating a little and coming back for it later.

Firstly I would be very surprised if nursery hadn’t already feed her by that time. They tend to do earlier dinners. If they have done a light snack would be fine. Also if she’s slightly podgey then I wouldn’t be encouraging her to eat more than she wants. I have a child the same age who will sometimes only have a few mouthfuls. You can always save it for another day if you are worried about waste.

Definitely normal. My 4yo DD is also a really slow eater so I feel your pain. I think she gets bored by it sometimes - she'll say she's finished but if I offer to feed some to her she'll always have more! It is improving though as her cutlery control gets better.

My son didn't feed himself until he was 8 but did 'normal' feeding speed straightaway. It sounds like a normal, slightly tired, not very hungry 4 year old thing.

Another one saying that 30 minutes is completely normal. Meals aren't meant to be rushed. I can take that long to eat my meal.

My daughter is 4.5 and often asks me to feed her! Especially after school when she's tired....I give her dinner earlier to make sure bedtime isn't too late! When she was at nursery she was there till 5, home by 5.30 so we couldn't make dinner any earlier and she was often still eating at 6.45, she's a slow eater and a faffer! She's not fussy at all but is going through a bit of a babyish stage (I think due to starting school) and wants me to do lots of things for her that I know very well she can do for herself and does them just fine at school. I just get on with it, she won't do it forever!