Slow eating - Need some help - any experience?

[myrubicon]

Hi,

My DD (5) is not a particularly fussy eater, but she will eat her meals painfully slowly. To the extent that I have occasionally seen her take one grain of rice at a time. Last night she took well over an hour to eat some lasagne and pudding, so the food was cold by the time she was half way through. Obviously I don't want her wolf her food down, but this is becoming really quite frustrating, waiting for her to finish so we can move on to the next course.

We have tried explaining, encouraging, etc but this hasn't had much effect so far. DD is quite matter of fact about it, and neither stressed nor embarrassed.

I found out the other day that she is given smaller portions for lunch at school, which bugs me.

Has anyone else experienced this, and did you find a way to help them eat at a more normal speed?

Remove pudding if dinner is not eaten within 30 minutes!!! I am not trying to decide the time here, but if she takes an hour maybe cutting it down to 45 to start with and than 30 and see how it goes from there.

I find mine take a long time when they are not happy with dinner( too many veg!!), but ginve them chips and will disapper in 5 min.

DD is the same.

She is now given a plate of food at the table (things she likes - not things I know she doesnt like)

and we sit there, or rather she sits there, till she's eaten enough.

No pudding if she doesnt eat it, or if she moans about it.

If I sat and fed her, she would eat the whole lot in 5 mins, my DD is being lazy

My ex was like this, I HATED eating with him as I eat quite quickly (although not piggishly) and he made me look greedy.

I don't think there's anything you can do about it.

Thanks for the ideas - DD sounds much like yours, OWO, re my feeding her, which I normally won't. She is being lazy. Even with chips, she'll eat one chip per minute! Ice cream usually disappears pretty rapidly, so perhaps I could smear all meals in Haagen Daaz

She can pack away a decent amount of food so I'm not concerned about quantity.

I think I may have to hope she grows out of it... with a few reminders .

colditz I'd hate to think she'll end up hacking people off when she's older!

mm... took DD and hour and 10 to eat a bowl of pasta and cheese sauce tonight. which is her fave food - little sod I had to heat it back up twice

My ds (6) was exactly like this and i wasted hours telling him to hurry up, stressing, setting timers etc. Then all of a sudden, when he was 5, it stopped of its own accord and he now eats at a normal speed!
Make sure she is hungry - no snacks between meals seems to works for us too.

My ds (10) used to eat painfully slowly at home and at school and was frequently the last one out of the dinner hall. We eventually set him a thirty minute timer and took the food away after that time with nothing else after until the next meal-time.
This was ok but he used to just eat slowly until the last five minutes then shove it all in as quickly as possible until he was nearly sick!
He eventually just got better and is now absolutely fine at meal-times

DD (5) is following suit! She's usually one of the last to finish at school and takes an age at home but I just don't bother with stressing this time around as I'm hoping she will also grow out of it.
They're not little for long.