Eating Slowly. Infact, doing EVERYTHING slowly.

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Please help. The whole family are at the end of their tethers!

My DD is 5. She has always been a fussy eater, but she's slowly getting better.

however, she eats extremely slowly. It takes her over an hour to eat her tea. Now DD2 is eating main meals with us, the whole family has finished, eaten their pudding and is ready to get on with the evening and DD1 is still there. She's very easily distracted - she's rocking on her seat, singing little songs to herself, but even when she's quiet she just eats very slowly.

This has become a problem in other areas. I have to stand over her in the morning when she gets dressed otherwise it takes her over an hour.

I (and DH) have tried all avenues - patience, shouting, threatening, bribing, ignoring etc etc and nothing works. Because she eats such a small amount anyway I don't really want to start timing her and then chucking away the food.

Has anyone any suggestions?

Sorry to say this (this will be of no help, but maybe some comfort?) but I have a friend like this.

She was very very slow at school (not stupid,very clever in fact, just very slow at completing work. She spent hours catching up - and it never seemed to faze her at all!), she was very slow at eating, drinking, swimming, walking to school, playing games....she required a lot of patience.

She was very creative, dreamy and a bit of a ditherer. I remember lots of adults (especially teachers) being exasperated, as nothing made a difference. This continued till High School where she sped up a bit, but was still very slow and precise.

She left school at 17 to start a degree in Biophysics - got a good grade and now woks abroad as a T of EFL.

She made me giggle the other day - she has joined a swimming club in her area. When they asked her what level she thought she would be at, she replied "Oh, I'm a really good swimmer, probably advanced"

Two weeks later she told me that she was quickly demoted to the slow lane. And is the slowest in the slow lane. In fact she was surprised at this.
In the same breath she told me that she didn't realise how slow she was at eating before - she had been out with new colleagues for lunch and was surprised at how fast they were compared to her!
I genuinely believe that she has no idea just how slow she is.

Bless her

Some people really are just like that.

Bribery worked for us! If dd got dressed in under five minutes she was immediately rewarded with two peppa pig episodes, if she took longer than five minutes she didn't.

I think you have just described my DS1 who is 4 to a tee!!! He is absolutely fine with most things but when it comes to eating he is soooo slow, the way you described your daughter eating is exactly the same as my son! It's reassuring to know that I am not the only one going through it! We are hoping that it just gets better, we have tried bribery, shouting, being nice, literally everything! Even with his favourite foods he is still a little slow coach!!!
If you find an answer before I do, please, please let me know!!!!
Lx

Hi. My DS is nearly 7, and has always been a very good eater in terms of what he'll eat etc. but is another real slow-coach. He is a bit better now but does have days where he's just a bit day-dreamy and loses concentration, like you say, singing songs to himself, and looking at his own reflection in the glass of the french doors! However, what works for us on the slow days is no nagging reminding, we just get on with ours, then he's told he has half an hour to finish or it will be taken away. We then leave him to get on with it, and clear up, put the telly on etc., and go into other room. He eventually either finishes more quickly or he decides he's full, leaves it and forfeits pudding. We very rarely have had to take his meal away. I can only say that we were having to do this on an almost daily basis, and now it is not very often at all. Good luck!

Your describing my DS 8 I think??!!

He's all the things you have described and more, he's even slow getting out of the car, it drives us insane :-)

But after years of nagging and moaning, he hasn't got any faster and I have come to the realisation that this is the way he is and CAN'T change.
So I go with the flow and use a timer for school in the morning to help, (sometimes doesn't), use bribery, i.e, no telly, x-box, football etc, until the required "thing" is done.
More importantly he is happier, he doesn't mind missing certain things as long as he is left in peace and left to do things at his own pace.

Good luck xxxx