What approach should i take with my faddy eater dd?

[legocreator]

I am at the end of my tether with my dd who will be 5 in March. She is naturally slim and eats like a fly. Often she will eat a couple of mouth fulls of her meal then say she has had enough. My natural reaction is to tell her to eat up but each subsequent mouthful then takes 5 minutes or so. Regually by the time she has picked at her meal my ds (7), has had his meal, pudding, fruit and is hunting around for more. I would love her to tuck into a meal and finish it at a normal pace. My mother in law says i should force her to eat her food, my mum says i should not push it. I really don't know what to do.

I would ignore it. Don't force feed her!

If she says she has finished, take the meal away, if she says she is hungry later then she can have the meal reheated.

Trying to get her to eat up is stressful so i think i should ignore it. The thing is i don't want her eating at different times of days to everyone else. I was thinking about taking the food away and giving her nothing until the next meal. Writing this now it seems petty, but it has been quite worrying!

Just carry on with family meals
If she hasn't finished her main course by the time your ds has finished pudding then ask her in the best reasonable voice you can muster " have you finished" and take it away. No puddings... she can't be hungry if she doesn't want her main course.
Do your children have supper before bed, if so offer her what you usually give and again remove when supper has finished.

Is she like this with every meal ?
Children do eat at different paces but if she is taking too long then she needs to be encouraged to eat up.
What is she like at school ?

No she isn't like it with all meals. For example, yesterday she had a really good breakfast then picked at lunch (which i made her eat, but it took ages), then hardly any tea as she was at a party and tea was really early, so had not long finished lunch!
She eats all her packed lunch at school (sandwich, yoghurt and banana), but i think she is pretty slow.

If she says she's finished then remove the meal without comment but don't offer anything else.

Keep a diary over a week of all the things she actually does eat, and have a look at the end of the week to see what her food intake is like vs what you actually think it is like.

Then you might just have to accept that's her eating pattern.
I think food is the hardest part of parenting!
This is my 4 year old dd pattern

Breakfast
Offered porridge ..... No
offered toast ..... No yuk hate it
so I carried on with the rest of the family and eventually noticed she had eaten both.

Lunch
Tuna sandwich ....NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Cheese ? ...........oh nooooooooooo
Fine then
She ate one tuna and most of the cheese ones.

Dinner
I hate lasagne .............. fine don't eat it then
eats lasagne

All the above is on a good day ! but I no longer pander to her, I can't I have other children to look after.

Please don't push it. My parents pushing me when I didn't want to eat still causes me problems now. As soon as I feel an expectation that I will eat, my throat closes off and I start feeling sick.

She's at least eating a decent packed lunch. On a good day I ate one biscuit for lunch right the way through primary.

Agree with DeWe, I was a naturally small eater when young and felt anxious and ill whenever anyone tried to force me to 'eat up'; sometimes I actually vomited. I lived for years on not much more than marmite sandwiches according to my mother, but I'm much more adventurous now - though I still would never 'eat up' if I was no longer hungry.

She probably knows when she is full/has had enough and that's a good signal to listen to, many of us lose that later on I think.

That doesn't mean letting her fill up on crisps/snacks half an hour after she declines her nice home-cooked meal of course, but it sounds like you don't do that anyway. I know it's difficult though when you worry they aren't getting enough... but if she is active and energetic and growing, she is probably getting enough, even if she's on the skinny side.

Thanks everyone. Just posting on here and receiving your replies has helped me get this in proportion. She does eat well sometimes, she actually prefers healthy food to junk (which my ds would eat all day). I shall try to keep calm and definately not force her to eat any more - too stressful and potentially damaging.

I am trying desperately to relearn eating habits like your DD's. I would go for praising her for stopping when she is full to be honest! has just eaten most of the leftovers from yesterday's roast