He takes an absolute age to eat. For example, a bowl of shreddies this morning took 1 hour 30 minutes. We are talking a very small bowl of cereal, out of a small child's bowl. It will take over an hour to eat a sandwich. Once I sat with him in Costa while it took him 2 and a half hours to eat a panini. He will feed himself, but we end up helping him so speed him along, but to be honest, it doesn't help that much as he will just go at his own pace. He wants the food, he is not necessarily fussy, he just chews everything to absolute oblivion and takes the most minute bites. He baulks (sp?) very easily, so will only put tiny bits of food on his fork. He is growing as he should/ developing as you would expect because eventually he eats the food. If I go to take the food away from him, he tells me he hasn't finished and wants to keep eating.
Where it is an issue is when we need to be somewhere. We usually end up taking food with us. It also has an impact on the day's meals, because he takes so long to eat his breakfast, he is not that interested in his lunch. He has very rarely finished eating his tea by half 6; I usually have it ready for him by 5pm/ half 5.
He isn't really motivated by food, even treats. He isn't bothered about chocolate/ sweets and takes just as long to eat those. His favourite tea is pasta, but that will still take him over an hour to eat.
The only physiological issue I can think of is that he has very big tonsils; they touch in the middle. However, when I have mentioned it to the GP, he said they should just act like saloon doors, and move out of the way when swallowing. I had my tonsils out a 4 years old, so I have no idea what it feels like to have them!
How can I get him to eat faster?!?! TIA.