Meals taking forever...........................

[tessasmum]

OK, we need some help with this one as its driving me and DH mad!!
DD (3 next week) has been a bit of a fussy eater for ages. Decided to tackle it before Christmas with a star for each new food she tried. Its really worked and she is now eating well in both quantity and quality however over the past 3 weeks she has been getting slower and slower. Now the average meal time is about 1 1/2 hours!!! Today as we weren't going anywhere I decided to see what would happen at lunchtime. I spent half an hour eating my lunch with her then did stuff in the kitchen for another half hour so I was still with her, chatting etc. I then left her, telling her I was going upstairs to do some work and to come and get me when she finished and I would put on a DVD for her (something she had asked for earlier in the day) That was 1 hr 45mins ago so 2 hrs 45mins in total
I keep going down with washing etc, chatting for a bit, asking if she has finished etc but she says she hasn't and she is still eating!!!!

I know we should probably put a time limit on meals but am slightly reluctant to as she has only just started eating a good meal and she seems perfectly happy to take so long.

Any ideas?

I'm not really sure of the best way to tackle this, but I would certainly suggest that you don't entertain her while she's eating - no DVDs, no TV, no toys and more eating than talking. Is she actually eating all the time, or is she being distracted or playing with toys as well? If she's being distracted then maybe you could remind her that she needs to keep eating, and perhaps bribe her a bit - "We can go to feed the ducks this afternoon, but you'll have to eat your lunch up first".

No toys, TV, etc at table but she chatters away to herself (and her invisible friend!), makes up stories, retells favourite stories, relates the days events at pre-school, etc. All whilst eating soooooooooo slowly. Doesn't even get much of an audience from us after we have eaten but doesn't seem to need it as variety of imaginary friends and animals are good listeners

We havea half hour time limit on all meals.
Then they get down.

Otherwise we'd be there all day.

But DD1 is 4, we have done it since she was at poreschool.