How on earth can we speed DD (age 7.5yrs) up with eating?
This has always been an issue but recently it is getting more and more of a problem.
At school it takes her an hour to eat her sandwich (filling and bread of her choice), or she isn't finishing it which means she is missing her lunch break and then her concentration levels drop by the afternoon and I pick up a tired, grumpy child.
Dinner takes an hour which means by the time she's finished it's practically bedtime and she's missed out on playing/winding down.
Breakfast...well, it's normally a fraught "come on, we need to leave" affair.
We let her pick a majority of her meals so she is getting what she likes, but she has no interest. She is incredibly picky and has a limited amount of foods she will eat.
We've done the 'she'll eat when she is hungry' thing, except she doesn't, food isn't high on her lists, hence she is a very skinny child.
We've tried timers but they add pressure to her, we've rewarded good eating...failed, we've bribed...failed, we eat with her, we eat out, we let her cook, we let her plan meals.
Breakfast and dinner at home isn't as important as the lunch at school, we don't want her concentration dropping and her moods changing there. She absolutely loves school and is doing very well there so that isn't a factor. She's generally quite a happy child and ever since day 1 has been fussy with food.
What else can we try? many thanks.