Watching paint dry i.e. mealtimes.............

[CheekyGirl]

My dd is just turned 4. She's always been quite a good eater, but she is so, so SLOW!! it's getting ridiculous!!

For eg, just now, it took her an hour to eat half a round of cheese spread sandwich, a babybel, four apple slices and a frube pouch. I just leave her to it after I've finished as I haven't got time to sit around. It doesn't make any difference. If i sit with her, she talks too much and doesn't eat, if I leave her alone and don't keep reminding her to eat, she doesn't eat.

I've tried asking her if she's had enough, but she always says "no". She always clears her plate it just takes so long!!

DH says we should impose a time limit say half an hour, and what's not eaten after that time gets binned. I'm not sure - is it really a problem or is it our problem for finding her slowness annoying.

TBH I always thought it was the norm for kids to take forever with eating.
I know I did.

My dd is doing the same thing, although she is alot younger than your dd.

Give the time limit a go. If she is genuinely hungry I'm sure she will eat the meal you have given her.

We are the same with ds. We give him a time limit to finish (usually 30 minutes) and then take the rest away, TBH with a hot meal, after 30 minutes it is pretty unpalatable anyway! It does work in speeding him up

Our 3.7 year old ds is like this - he take ages and then tends to get bored and start messing around. So we've introduced a timer - we give hime 20 minutes and it's really worked! We tell him whatever's left when the timer goes off goes in the bin and there's no treats (usually a couple of sweets). He's only ever got to the 20 minutes a couple of times and we've stuck to it - hysterical crying that he couldn't have his sweets, but it's turned the whole thing around and now we rarely use the timer itself but if he starts dawdling we just ask him if he 'needs' the timer and that's usually enough to speed him up a bit..!

Could it be the heat? DS has always been a good eater but the past week he has been hopeless. Messing around, saying he doesn't like the food, playing with it, annoying his sister, etc.

I putting it down to the heat and loss of appetite - I can't bear to think it might be the more long term!

V. interested to hear about the timer tactic. My dd is 3 1/4 and exactly the same - if I sit with her she just talks incessantly and if I leave her to it, it still takes forever and plays with her food and talks to herself.

However, she doesn't always finish everything and I don't want to end up binning food if she would eat it otherwise. I can imagine that tactic would work well with a child who usually eats a lot (although I can imagine dd getting upset at the idea of binning her food, so maybe it would help?)

I don't think all children do this, as whenever my dd does eat with other children they always finish way before her. She goes to nursery 3 days per week and I always wonder how she manages there - they probably do take her food away once everyone else has finished, can't imagine them waiting too long for her.

My ds is also a very slow eater and eats with great difficulty so as long as he is eating I let him take as long as he likes.

Its not only your dd I am a cm and the child i mind takes on average 45- 60 mins every mealtime unless it is junk food then she can eat that in 10 mins.Today she had toad in the hole and mash,carrots and swede ,she took 50 mins to chew mash!!So hence no pudding.She gets 30 mins to eat her main meal i do not take it away as she would leave all the veg,her mother agrees with this.

I think I will give the timer thing a go. I'll let you know how I get on!!

My dds eat slowly and dd1 likes her meal to get cold. I admit i leave them to it. Thier dad eats so fast you wonder whether you have actually put anything on his plate. This conserns me more as it means he is not chewing his food etc and he gets all the associated stomach problems. Dispite this I cant slow him down and I am so relieved that they dont copy him! dd1 notices that her slowness means she misses out sometimes at school and i think this speeds her up enough.