My slow eater is slowly driving me round the bend!

[jamaisjedors]

DS2 is coming up for 4.

He has gradually turned into the slowest eater ever and I am finding dinner-time a torture.

We all eat together around 6.30/7pm in the week.

But he is just as bad on weekend lunchtimes.

He just sits there playing with his cutlery and chatting to his brother or playing games and NOT eating.

We had slipped into the bad habit of feeding him to try to get him to finish up his plate or try things he would normally avoid.

Any suggestions or glimmers of hope?

Last night when we had all finished I took his plate away and sent him up to bed, and then he had a screaming tantrum and said he was hungry.

I said dinner-time is over.

DS is like that. Painfully slow to eat. The only think I find works is to wait until everyone else has finished and tell him that he has 5 more minutes and then I'm taking his plate away. He often doesn't eat much more but that's his call.

We do however tend to get his tea ready much earlier than you (about 5.15-5.30), which means during the week he eats on his his own, and DH and I eat after he's gone to bed, so he can have a small snack (cereal, toast, crackers etc) before bedtime which stops him being hungry when he goes to bed.

It's so frustrating isn't it.

thanks for answering.

Yes, our new strategy is to give him until everyone else finished (dessert included) and if he doesn't finish then he gets down from the table (no dessert).

We'll see...

By all means try that option but be careful not to alienate your son from the dinner table and end up punishing him.

As we all know, all kids are different and some just don't have as much of an appetite as others.

If you're concerned about diet, cut out the snacks(if any) and focus his nourishment at breakfast/lunch/dinner.

If you're not concerned about his eating health then perhaps, for just a couple of weeks, relax a bit and see if he snaps out of it.

I have a slow eater in our house and I was that concerned, I mentioned it to my GP whilst seeing him for something else. He had a background on paedeatrics and he said not to worry as kids from a very young age will get all the nourishment they need if a balanced diet is offered to them, that is not to say they will eat it when it is in front of them but when they are hungry, or when their body craves it, they will eat.

Hopefully though, it's just a phase as it is ridiculous we tie ourselves up at dinner time trying to shoe-horn food down their throat or barter with them, just to avoid the oncoming fight ;-)

Hi. Just wanted to say that my DS is very similar. He has got a bit better over the last year or so (he's now 6.5). He loves his food and eats more or less everything but just takes AGES! We had his teacher asking to speak to us about how long he takes to eat his packed lunch at school! Things at school are a whole lot better - I resorted to offering him 10p every time he wasn't last, which seems to have worked in keeping him focussed. (He doesn't now need this incentive). At home, we decided to stop nagging him, and to just give him 15 mins to finish once we had finished, then just calmly remove his plate and tell him "dinner is finished". If he had a fit about it, we just let him get on with it. TBH, he has got a lot better and we rarely have to do this, although he's still quite slow! Not sure if this is down to our tactics or just him getting older. Good luck, I know just how it can drive you up the wall!

Ds1 is a slow eater and would far rather chat away than eat.

He's got better recently. Think it's pure hunger from being at school and not really eating his school dinner.

I mostly leave him to it. But, sometimes say his plate is going as everyone else has finished - this speeds him up.

Telling him he can watch a TV prog, play with a special toy or a chocolate biscuit bribe seem to work wonders too!

Mine is the same, slightly better since starting school last month also due to hunger i think.

I also say 5 mins then dinner over etc. Ive also realised it's a sign that he is not really that hungry so now worry less. I have also pretty much stopped between meals snacks as he defo eats better when he comes tot he table hungry

i had the same problem with my DD. She has always been a slow and picky eater. Whilst I know people say that they will just get better it can take a long time unless you help them along... it used to drive me mad but i wish I had dealt with it sooner as it did become an issue at school - she was slow so didnt eat enough as times are set there. as a result she would be tired in afternoon at school. she has now (in year 4) got better and gets on with it most of the time but i wish somebody had told me to address it before they start school. i think slowly you should start getting him to realise that dinner time is only for a set amount of time and maybe no dessert afterwards - also maybe make his favourite foods for a while - at his age the message still needs to be got across but probably in a gentle way.

I was a slow eater at school and was made to sit through two dinner sittings and all of play in order to finish my meal. I can tell you now that I have no recollection of whether I ever got full throughout this ordeal, my only lasting memory is of the shame, stress and sense of failure at not being able to eat fast enough.

My 7 year old DS is slow at everything and drives me utterly insane. He also chats (and takes a looooong time to complete his conversations too) during mealtime and DS1 is very often close to finishing his meal before DS2 has even had a single mouthful. I have watched him intently to see what is taking the time and it is very bizarre and discreet. He doesn't move lethargically, he just seems to be so distracted! Shuffle about on chair, fiddle about with picking up cutlery to eat, shuffle on chair again, talk, rearrange cutlery, talk, make moves to eat, talk, shuffle on chair...

What I am currently doing is devoting a lot of energy into watching him and brightly reminding him to take a mouthful. Quite ridiculous for a 7 year old but it's him, his personality and it is necessary.

I also have to remind myself that it isn't a race. No prize for plate clearing. Very rarely do we have to finish the meal quickly because we have to be somewhere afterwards in a hurry. So, given my own terrible experience I owe him my patience.

In many ways, a slow eater is a lot more desirable than a fast eater. Think of dodgy dates with men who shovel food in ungracefully!

I, as an adult have disordered eating - bordering on Anorexia. This is to do with many parenting mistakes my father in particular made, which has left me somewhat freaky, and included him using a metre stick at the table to get me to eat, so don't panic, but, I would urge any of you with this problem to consider the profound relationship us humans have with food. It is more than just fuel as we all know that people can and do eat for comfort as well as to sustain themselves physically. Likewise, people like me deny themselves food as a method of control. I am deeply scarred by the pressure on me to eat enough, and eat it quick enough. I have a great appetite now and enjoy food and also run my own catering business. I LOVE food, but alongside that, if I am emotional and upset, worried or anxious, I use food as a way of dealing with this and I attribute this link between my eating and my emotions to the degree of emotional distress I felt when eating as a child.

Be very careful is all I am saying - even without the bitch dinner ladies and the dad with a stick, bits of damage can be done if slow eaters aren't handled carefully. Have patience everyone!

I don't think, personally that pudding should be withheld because of failure to eat at a reasonable pace. Obviously, if the child is totally larking about then there needs to be a consequence but I don't think it should be food related. I spent an Anorexicy fortnight eating only trifle once, and pudding was not allowed if I didn't meet expectations as a kid.

I do really like the idea of allowing an extra 15 mins beyond everyone else in order to finish. To be honest, as a slow eater, it can be quite nice to 'finish the mealtime' without finishing the meal iyswim and have the pressure taken away.

Minute portion sizes might help as might a meal divided into a few courses.

I think it depends how much of a child's slowness is due to silly behaviour and deliberate non-focusing on task and how much they just take their time on things in general whislt still doing what they are supposed to be.

Sorry for ramble!

Oh hobbgoblin

Great advice! I need to relax about mealtimes and leave them to it a bit more or I'll turn into my mother.

Jamais, are you going to give your ds dinner earlier? Just worked out mine sat at table for 1.5 hours last night, was perfectly happy!!

Thanks for your 'ramble' hobbgoblin.

It brings up a lot of issues that I am worrying about.

I was a terrible eater when I was a child, badly underweight, picky, and not at ALL interested in food until about age 16+.

So naturally I worry about stressing the DSs out about food but it seems to have happened anyway .

DS2 was always a good eater, and v. into food, which is why I mostly think that it's "messing around" - he is a child who moves fast normally and never sits still, it is like hobbgoblin's description:

"He doesn't move lethargically, he just seems to be so distracted! Shuffle about on chair, fiddle about with picking up cutlery to eat, shuffle on chair again, talk, rearrange cutlery, talk, make moves to eat, talk, shuffle on chair..."

Part of the problem is that he has a snack at the childminder's after school around 5pm, so at 6.30/7pm he is not starving.

I have asked her to cut it down but she finds it hard to say no to him and the others are all eating their snack then too.

However, even on the days when I pick them up and they have just one biscuit, he still messes about.

And even when it's his favourite food (pasta), he just faffs around.

I think it's karma ...

Sorry Wowoo - this week I'm on my own with the DS and picking them up fairly early, I think I will try an earlier dinner for him to give him more time, because it's true I'm often clock-watching for bedtime afterwards.

It's the holidays next week so we might be able to turn things around then.