Painfully slow eater, HELP!

[SquirrelNuts]

My DS is 4 years old. When given pizza/ macaroni cheese, generally something he loves, he can eat it within 5/10 minutes. However, when given a plate with vegetable fingers and veg, spag bol etc he can take an hour sometimes more to eat it.
His 18month DD eats faster!
Its worse than watching paint dry, I don't know the best way to tackle it, its not fair on DD to sit at the table for that long, or me
Is it best to bribe with pudding? or give him say 30 minutes to eat then that's it.
He's slowly driving me insane now!

My cousins were/are like this. Never been anything but slim! and people that eat slowly are generally lovely and slim.

Let Dd get down from the table when she's finished?
I think you are giving it too much attention, but not sure what you should do.

Leve him to it and the rest of you politely excuse yourselves when finished.

Take it away. It'll soon speed up.

I would take it away after 20-30 mins and not give pudding. Without a word about it. I hate it when dh sits there badgering the dc to eat their dinners; it just seems to make the whole thing last longer and feel more stressful. I'd also let your other child get down and play when she's finished. You never know, it might encourage your ds to hurry up!

Please don't leave him to it! I was always such a slow eater, it was the family joke and as I got older they used to all finish and pack up the table around me and leave me to finish alone, it was horrible. I was just such a daydreamer.

Why not engineer meals around things he can eat quickly for a while?