Toddler eats SO slowly - any tips from parents of slow eating children??

[FrogandToadAreFriends]

My child turns 3 in February and will be starting preschool in the new year. I wish I could be chilled about mealtimes but she's underweight and we really do have to work to keep her on the same growth curve. She will happily eat for about 1.5 hours at breakfast and lunch, which just won't be possible once she starts school. She is not fussy and has no food aversion, thankfully! If your child was/is a slow eater how do you manage that with the school day? Are there foods that you recommend that are quicker to eat but still healthy? We tend to avoid snacks because she just won't eat at mealtimes at all but guessing we'll have to bend on this? Or do you get up really early to give them time for a full breakfast? Do kids naturally learn to eat faster? PFB if you can't tell 😵‍💫

Mine is still a very slow eater aged 8, but did speed up at school lunchtimes as they're not allowed to leave to go out to play until they have finished.
At home we have a rule that we all have to sit at the table together until everyone has finished, so we try to make it family chat time while she chews on and on and on.....

She probably will eat quicker at nursery because her peers are.

In the meantime, perhaps small meals are better? - so smaller breakfast and morning snack, smaller lunch and afternoon snack.

long term it’s a good habit. I’ve never met a slow eater who’s overweight.

What does a “full” breakfast involve? 1/2 slice of toast cut into fingers sounds fine, doesn’t matter if there’s no fruit or veg as you can give this for lunch and dinner. I think people over estimate how much food a child needs. Are you piling the plate high and it’s overwhelming?

They're eating habits at nursery are often very different to at home.

DD will eat all kinds of stuff at school (and did at nursery) that she turns her nose up at when at home.

They follow the lead from the other kids and just crack on, then you stand there really confused and a little irritated when the super chipper nursery worker tells you how she demolished 3 helpings of chicken curry and rice when you get frequently told that curry is yucky.

I have no advice as I spend most mealtimes wanting to stab myself in the eye with my fork due to my slow eaters. Being at school doesn’t seem to have helped them either!

You're showing incredible patience here! I'd not be so patient if my 8 year old was 'chewing on and on' I'm afraid! I have things to do 🤷‍♀️ I'd not force them to finish of course...but neither would I be enforcing a rule that inconvenienced everyone else in the family. The 'time consuming chewer' would be chewing alone in my house!

When my daughter started nursery she ate so so slowly at nursery and barely at all at home. It took about 6 months from 12-18 months for her pick up the pace. She now goes through phases of barely eating at all and what that means at nursery is eating only a little or half of her lunch ( main meal) and all of her breakfast and tea. So whilst less than her normal considerably more than at home!

We have a slow eater. I too am a slow eater at times. Most of the time I let it be. She eats long after everyone else. I clean the kitchen while she finishes up. When I need her to eat her breakfast quickly on a school morning, we use a visual timer I got from amazon. I give her 15 minutes or so, say how impressed I will be if she finishes before then and lots of praise when she does (she hasn't failed to beat the timer yet!)
We also use it for teeth brushing, getting dressed, showers and sometimes homework (she's a faffer and takes ages to do most things haha). Great investment.

Youngest was like this. Tried so many things when younger and eventually was put on high calorie liquid/milkshake diet by a paediatrician due to weighloss/not growing. This really helped.

Continued but just became part of her routine - Until mid teens when finally diagnosed ASD. (Not the relevant bit). However, this led to more support and her being asked about and being able to explain issues.
Turns out she had been chewing to the point of food becoming liquid and it just dissolving, because of a swallowing issue. This could have been addressed much earlier, usually by SALT, who can help resolve this. She's now fine. But giving this as a possible cause of the excessive slowness, especially if you suspect they won't swallow lumps.

I'm a slow eater. Always have been. Schools are used to them! Continue as normal at home, keep meals stress-free as possible. My eldest is borderline underweight so i know it canbe worrying

Is she doing anything else at meal times which makes her slower?

Thanks for all the responses!! I will cross my fingers for peer pressure and hope that she follows the lead of the other kids. We never ever force her to finish something but I do encourage her through a lot of her meals right now/remind her to keep eating, so i think thats what i worry about because surely they wont have time to do that with each child! She's very chatty, chews slowly, likes to daydream/play with her fork. She wants to know what I'm doing, where the cat is, what the dog's doing, where the other cat is etc.

I love the idea of a visual timer + praise. And maybe will ask the dr about fortified shakes... she does like sweet things, maybe a smoothie would go down faster and i could add protein?? We tend to do scrambled eggs, oatmeal etc. But those are definite culprits for slow eating. What kind of breakfasts do your slow eaters go for? How long do you give them in the morning? Do they eat right up until you're out the door? We'll need to leave around 7:15-7:30 I think.

If you're leaving that early, surely she's just having breakfast at nursery? I do one early start a week and my DS has breakfast at nursery then, he has his cup of milk at home as usual, get ready and we're out the door. He sometimes has a banana on the way if he's hungry and can't wait. I'd rather give him the extra sleep. Normal morning it's fruit, toast, cereal - all easy to eat and clean up. I'm sure the UPF police will be swooping down any second to tell me I'm a terrible mother 🤣

He eats very slowly, we've got a little countdown timer and I'll frequently show him my cup and tell him he's got till I've finished my tea or coffee to eat. He's often the last child to finish at nursery (he often has extra helpings too which doesn't help), but apparently he takes his plate to the sink unprompted so no one minds!

100% get nursery to do breakfast if they offer it. My nursery does breakfast until 8.30 and my daughter is dropped off at 8.30 every day I'm WFH so that she makes breakfast. She's dropped off at 7.30 when in I'm the office