Toddler taking over 2 hours to eat a meal.

[Newbridge91]

My toddler (3y) takes over 2 hours to eat and ends up with me feeding her and still doesn’t finish a meal. I don’t give a lot so plate is never too full. I’ve tried timers, treats, making sure there’s nothing around her and I’ve tried turning it into a game. I also eat my dinner with her everyday. I’m getting really stressed out about it and don’t know what to else to do. Any help would be much appreciated.

My ds used to be the same. I just left him to get on with it after I finished mine.

I stopped getting stressed, I'd leave him in his high chair with his meal, while I got on with stuff around him. We used to chat while he ate VERY SLOWLY.

What happens if you just take it away after 15 mins or so? How have you got into the situation where she's eating the same meal for two hours and being spoon fed in the first place? Is she very underweight or has health conditions?

Assuming neither of the above, I just wouldn't do any of it. Serve the food, keep it there for 15-20 mins and then just say 'lunchtime is over now, so if you want anything else be quick as I'm going to take the plate away and wash up' or whatever. And then repeat.

It seems like now dinner time is such a high stakes event. I'd just press reset on it and remove all the treats, any cajoling, spoon feeding, whatever and go back to just providing healthy and varied food at regular intervals and take away if no progress is being made,

The alternative is that if she's a grazer, you just make her up a platter of food and let her pick at it as and when through the day

Try not to stress about it. DD used to do this - at playgroup she’d still be sat at the table with her snacks after the rest of the kids had finished, gone to the loo and were in the story corner being read to. The leaders just let her get on with it. Meanwhile at home we did not deal with it well, and feel bad about it now. Turned out she was a) coeliac and b) had ASD.

But taking ages over food as a toddler didn’t do her any harm.

Not saying that that’s what’s affecting your own child, of course, just that it’s not worth getting frantic about, like we did! Meadowfinch has the right approach.

Plenty of three year olds are still being fed. I wouldn’t worry.