suddenly became the slowest eater ever!

my girls always ate at around the same pace... sometimes quickly (if they like it, or are hungry, or going thru a growth spurt), and sometimes slowly (if they don't like it, or aren't really hungry). but lately marina has been eating as slowly as a turtle! i mean, she just stares off into space, puts her fingers in her food sloooowly, licks her finger clean sloooowly... OMG IT'S SO IRRITATING. i've started putting a timer on after a while of her just sitting there, giving her 15-20 more minutes to allow her to finish her meal. but it's really not working. and for some reason, the timer just terrifies them. i think it's giving them anxiety, not knowing when it's going to buzz on them. (if ivi is acting up, i'll set the timer for her, too)
any other suggestions??? seriously, SLOWEST EATER EVER.

 

No suggestions, but just empathy. Meara drives me NUTS! In the morning when we are rushing to get out of the house to school on time I just want to scream. For her I think she likes the attention, so I try to just leave her at the table alone. Some days she goes to school and she hasn't finished breakfast. Oh well.

 

I am suprised she would sit there so long...if mine are not interested they get up and move on...sometimes they get pissed when they return and the food has been put away but most of the time they could care less.
I wouldnt do the timer, if its giving her anxiety. I would just set a mental timer and then tell her meal time is almost over, are you going to finish that?

 

Whoa. Whoa. Whoa. I think Nicholas gets this award!

THREE...count them...THREE HOURS to eat HALF a sandwich! Now, there was someone here, etc etc...otherwise-it would have been in the trash a LONG time ago. He is MADDENING! I feel your pain. In fact, we do the timer now because it is THAT bad. OMG. I can't stand it. And he gets off his chair, fools around(his siblings are done of course), TALKS TOO MUCH...and if you touch his food and say he's done he FLIPS out. Oh he becomes a crazy kid. Crying and going nuts. He just needs to learn to sit in his hair and eat his meal with everyone else. He goes at least 30 minutes after everyone else is done. Maddening I tell ya...

So-I sympathize. I put the timer on the microwave, which is a bit better than the other timer. Maybe try something like that? My crew wasn't a fan of the other timer either. They FREAKED out if I said I was putting it on. LOL!

 

My daugher is this way and we give her a time frame where she has to eat and if she isn't done, she doesn't get dessert. Dessert is nothing fancy. Sometimes dessert is another yogurt or if around a holiday, a piece of candy or a cookie or a piece of cheese. That usually gets her to eat a little faster, but it is so frustrating sometimes.

 

My girls went through that. I found the best thing was to just feed them every other day...

 

Both of my kids do that. It is so frustrating! I don't have a problem with them taking a long time to eat if they are eating...but when they start fooling around & playing with their food...that's when I cut the meal off and say, "looks like you are done. You can have this for a snack."
I tried the timer too. It also gives the kids anxiety. They don't like it.

 

i have used dessert as motivation, but it doesn't work at all.
but meaghan, i will definitely try the microwave timer instead! i'm not trying to scare them, i'm just trying to get them (marina, really) to understand that there has to be a time frame in which they eat! and yeah, my girls freak out if i say i'm bringing out the timer, too. lol!

 

Just cut off the meal at a certain time, either put the food away for later or give it to the dog, which is what we do. The meal gets cut off when the person cleaning up is finished except for the kid left at the table's plate. Then that gets taken away to be cleaned. No snacks within a reasonable amount of time after the meal. They won't starve themselves and it's not worth it for you or them to stress about it. If they were really hungry they'd eat.

 

Meli, you crack me up.

Yeah, if my two aren't eating quickly, I take their food away after about 20 minutes with a 2 minute warning. If they were hungry, they would eat faster, so I'm not entirely worried that they eat slow some days and fast others.

 

Oh, my DH just reminded me that another thing that helped us when our girls were at this stage was upping the amount of physical activity they were doing each day. 10 laps around the block on their bikes, things like that, really wet the appetite! :girl_devil: