How long should 5 YO spend eating dinner?

freddie_2

DD is just 5 and spends ages eating her dinner. She needs reminding to eat it as she is too busy talking, looking around her and generally anything else.
She will eat it and has a very healthy diet, would eat poached fish every night if I let her and eats her vegetables. I have no worries about her diet and she loves her food but she is just such a slow eater.
I was thinking about setting a timer and when it goes off her dinner gets taken away? But not sure if good idea or for how long I should set timer - 20mins?

any ideas?

moomoomama27

My son is 6, and is a slow eater. He takes about half hour with constant reminders to eat up, although at school has no problems with his lunch!

I wouldn't personally use a timer, because she might feel stressed, which could cause upset. How about some type of incentive like a sticker chart or something. With encouragement she may well want to finish her dinner a bit quicker to get the sticker? Failing that I'm not sure!

nicolax

if shes eating healthy dinners, a decent amount and enjoying them i wouldnt worry too much. setting a timer may make her feel under pressure - at that young age as long as theyre eating well may be better to leave her to it. Although maybe have a chat with her about the distractions, and remind her that dinner time is for eating etc.

pigpen

Tiddles spends the entire dinner hour at school plodding through her dinner and takes a good 30-45 minutes to eat it at home.. she doesn't look around or talk she just chews really really slowly.. I dish hers up first and sit her down first so she isn't eating too long after the others have finished. She gets a certificate at school if she is not the last one in the dinner hall!

freddie_2

Its just annoying as we eat together as a family and it can be 15 mins after we have all finished that she is still eating. Her dinner is cold and she is still eating, thats not nice and I wouldnt want to eat cold food but she doesnt eat any faster.

Running_Horse

This sounds so familiar. In our case we were probably giving her too much, plus I'm a fast eater. As long as she's eating I wouldn't worry too much. Relax and don't build up dinner tensions; I'm sure that way lies future eating disorders.

shy-but-need-help

My four going on five year old will merrily sit there gawping around as he eats and takes alot longer than the other four (even the baby beats him speedwise but then again she eats and then sits staring to see who else is going to feed her more ) All my older ones have too, they do speed up with age eventually.

We do eat as a family everyday, and we just sit around talking with him (at least one of us) so he has company- we're quite laid back in the evenings so we've never had reason to stress him out as it'd only put him off dinner times. I'd rather a slow but happy eater than a non-eater and it gives us time to discuss the day as a family too.

SkintGypsy

My five year old daughter is the same. Talking, looking around her, jumping up to just get something, needing the loo, and generally looking for anything else to do but sit and eat properly. She doesn't seem to ever be hungry enough to just eat. It's annoying, but she is fit and healthy, and has bags of energy, so she must be consuming enough somehow!

Broomstick

I realise that it's a pain if you are trying to get everything done in the evening, but when I lived and worked abroad (Med countries) lunchtime at work was timetabled for 2 hours. Everything stopped, businesses shut, and people settled down for a proper, slow-food, multi-course meal and work meal times really did last that long - lots of conversation and enjoying the food and the company. In the evenings after work, eating out or with friends it was the same.

You could just view your daughter as being in tune with a very Southern European way of eating! Could you sit her down sooner and give her some of her food as a 'starter' before dishing up a main course so that she eats the bulk of her meal with the family but gets a bit of a head start?

B x

shy-but-need-help

Just a side thought here- is your five year old getting any help with cutting food? My 4 year old also takes longer because he doesn't have the years of experience with cutlery his older siblings have (his older brother is dyspraxic and when left to cut his own food would easily take much, much longer than everyone else but because of his very poor fine motor skills he gets help with cutting if we're in a hurry)

MoneySavingMamma

I'd just be happy if my 5 yr old ate at all. He lives off toast, cheese & baked beans!! I've tried starving him & only offering healthy food (Or even offering him healthy food & nothing else, so I know he's starving?!?)
No luck at all. And he takes ages eating nothing