I wrote this thread https://www.bellybelly.com.au/forums...please-168173/ a while ago because I was at my wits end. Dinner felt like a battle every single night. Since I wrote it and got heaps of good advice, DH and I have chilled a bit with dinner time. DS seems to be a really slow eater so in his case, as long as he is eating, then an hour is pretty standard for him. I do try to push it along a bit though, because seriously I have better things to do with my time. If he is messing around and hopping up and down from the table and not eating, he is now given a warning, and then another warning (can't help myself ), and then his dinner is taken away, he brushes his teeth and goes to bed. I also found out that DH was a super super slow eater as a kid, and used to take up to 3 hours to eat tea. His mum had way more patience than me!
I've also realised that although tea is my main meal, lunch would be DS's main food time - so as long as he eats well during the day, if tea is a bit of write off, then I'm learning to be ok with that. We have no tv and no toys but DS is a HUGE chatter, which I do understand because it's pretty much the first time he see's DH all day and he gets excited.

Every night this week though, he has eaten tea in under 20 mintues - he has started playing 'Masterchef' at teatime - he is Gary, I am George and he scores every bite and I have to write the score down on a piece of paper. It's bizarre but I'm sticking with it as long as he eats lol!