How long does it take your toddler to eat a meal?

So meal times in our house are particularly slow :lol:, DD is 18 months old, 16 corrected

For example tonight was Chicken Schnitzel, Carrot, Corn and Mashed Potato, followed by chocolate vanilla custard slice.

DD has been eating dinner for 1hr 15min and is still going on the desert. We let her feed herself, she uses a combination of a spoon and her hands to eat. And she does eventually eat most of her dinner. In the end dinner took her 1hr40min She is pretty chirpy the whole time and chatty, banging her spoon and plate, and I actually find that she eats better when we just eat our meals and wander around the kitch living area doing stuff, and not being watched, told to hurry up, or get frustrated waiting.

But I was curious does your child feed themselves, finger foods, or do you spoon feed, and how long would a meal take?

At least I know that she is going to be digesting to food well and when she is full she lets us know by trying to push away her tray :D

I am just curious if anyone has particularly loooonnggg meal times :D

TIA

DD1 is nearly 4 and she took almost an hour to eat her bowl of stirfry vegies & noodles - she was using chopsticks to start but then resorted to fingers and it still took her forever!!

Umm.. Kelts usually takes about 45 minutes with dinner, maybe 20 minutes with breakfast and about the same for lunch.

Dinner always takes ages :rolleyes:

Oh - and she feeds herself everything, I never feed her.

(well obviously I FEED her, but I don't hand feed her.)

DS gets mainly spoon fed so its rather quick probably say 15 - 20 mins for main and yougurt or fruit or both.

Lunch he generally has a sandwich and that can take him anything form 10 mins to 30 mins depending on how hungry he is.

If he was to have a whole meal of finger food he would eat very little he seems to get bored and side tracked and chuck most on floor.

When we have dinner he often will have a bit finger food wise to entertain him if he is still up, as he has dinner much earlier than us due to when DH gets home from work.

DD1 is the slowest eater too! Drives me nuts sometimes.
We always let her start feeding herself but on extremely slow days we will help her along. She is 3 now, getting better than what she was but still we spend so much time per day eating meals!

DD1 takes about 15 mins to eat dinner then about 5-10 to eat dessert, sometimes its much faster but never slower! DD2 takes about the same length of time

Oh boy she is slow!!! :lol:

Thanks for all your feedback, it is really great to get an idea on how slow she actually is :D

Ah ShellBell I am glad I am not the only one with a very slow eater!

I wonder if there is a way I can speed her up without being detrimental to her eating methods, I don't want to spoon feed as it will be a step backwards for us.

Meals like ravioli she eats a bit quicker and doesn't usually go for desert, but I think she fills up quicker with the pasta, but I am keen for her to continue eating the meals we do, big variety of dishes. I am not fussed how much she actually eats and she is fine weight wise and some times she just isn't hungry like we are, other times she eats heaps :D But just hoping to speed her up a bit, as when she is eating at home she spend 1/3 of her day in the high chair!

DS only takes 5minutes cos he won't ever eat more than 3 moutfuls...of anything :rolleyes:

DD on the other hand would spend a good third of her whole day eating.....

wow i've never heard of kids being happy to sit in a high chair for that length of time!!!! half your luck.... i was lucky to get maybe 10 minutes out of our dd.... i am amazed that your dd is still interested in the food over an hour later... i suppose if she is happy enough its not a real issue.... i am actually quite flabbergasted!!

for me i suppose i would get impatient and want to be cleaned up etc, and might not have over an hour to spend dedicated to her eating.... i would probably encourage her to eat a bit faster cos we have to go out/play etc... and offer maybe smaller meals but more snacks (healthy) in between perhaps... but obviously its up to you how you play it.... you might not always have the luxury of such lengthy meal times though, i know i would struggle with it.