bro's slow eating again
hi. some might know me for my previous posts and how i'm often stressing about my brother.
today was quite a strech. yesterday, i let him slide; 1 cookie for 2 hrs and 30 mins, lunch for 3 hrs, and dinner (2 slices of pizza) for 2 hrs and 30 mins. mind you, he loves all those food that was served to him and they weren't an extreme amount.
well today. a plain ham sandwich. took him 1 hr and 45 mins. it's what he requested. but wtv i let it slide. thankfully (but at the same time, not so), he had school so i didn't care abt how long he ate his lunch. but gosh his snack — a ham and cheese sandwich. legit plain, he's been asking for it for weeks. yk what he came home with? the full sandwich with only 1 bite. i mean, 30 minutes, with an additional 1 hr for lunch, and 45 mins in the afternoon??
so whatever i told him during dinner "it's okay to be slow as long as u finish it". i took him upstairs in the bedroom at 6 to start the ham and cheese sandwich. it's now 7, let's just say he has a long way to go. with more than half of the sandwich left 😀 wtv i'm just worried that he'll throw up his food cause he's sensitive to that. but i left him alone and gave him all the time to finish it.
i'm also anxious about tomorrow. his breakfast's a burger. i still can't process these happenings though; some days, he's able to quickly finish the same food he's eating when he's slow. i don't understand why this happens.
example: he'd down the same ham and cheese sandwich in under 1 hr. but now, it's completely taking him 4 hrs. it's consuming me. and idek anymore cause all i'm packing him is what he likes and the servings are not big.
@decisiveSpruce7079
My brother was a slow eater too, but generally not more than an hour and a half for a meal.
I would eat slowly when finsihing quickly meant being required to resume or start a task or activity I didn't want to face. Sometimes it was a way to avoid people or school classes.
My older brother did it because he liked the social aspect of sitting around the table with others. Even when others got tired of sitting at the table, they'd keep coming around to check on him.
My parents assigned the task to my second oldest brother (not the slow eater) to sit with me at the table and bark at me to eat faster until I was finished. By the time I was around 9 years old, I'd been effectively conditioned to inhale a meal within ten or so minutes. I kept eating that way till I moved away from home, at which point I started slowing down again.
Does your brother have an explanation of why he eats so slowly? Is a doctor involved? How is he doing physically?
All he answers is "i don't know". Despite some times where we either leave him alone and let him be, or constantly remind him to be faster and continuously chew, nothing improves.
Such as what's happening right now, his lunch portion was extremely little and he's still going on; it's been 2 hours..
Okay one it makes me so happy toread about you caring about your family like that. Secondly, it is really scary. But you're doing the best you can, and I'm sure your brother appreciates you making sure there's food for him even if he's not eating it. Everyone goes through rough patches sometimes. I know in my brain one thing can set me off and I won't eat for the day. But, the fact that your there is gonna help at least a bit. I would say keep doing what your doing, maybe ask him why he's been eating less than usual. It can be really hard to eat normally consistently, as long as he eats that's what matters most