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I save fruits for the ends but everything else comes at once. But I don't do dinners bento style. It's all on her plate, just like on my plate.

All at once, except fruit. Fruit is his dessert or he'd never eat anything else!

Now that we eat together we do it all at once, like our plates. When he ate before us, he'd get things bit by bit about half the time. He definitely eats his favorites first and asks for more, but after the second helping there's no more on the table left to give and he has to hang around until we're done eating. He usually eats or tries the other food if he's hungry.

@hilsy85: I actually do think it's a little different? Bento style with compartments divide the food more. And I feel like promotes pickiness a bit more? I feel like it visually separates the food more and makes it easier for my child to only the food she likes first. Although she always eat what she likes first now!
Lol I guess I just meant I'm not taking time to visually present the food every night like I would expect in a typical bento box.

@hilsy85: if he's fussy we eat fast! Mostly we let him "play", like pretending to feed us his food, to keep him entertained. We also have his chair by a large window so he can see into the backyard. I think our eating time right now is about 15 min max. If it's really dire, one of us holds him in our lap until the other finishes and then he gets to be "excused".

No need to be impressed, though. Tonight he ate 4 peas, 2 tator tots, and several fingerfuls of ketchup. Not exactly well rounded over here.

We serve all at once on a divided plate. She gets fruit, veggie, protein and carb. She almost always goes for fruit first but not always.

I give it all at once, but usually it's an "all in one" meal (like tonight was pasta with pea pesto, peas, and chicken sausage). I guess even when it's individual things I give it to her all at once.
Occasionally, if she's begging for food and I am still finishing dinner I will give her something first, but only veggies (I've been known to dump frozen peas on her tray...).
That said, she isn't picky yet....so my thoughts may change!

We plate her meal the same way we would our plates. I don't give her fruit a dinner. She usually gets enough as snacks during the day, and sometimes I'll give her fruit after dinner.

All at once. Getting up to get the rest of her meals from the kitchen would annoy me. I can't put it on the table to the side because she totally scopes out every dish on the table before digging in just in case there's something more appealing set out.

We do all at once. I've found it really helpful to look at LO's eating habits over the course of a week rather than each meal or over one day. For example, tonight she just picked out the beef and mushrooms to eat and barely touched anything else. Yesterday she picked out all the pasta first and then nibbled at everything else. The day before she ate all the broccoli first and then had a taste of the rest of the meal. On a meal by meal basis, its terrible, but when you look at the overall intake its pretty well balanced!

I just serve it all at once. That sounds like too much work! He does eat a ton of cheese and fruit some days, but I figure it balances out.

We started off by putting a little on her plate at a time, otherwise, she doesn't eat or plays with it. We've gradually increased her portions, but she often eats what she likes and asks for more instead of finishing everything on her plate.

Food is presented all at once on a regular plate or partitioned one. I like to break down the meals and separate the foods to offer him variety. He can choose what he likes to eat but has to try a bite of everything before he dismisses it. I also keep introducing the foods that he dislikes. Eventually he will enjoy it, but sometimes it takes a year for that to happen. I'm lucky that he isn't very picky. I also only offer fruit at breakfast and snack time. If I give it to him during a meal, he will just gobble up fruit and not eat the rest of his food.

@locavore_mama: Ditto

I put out everything at once but I only put out a small amount of everything so she is still hungry after eating say, the bread or cheese or fruit. We normally reserve bread to just meals that don't have any carbs. Her plate usually looks like veggie, protein, fruit and carb.