Learning about portion sizes for myself has been fairly smooth sailing, but I really struggle with what to serve my children.

I have a 2.5 yr old and a 1.5 yr old and they are and always have been 'good' eaters. The oldest has now got to a stage where she will refuse to taste the food if it doesn't look nice to her, but the food she does like she will stuff in her face as fast as she can without even stopping to breathe and then ask for more. The youngest still eats generally only through hunger but she is starting to copy her sister and request a third or fourth bowl of cereal in the morning.

I don't want them to have the weight problems that I had all through my childhood, but I am not sure whether its okay to give them more than I know is a portion size because they like it, or whether to restrict it because I know whats best.

Also, how do you get a 2 yr old to slow down her eating speed?

I am not really sure that this issue is a nutritional one and I would advise that you talk to your health visitor about the urgency with which your daughter is eating as this does seem a little concerning. It would be worth thinking back to see if anything occured to cause her to eat this way. However, from a nutritional point of view we are probably all guilty of eating too fast! One of the main factors with keeping the gut healthy is that we chew our food because our stomach and intestines don't have teeth! You could try only putting her loaded spoon in front of her and show her how to chew slowly - if you make it a game - who can keep their food in their mouth the longest - this may help but this is a hard habit to break and one which will take some perseverance on your part. As far as quantities go our stomachs are designed to hold as much food as we can hold in the flat of our cupped hands and if we eat more our stomachs will stretch to accommodate - the only problem is next time we will want to fill that space and this can easily lead to obesity. I would stick to one good sized bowlful of something like porridge or an egg and oatcakes and then tell her all gone. Two hours later give her a snack - something like carrot sticks, apple pieces or a smoothie. Little and often is far better than massive quantities of food. Hope this helps.

Yeah, I don't trust the advice of my Health visitor since she kept telling me to give up breastfeeding her when she was 3 months old and I followed her advice and always regretted it.
Thanks for the advice. I think I will try the game idea. We'll see if it works!