My feed
Premium

Please
or
to access all these features

Find weaning advice from other Mumsnetters on our Weaning forum. Use our child development calendar for more information.

Weaning

Not gaining weight, any advice please

15 replies

sparkymummy · 26/02/2007 16:40

Hiya, my little lad is 8 and half months old and is happily eating 3 (very small imo!) meals a day. He is breastfed and still takes quite a bit of milk, mostly at night! Since I started him on solids in Dec he has put on very little weight and has dropped a centile on his weight chart thingy. The health visitor said she wasn't worried at the mo as he is alert/happy etc but if he doesn't start putting on again soon I will have to do a food diary etc and they'll look into it. I kind of want to avoid that and want to sort out prob myself really as I always get a bit stressed out with docs/hvs etc. Anyway, sorry to waffle but has anyone got any good ideas to help him gain weight or should I just not worry about him as I don't want him to waste away (no chance of that at the mo but want him to grow properly!) but also don't want to end up turning him into an obese babe by stuffing him full of fatty stuff either!

OP posts:
Report
MrsBadger · 26/02/2007 16:43

but babies need fat
gram for gram it's the food that gives them most energy
Good fatty food won't make them obese, they're growing too fast.

Is he having full fat milk, cheese, Philadelphia etc?
There are loads of calorie-boosting threads for skinnymalinks - I'll see if I can link to any.

Report
tortoiseSHELL · 26/02/2007 16:48

Babies do need a very high fat diet - they should be having lots of full fat milk (on cereal etc, main drink should be breast milk or formula), cheese, yoghurt (not low fat). Give him plenty of snacks in between meals - lots of fruit, bananas, breadsticks etc. This is the age where they can plump out a bit in readiness for walking, when they slim down again!

Report
MrsBadger · 26/02/2007 16:50

this one was started for a 5yo and this one for a 4yo but lots of good suggestions on healthy high-calorie foods.

Report
sparkymummy · 26/02/2007 19:21

Ok, now I'll sound really daft but how much is lots of fat? He has cereal with full fat milk each day and will have meals with cheese and full fat philly etc when we do, eg cauli cheese, cheese on toast, philly on rice cakes etc, and loves yoghurts but I only give him, say 2 or 3 a week, is that not enough? What about the good fats bad fats thing, does that apply to babies to, eg olive oil etc being better for them than lots cheese etc?

OP posts:
Report
sparkymummy · 26/02/2007 19:27

Oh, and thanks for the links MrsBadger, will try and incorporate some of those ideas into our diet. His Dad is pretty skinny and can eat like a horse without ever putting on weight (lucky bugger!!) so maybe he'll just take after him instead of me, who's more sort of short and stumpy!!!

OP posts:
Report
amidaiwish · 26/02/2007 20:09

DD1 was like this, i just loaded her food with cheese/butter etc.. at any opportunity. worked a treat. thing is she is a bit of a cheese-aholic now aged 3!

Report
KristinaM · 26/02/2007 20:15

my baby is 14 montsh and only eats 3 small meals a day too. he still has lots of BM though, I suspect he's getting about half his calories from it. he is fat tub, but so is his dad . soulds like your Ds is just like his dad too!

Report
sparkymummy · 26/02/2007 20:25

KristinaM does he take most of his milk in the day or at night? At the mo my DS feeds loads at night, I don't love it but I can just about cope with it, although if he cut down himself I wouldn't be upset iykwim!

OP posts:
Report
Scootergirl · 26/02/2007 20:27

DS is 9 months and as far as I know, they do start to slow down a lot on their charts once they get on the move which is about this age.
Does he have high-fat snacks - cheese etc - during the day? Maybe that would help with the night feeding as well.
Try stirring a dollop of marscapone cheese (a la Nigella) into his meals to up the fat content and you worry about him getting obsese if the time comes

Report
KristinaM · 26/02/2007 21:14

sparky - he feeds about twice in the night ie between midnight and 6am. its a real pain, i wish he woudl sleep through. he feeds a lot in the day too. He doesnt like cows milk or formula, will take it in porridge or cereal thats all. only drinks water from a cup.

I shoudl have said he eats 5 small meals a day , not three. but they still seem small to me. he didnt take a lot of solids at 8 montsh. I wasnt worried as Bm has far more calories than most baby food IYSWIM


there is soem good infor on the kellymom site about weaning Bf babies
here

Report
mootie · 28/02/2007 10:40

My DD is between the 0.4 and 2 percentiles, having been born there, gone up to the 25th, then down again, and we've had a LOT of hassle about her weight, which in my mind was totally pointless and verging on the irresponsible, as it has caused us huge amounts of stress and upset.
No child is supposed to exactly follow the charts. Nobody knows why, but breastfed babies have different growth rates from formula fed babies, as I am sure you know, and bf babies slow down after six months (our DD even earlier!). I wish I had been more questioning with the HV when the issue was first raised. I will never implicitly trust a HV again. We were referred to hospital, where we were told by the pediatrician to add butter, cheese, etc, which we were already doing, and also try an extra meal or snack (seven years of medical school for that?), but seeing as she's not a hugely hungry babe, that seemed to me like a useless bit of advice. She is perfectly healthy, just small.
In desperation, we just got a book, My Child Won't Eat, by Carlos Gonzalez. It's a La Leche League book, and TBH, at first I was quite resistant to reading it, as I find the LLL agenda a bit much for me, but there's a lot of common sense in it, and there's a lot in it about how our expectations, as parents, of what kids eat, is not realistic. As I understand it, they don't really need to eat that much once they get a bit older - he will probably be cutting down on what he eats, whether you like it or not. Basically, as long as you are OFFERING your son food, chances are he is growing properly, he's just growing the way he needs to be, and not the way the stupid charts think he should. I know it's disconcering that they go from eating all the time, to not being interested, but within reason, maybe we need to trust our kids know what they need.
Sorry if this is a bit of a rant, but if I can help someone else avoid the stress we have suffered, it would really cheer me up!

Report
sparkymummy · 28/02/2007 13:16

Thanks mootie, although I'm sorry you had all that stress! Might have a look for that book as a few other posts mention it, perhaps library will get it! He seems fine in health, I'm short (as are all my family) and when I was little docs apparently tried to get my mum to give me those growth hormones that they have now found could cause CJD, she stuck with her guns and said that whatever size/shape I was is what I'm meant to be and I'm really glad she did!! Perhaps I just need to accept that with DS, just so hard with first babies, esp when HVs seem to be out to make you worried!!

OP posts:
Report
cmm · 15/03/2007 22:48

Mootie - thanks for the info - just joined this thread - was looking for info on weight gain and weaning. My little one was 6lbs at birth and now still little 12lbs 12oz at 7 months. She is sitting up, rolling over and very active - not a great sleeper either. Hasn't put on much weight recently (nothing for 3 weeks) HV said she'd like to see her in two weeks. Have been really worried but am now adding more meat and cheese and yoghurts and keeping BFing. Thanks for your info - encouraging to read of others. Think we just have little children and as long as they are healthy that's all that matters!

Report
pawre · 16/03/2007 08:25

My LO is in the 2 percent. She was just under 6 lbs at birth. Avocado she eats lots of. High calorie and healthy. It's great with yoghurt and banana.

Report
HandbagAddiction · 16/03/2007 08:38

There's one other approach to this which is not to get them weighed in the first place! I don't mean this to sound at all harsh but think of it this way - you are all saying that apart from not eating a lot, your children are well, active and alert. So if you didn't have the opportunity to get them weighed at at clinic, then would you ever even think that there was an issue? As probably you wouldn't have any clue that they were underweight?! Hope that's all making sense so far!

DD2 eats tiny amounts compared to dd1 and is pretty much on food strike at nursery during the day - unless it's finger food, my own food or porridge - she 9.5 months. She actually doesn't eat that much at home either but is alert, happy and does not look underweight. I have not had her weighed since she was 4.5 months old and I have no intention of getting her weighed now as I think she's OK and ultimately if she was hungry she would eat. Simple as that!

So point being, I think we all need to relax a bit and not worry about weight as long as all the other indicators of good health are OK.

Report
Please create an account

To comment on this thread you need to create a Mumsnet account.