Gaining Weight for a 2 Year Old

Gaining 2 lbs in 6 months is normal according to my daughter's pediatrician. When my daughter was 2, she was about 22 lbs too. My daughter will be 3 in a few months and weighs just 26 lbs. You probably just have a petite child. My daughter lost interest in food around that age too. Your daughter is probably just more interested in playing at this point. I wouldn't worry about it, but if you want to try supplements, I buy Nutripal bars for my daughter and she will eat about half of one at one time. They are a little expensive though, but you don't have to give it to her everyday - just when you notice she isn't eating well that day. My daughter's pediatrician said if they are eating at least one good meal a day, they should be fine. You can just carry nutritious snacks around with you in your purse and let her snack. Offer things like cheerios, fruit, yogurt, and cheese often. Don't give her too much juice. It may fill her up and has lots of empty calories. As long as you're offering her foods and she is snacking, she will be alright.

For some extra info on allergies and what you need to avoid check out www.kidswithfoodallergies.org (you have to become a member for $25/year or apply for a free membership if you can't affor the fee) and www.foodallergy.org (again there is a membership fee, but I forget how much it is). These resources have been indespensible for me in coping with my daughter's milk, egg and nut allergies. These sites also have a lot of recipe ideas to help you (or your little one) eat well while on an allergen free diet.

I'm a mother of four girls 20, 18, 12, & 10 and with every one of them around 18 months lost interest in food. It should pass and she will eat all the time. It did with all my girls.

I'm pretty sure pediasure and nutripals are both dairy based. You could try searching for vegan recipies. I could send you some if you like, but some of them may have soy in them. My daughter is lactose intolerant as am I and we eat mostly vegan recipies. hint(livestock fed w/ soy and dairy can cause the same probs if your kid is supersensitive) If your interested you can email me ____@____.com and I'll send you my recipies.

try vegsource.com they have really good ones. Or just google vegan recipies.

My son was very underweight for his size when he was a baby (still is he's 13 and weighs about 55 pounds soaking wet, my daughter is almost 6 and weighs 42 pounds so big difference in kids) anyway my son done FANTASTIC on strawberry pedisure, it really helped him gain some weight. He had no other health concerns so dr. said some kids are just small like their parents, i'm 5'7" 115 lbs and hubby is 5'5" 150 lbs. Good luck and hope the pedisure can help her.

I personally do not have this problem but I have had a couple of nieces who have fallen of the charts. First of all, she is two, so being a little picky is normal. All two years olds have some food issues I am learning. One of my nieces would only eat cereal for a long time. My oldest would eat nothing but chicken nuggets and hot dogs everyday if I would let her. Just keep encouraging her to try new things and she will eventually work out of that stage. Also, they use up A LOT of energy at two so if she was already a little on the small side, hitting the two mark doesn't help. As for the hungry in the middle of the night thing, have you tried giving her a snack before bed? Especially if she doesn't want to eat at dinner, you might need to add an extra meal or two in there to make sure that she is getting what she needs. She will go through all kinds of changes in eatting schedules in the next year so be patient as SHE figures out what works for her.

I had a similar problem with my now 2 yr old little girl. At about 15 months I couldn't get her to drink any milk (I think I had her spoiled on juice!) Long story short, after giving her no other option, she learned to drink milk but the dr. had us substitute 2 cans of pediasure a day to get her to gain some weight. Its a little pricey if you've got a tight budget like myself but it did work. Wal-Mart has their brand though which is a little cheaper and I've compared it to the name brand and it has all the same ingredients and mostly the same, if not better, percentages of nutrients, calories, ect. Good luck!

we were told to give our child tums each day for acid reflux.

It does help

Hi L.,

This sounds just like my little blue eyed girl. Actually about 2 hours ago she woke up b/c she was hungry. :o) At 18 months my daughter was not even on the chart but that was due to an illness that she got last year. She was always small but at 18 months she dropped off the chart. She isn't very picky but she does only eat small amounts. I am not a pushy mom when it comes to finishing everything she has on her plate. I am in the fitness and nutrition industry so we eat pretty healthy. I wasn't worried to much about her weight just that she was getting the proper nutrition. She was diagnosed being allergic to milk when she was about two weeks old. (blood in the stool, vomiting...)and that was all through breast milk alone...no formula. So I stopped all milk products. My oldest daughter had the same issues and both were checked for acid reflux. Nothing came of it. So long story short, my little blue eyed angel just turned 3 and on her check up she was in the 48% for weight. I did nothing but feed her good wholesome food. No supplements except Juice Plus to keep her immune system strong and bridge the gap between what she does eat and what she doesn't. So don't worry to much...if you would feel better about getting her checked out for acid reflux then I would say go ahead and do it and have piece of mind. Good Luck and Merry Christmas.

My son is almost five and only weights 35 lbs. My daughter is almost one and only weights 15.5 lbs. If the doctor doesn't see a problem I've learned not to stress about it make sure you give them good food and maybe a vitamin a day. S.

It doesn't hurt to start supplementing her with pediatric formula. If she will drink I would take advantage of it. Still encourage solid foods. Find items that aren't acidic.

If your daughter was diagnosed as being allergic to dairy then she should be taken off the organic milk too. It might not being affecting her as obviously as regular milk but it could still be causing pain in her stomach. She probably knows that whatever she is eating is going to make her stomach hurt which in turn makes her not want to eat very much, but she would continue to be hungry and want to try to eat again at night. As a toddler, my little sister ended up in the hospital because she couldn't gain weight. It was because she she was allergic to dairy and everything was making her stomach hurt so she wouldn't eat.

It is really hard to eliminate dairy from a diet. Not only do you need to look at labels for the obvious words like milk or cream, but you also need to avoid products with the words whey and casein in the ingredient list. A lot of breads and pasta have some form of dairy in them. My son had to eat rice bread and we gave him puffed rice for cereal (very bland so you might want to add sugar) when he was having problems with dairy and soy. I am sure that Nutripals and Pediasure have some form of dairy in them so I wouldn't even bother trying them. Some kids can actually handle goat's milk so you might want to try that along with trying almond and rice milk. A health food store could become your best friend because they often have these things and are willing to special order products that are dairy free.

I have a 4 1/2 year old, 3year old and 16mth old. My girls are small too, 25lb, 26lb, and 18lb. They have always been small and quite frankly never on the growth charts. Earlier this year we went through a bunch of tests with my oldestnot only was she not gaining but she was losing weight. The doctor suggested Pediasure and we tried it. She gained about 1-2lb in a month. That is a lot for her. Both of my girls loved it and they also loved Nutripals snacks.

She sounds like my son. He is very tiny and wouldn't eat much at all (3-4 bites and he was full). He fell off of the growth chart at 4 years old (50%-3%). I was concerned and pushed to see another doctor. We went to a pediatric endocrinologist and everything was fine. I wasn't convinced, but didn't know what else to do. By 6, he was still in the 3 percentile--we went to a pediatric nutritionalist. She suggested refux. So, off to a GI dr. He did an endoscopy and discovered he had severe acid reflux. His entire esophogus was swollen, red and raw. We put him on a very heavy dose of prevacid and within a month, he started eating. In the year since we started the reflux meds, he's gained 6 pounds (more than he had gained in the past 2 years combined). He's like a new kid--still picky, but he's actually eating now. I would definately follow up on the reflux idea--a friend of mine was going through the same thing and it turned out her son had the same issue. Good luck!