Toddler Weight Gain

I really wouldnt worrie.. if she has always been smal then its ok.. my son was the same way he was 3 in size 18 months! if you know that she is eating enough then she is fine. now my son is almost 4 and he is now in size 3T! so in less than a year he grew all at once. I think she is just one of those girls that are going to be small! My son had RSV at 2 months and he was in the hospital for 7 days! it takes them a little while to get over the cough!

Dear A.,

First off, I would like to say you are doing some *great* things as a mom. You are breastfeeding, co-sleeping, baby wearing, and many other things that say to the world that you love your kids and being a mom. So please pat yourself on the back right now!

If your child has always been small, but growing taller and reaching developmental milestones...then she is HEALTHY! I have experience with this issue. My daughter was born at a healthy weight but then leveled off off at twelve months and fell of the weight charts. I was breastfeeding and not giving solids because I was unsure how to start. My pediatrician created a lot of unnessecary drama over this and I won't go into all the details but...my daughter is a petite little girl still at age 4! She eats a ton of healthy food and she now weighs just 30 pounds. I'm 5'3" and my husband is 5'6" and we both have small frames...something I kept telling my ex-pediatrician who only wanted to focus on my daughter's weight.

Please don't take the WIC office advice on nutrition!! Carnation instant breakfast milkshakes are a poor choice for nutrition. Read the label on that drink. It is full of partially hydrodgenated oil, sugar, and synthetic vitamins.

A better choice is to offer high fat, densely nutritious foods like: avacados, pitted olives, nuts or nut butters. If you want to make a healthy shake for her, blend some organic soymilk (Publix Greenwise Brand, plain), a frozen banana, and some peanut butter. Add a little honey for sweetener and blend in a blender or hand mixer.

As long as your are feeding your family whole foods, you are on the right track. Always read the label and look for ingredients that say there is *real* food in it.

Hope that helps :)

First of all, remember that the helpful sweet people at WIC are not pediatricians! Have you talked to Aleena's doctor? He or she may not feel like Aleena's weight is cause for concern at this point. I would suggest this because I think you are being really hard on yourself. It seems to me you are doing everything right with your kids. My daughter is 2 and 1/2 and she's always been small too (in the 10th percentile at birth), even in the womb, so you aren't alone. It's hard though, when you see her next to pudgy little toddlers, and she looks so tiny, right? You think you must be doing something wrong...
As for higher fat, healthy food, I suggest avocados and olives. Also if she likes yogurt, the YOBaby brand has full milkfat. Good luck, and I'm glad she's feeling better!

PS...This is a quote from another poster:
"you say you were against formula period. well if you read about breastmilk, only the first few weeks of breastfeeding is what's nutritional for the babies. to quote my mom 'after that it's only white water.'"
I'm sure you know that this advice is completely untrue...Breastmilk is certainly not "white water. Rather, it 's full of fat, and "building block" proteins for the brain that formulas have just tried to duplicate in recent years. Breastmilk is best for babies and nursing them for at least one year is what pediatricians suggest...The nutrition in breastmilk changes along with your baby--because your body senses what she needs most. Breastfed babies sometimes gain weight slower in the first 6 mons, but are almost always healthier than formula-fed babies...You are doing the right thing--keep on nursing!

Avacados are healthy and high in fat. Also salmon is high in fatty acids but Im not sure it promotes weight gain. Peanuts and p-nut butter is great and high fat, I give my son p-nut butter crackers and he loves that!!

HI A.,
My daughter is 2 years old. Our DR. told us she was a little thin also, we started giving her Pediasure (it's a little expensive). She would have this in the morning because she's not big on breakfast, it seems to have helped to jumpstart her weight gain.
She is still only about 23 pounds, but I myself didn't hit 100 pounds untill I was in high school. The DR said not to worry too much about it because she is very active. Also, when she gets hungry we will retty much giver anything (besideds too much junk food) that she will eat, she loves peanutbutter and fluff and lots of cheeses.
I hope this helps!
S.

I just want to say that first, you're going above and beyond as a mommy, you need to think more highly of yourself !!! Give yourself a good tight hug. Take a long bath in candlelight after you put your girls to bed next...hell make it a ritual just for you, it'll make you feel better !!!

Now, you should never take the things you hear/get off a list of averages too seriously, they are never quite right when it comes to babies since they are all so different !!! So WIC says that your little girl is a little small...from what I've read from you, she is just made that way and you should not be worrying so hard...and I know how hard that is, my little boy is a 2month preemie and everytime the slightest thing happens (or doesn't) I want to freak...but then I remember that he is going to be small until puberty as per all his doctors told me. And that he is, too, very small, but as healthy as an OX !!! Don't worry so much, you'll all be fine !!!

As for fattening, you don't want to increase a babies weight to quickly as this can cause problems later in life. Always choose the healthiest foods you can for your kids, and remember that a potato looses nearly all nutritional value if you cook it outside the skin !!! Lots of fresh fruits and juices are healthy and fattening (make sure it's pure juice, not from concentrate) as are cereals like oats and creamofwheat, and especially the yogurt and cottage cheese.

Good luck dear, and remember to take some time for you every day, even if it's just a few minutes !!!

I don't agree with the raw egg yolk!
How about grilled cheese sandwiches (real cheese slices, not the cheese food product), natural creamy peanut butter (Publix makes a good one) and jelly sandwiches, whole milk on cereal, whole fat yogurt (like Yo-baby); mashed potatoes with butter and sour cream blended in; bananas; scrambled eggs. Also try to increase her protein content; you need protein to build muscle (chicken, scrambled eggs, cottage cheese...)
Although she likes the carnation instant breakfast, I have to agree with the poster who said that they are not the greatest nutritionally. Try the Yo-Baby yogurt instead; she may like that just as well...
Good luck! I know how worrisome it is when a thin child gets sick. My son has always been small for his age and I was always really worried when he was sick because it seemed like he ate nothing. He's 4 now and finally seems to be gaining some weight.

HI I KNOW HOW YOU FEEL ABOUT YOUR DAUGHTER I FELT THE SAME WAY ABOUT MY SON WHEN HE WAS YOUNGER HE WAS SMALL N JUST LIKE YOU I WENT TO MY WIC APPOINTMENT N THEY WERE TELLING ME HE WAS 2 SMALL (ACCORDING TO THEIR CHARTS)SO OF COURSE AS A MOTHER I GOT SCARED N STARTED THINKING IM NOT NOT FEEDING MY BABY ENOUGH U KNOW JUST STARTED COMIN DOWN ON MYSELF LIKE I WAS DOING SOMETHING WRONG TO MAKE IT SHORT TOOK MY SON 2 HIS DOCTOR N I FOUND OUT THAT HE WAS FINE WHAT IT WAS WAS HE IS JUST TALL 4 HIS AGE SO HE WAS WEIGHING THE SAME AS OTHER KIDS BUT SINCE HE WAS TALLER HE JUST LOOKED THINNER BUT I ALSO FOUND OUT U CAN GET WIC 2 PAY 4 THAT PEDISURE IF U GET YOUR DOCTOR 2 WRITE A REFFERAL SAYING U ARE HAVING SOME CONCERNS ABOUT HIS WEIGHT THE ONLY THING ABOUT THAT IF THEY DO GIVE IT TO U YOUR OTER COUPONS MAY CHANGE SO I HOPE EVERYTHING GETS BETTER 4 U N DONT WORRY THEY WILL

A.
you didn't tell how much your daughter weighs and what's her length, BUT, no baby is the same. if youw ere to look at charts, if we all did that, we'd go nuts. i know i did with my girls until just recently. i'd count calories they'd eat for a meal, that's how bad it got, and more i pused food more my girls refused to eat.
you say you were against formula period. well if you read about breastmilk, only the first few weeks of breastfeeding is what's nutritional for the babies. to quote my mom 'after that it's only white water.' so formula was great on my kids. my girls were born weiighing 5 lbs and 6 oz each. i also breastfeed for two months and then started supplementing with formula. once i did that, their weight jumped, if i remember correctly, they were about 9 pounds when i started giving them formula, and within one month their weight jumped to 13. i got sidetracked here about formula. obviously your daughter is pass the formula stage.
so, since you said she eats anything, then add avocado whenever you can, to pasta for example, or mashed potatoes. avocados are very fatty and fat is good. give her only whole milk but not a lot, at this age she should be drinking about 12 oz a day of milk. also, one hr before feeding her hide the cups withw ater or juices. let her get really hungry and then give her a few things, for example mac n cheese or different kidn of pasta with chicken nuggets. once she eats what constitutes a meal then give her soy yoghurt, or kids yoghurt. i have heard soy yoghurt is also very fattening. i don't know this for sure. then some kind of veggies, then string cheese, or banana or whatever. basically different things. as for the weight i'd rather have skinny babies (but healthy) then overweight because that will become a problem in the future.
for reference for you my girls are 28 months and their weight is about 29 lbs and height about 39 inches.
good luck
V.

A.,

I wanted toshare something with you about my daughter. She has a condition called Failure to Thrive. She doesn't eat alot by mouth and she is underweight. She is 3 and tiny. She loses weight every time she has a cold.
We have to feed her high calorie foods. She loves grits, mashed potatoes, and mac & cheese. She gets a high calorie formula at night called Peptimin Jr. It's expensive and very hard to find.
I would rec giving your daughter a fruit smoothie drink....they are made by Dannon and Publix. You get them in the dairy section of your supermarket. They are sold were the yogurts are kept. They are high in calories.....
You can also try pediasure. We had to use that once, and I think they are one cal per one cc. You would have to read the label.
I know how frustrating all of this cn be....trust your instincts. It wouldn't hurt to have her seen by a GI doctor. Tampa has a great practice of GI's for kids. Call Pediatric GI....if you can't find the number,I will get it for you. This is who my daughter sees for her FTT. We see Dr. M. Winsett....LOVE her!
Good luck with all of this.
M.

First, i would say, how much does your daughter weigh? Only thing i can say is, my son is 4 1/2 and he weights only 30lbs; he is very thin and very small... but he eats well and when he's hungry and eats what he likes as well. My pediatrician as well as other's i've seen also tell me that there's absolutely nothing wrong with him, he's a small child and will be that way, but he's healthy, nothing wrong with him, and he is growing, slowly but he is. And not to worry about it. May be it's the same thing with your daughter. What does your ped. say about it? After all, WIC people are not doctors, they just go by standards they have written down on paper by someone else. Good luck.

Hello. I'm sorry to hear of your hard days. But, if you're open to this, my father tells me that our people used to use this to "fatten up" their children-milk, raw egg yolk, cinnamon, vanilla and carnation condensed milk (all to taste, of course). You warm the milk, put the raw elk yolk in (I prefer to pop the yolk and pour the yolk out of the sac, that way she doesn't drink the slimey stuff), add the rest of the ingredients and shake. You can give it to her in a sippy cup. I hope this helps. Good luck to you!!! Many blessings and hugs as well!!!!

Try formula with iron for Lillian. Aleena might like mashed potatoes and fruit juice or applesauce. Peanut butter is healthy too - try PB&J sandwiches.
I would think 'healthy' and strive for good nutrition too.
And... take care of yourself, thats the best gift you can give your girls - they will need you later on to be there for them and show no signs of all this stress :)

Moms are supposed to be super-human, didnt you know?

Hi A.,
I don't really have any food ideas, since my daughter is only 9 months old, but I just wanted to say it sounds like you're a great mom! I can't tell you how often I hear how great breastfeeding is for kids- even into toddler-hood. And co-sleeping has been a wonderful experience for me as well as my daughter! So, hang in there! If she's getting better, then she'll start eating again and start gaining too. If you're still concerned, call the nurtritionist or your pediatrician. They should be able to calm your fears or tell you foods to give her. It sounds like it's just been a rough couple of weeks. Anyway, I just wanted to say that it sounds like you're doing a great job!