Advice on 3yo ds's diet

[louloutheshamed]

My ds has just turned 3. He is 100cm tall and weighs 17.8 kg which according to the nhs Bmi calculator makes him overweight.

He does not look fat but at swimming I notice that there are some kids who are so skinny where you can see all their ribs and he is more solid. He wears 3-4 y clothes and we have to take the waist in on trousers. My husband was overweight as a child whereas his two brothers were v slim so an worried about him being similar.

I thought if I described his diet for the last 3 days you could maybe advise me on where am going wrong?

Sunday he had:

Breakfast - Pancakes and berries
Out for lunch - one of those lunch boxes with cheese sandwich, biscuit, jelly, orange.
Dinner- Sunday dinner- roast chicken, veg- broccoli, carrots, turnip, boiled potatoes and Yorkshire pudding (had a bit of everything)
jam sponge with custard.

Yesterday he had:

Breakfast Weetabix with whole milk and slices of melon
Lunch - Beans on toast (1 slice)
Melon and grapes and plain yoghurt
Tea- chicken with cous cous salad, cucumber sticks and cherry tomatoes
Berries and yoghurt

Today he had-
Weetabix and banana
Lunch at nursery- pork bolognaise but he only tried it
Banana with choc sauce
Tea at nursery- ham and cheese panini and they usually have a pudding but can't remember what it was.
Snack tonight- plate of sliced apple, orange, melon, breadsticks, hummus

I am trying to think of ways to improve his diet-

I have chucked out all sugary cereals (Cheerios etc) as he did have these sometimes but will stick to Weetabix/porridge
I have swooped juice for water though he is less keen on it
He still has while milk so could swop to semi skimmed?
I stopped bf him at 18m and got paranoid about calcium so got used to having puddings ie yoghurt, rice pudding, custard etc, and he expects this now but shouldn't be getting them daily I suppose?
He doesn't really have sweets but will have chocolate biscuits cake etc occasionally when being spoiled by grandparents

In terms of physical activity he is v active, never sits still. Yesterday we went out for a long walk of about an hour (he was on his
Scooter) on Sunday he was playing in a playground for 2 hours, climbing, running, on sat he was digging at the beach, today at nursery he's been playing outside and tonight practising his forward rolls!!

I am so upset about this as he is my amazing boy and I feel I have failed him - I was shocked when it said overweight but reading threads on here I thought I should check. It
Seems like a fine balance though- if he grows a couple of cm he will be classed as healthy. He was always 91st centile as a ebf baby.

[louloutheshamed]

Should add that he usually doesn t finish his plate- eg sponge pudding he only had a couple of mouthfuls,

[Nicole1976]

His diet sounds good, I have a 3 year old who is overweight and you can really tell that he is a fat little child but his diet isnt as good. Sometimes just because a small child is classed as 'overweight ' it doesnt mean they need to change their diet or lose weight. In fact I might feed my child the same things that you feed yours

[missmagnum]

My 3 year old ds weighs 18kg and classed as overweight on the chart but he really isn't at all and has a good diet. Still in some age 2-3 clothes, can see his ribs, doesn't have a pot belly etc. He is just solid and always been heavy. He is under the hospital for something unrelated and the pead has said the same.

If you're still worried maybe mention it to your gp next time you're there.

[louloutheshamed]

Oh god I thought I was going to get majorly flamed for letting him become overweight!!

Yes some 2-3y stuff still fits- trousers fit on waist but are too short.

Will ask gp next time, good idea.

[missmagnum]

I know its horrible when you get overweight, but I don't think bmi is much of an indicator at this age.

[shinynewnickname]

My DD 3.3 is about same height and weight. She is solid but not fat. She's looks a lot more sturdy than her peers but she is under consultant for kidney problems and he has said she's fine.

Both her sisters were exactly the same but now at 7 are really tall and skinny. Tallest and slimmest out their group of friends. I always remember my dad lecturing me about their weight and now they're the complete opposite. One of them has just had pneumonia and wasn't eating for weeks. It was a real worry as she was losing a lot of weight She couldn't afford to lose. So I suppose what I'm saying is as long as he isn't unhealthily overweight then I wouldn't worry. I'd probably be more worried if he was underweight