I weighed my 17.5 month old DS today on the bathroom scales and he weighs 15.3 kilos (I double checked it a few times to make sure it was correct). This is off the chart in the red book. He's always been around the 98th centile or so but has always been in proportion as he's tall as well and has a big head circumference. I couldn't measure him today as I couldn't get him to stand still but I doubt very much that his height will have jumped as much as his weight.
I feel horrified that I have let him get overweight. He has always eaten a lot since we began weaning but for that reason, I have always been really careful about his diet - he has no junk food or refined sugar at all. I don't even give him petit filou because of the sugar content, he just has plain yoghurt. He has never had juice either, just milk or water. However, I've always heard that babies under 2 don't really eat from greed so I guess I have let him have fairly big portions as long as it's healthy. He eats incredibly fast as well and never leaves anything on his plate. It almost seems like he's a bit obsessed with food, as once he's eaten everything really fast, he has a bit of a tantrum when it's finished and I say it's all gone.
He also has a total of 10 or 11 oz of whole milk a day, in addition to the milk in his breakfast cereal (2 oz of milk in the morning mixed with water, 1 oz of milk in the afternoon mixed with water and 7 oz of milk before bed). He has fruit twice a day, with lunch and dinner, and plain yoghurt once a day. He has rice cakes for snacks in between meals.
My husband has a really fast metabolism and has always eaten loads and is really thin, and I also can eat quite a lot and stay thin so I think I've assumed that he takes after us but this obviously doesn't seem to be the case.
I would really appreciate any good strategies for helping him. I know toddlers aren't supposed to lose weight but he obviously needs to stay the same weight for a while. I was thinking of slightly reducing portion sizes, and reducing the amount of carbohydrate a bit, and giving raw carrot sticks instead of rice cakes as snacks (as they take longer to eat!).
Also - can anyone reassure me that his being overweight now doesn't necessarily mean he will have weight issues for life? I just feel so awful that we have let this happen. Sorry for the long post and thank you if you have read this far.
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Behaviour/development
Overweight toddler
11 replies
TakeFive · 15/10/2012 19:40
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