Help me fatten up my BLW baby

[HellomynameisIcklePickle]

Well, he doesn't really need fattening up but I just don't know how to get more calories into him. He's relatively tall for his age - he is 10 months but in 12-18 month clothes. But he is less than 25% for weight although he's obviously healthy.

His typical diet is

Breakfast: A mound of shreddies or porridge, an apple and a Yeo valley yoghurt

Lunch: Cooked chicken pieces, half a Philadelphia sandwich, blueberries and red grapes

Dinner: spag bol, some cooked veg, a yoghurt.

Lately I've been given him a yoghurt at lunch too as he's still hungry.

If it was up to the baby he'd have bread every meal but I do try to limit it because of salt and how healthy it is. I'm not sure whether I should let up on that and let him have more toast/sandwiches?

He has an allergy to eggs so although I am not excluding it absolutely from his diet I do try to not give him eggy things like pancakes (which is a shame because he loved them!) He's not very good at eating rice or mashed potato or things that are too saucy.


He's breast fed and has 7 big feeds a day and he's really good with his BLW but like most people I'm getting into a little bit of a rut. All our dairy is high fat and we cut salt out wherever possible.

As I was thinking of this post I realised I could be adding more potato - via new potato and sweet potato into his diet and maybe a bit more banana.

Any other suggestions? He'll try anything although he has cycles of what he enjoys and is better at eating some foods than others.

[HellomynameisIcklePickle]

I should say the heading is a bit of a joke - he doesn't really need fattening up although he is having a growth spurt and he wants more food and as it's BLW he's not able to eat much of the "healthy" stuff.

So he has grapes and red tomatoes and might have 10 of each at a meal but he sucks each one a little bit and spits it out. So I give him a lot of food but I don't think he eats a lot of calories from it. But all the unhealthy stuff like pasta and bread and weaning biscuits disappears!!

[geekaMaxima]

If you want to get more calories into him - and you're certain you do - then fat is your friend. Make his porridge with cream instead of milk. Put lots of olive oil in the spag bol. Give him Greek yoghurt - or even better, mascarpone - instead of regular yoghurt. Put peanut butter (assuming he doesn't have a nut allergy) on his sandwich as well as Philadelphia. Make rice pudding with creamed coconut block instead of milk.

The fruit and veg you mention are great but low-cal, so swapping some for potato and sweet potato is a good idea. Avocado is even better.

He sounds like he's taking in plenty of volume of solids, as well as plenty of milk still, but you don't want to displace his milk feeds too much at his age. Increasing the energy density of his solids will increase his calorie intake overall without displacing any milk feeds.

[HellomynameisIcklePickle]

Brilliant that's exactly what I was after thanks so much!!

[Icedfinger]

Proper cheese or cheese sauce?

Dumplings made with suet? Eg stew and dumplings.

Pastry? Cheese straws, pies etc.

Things like rice pudding instead of another yoghurt. Could add stewed fruit or raisins too.

[HellomynameisIcklePickle]

I should say he's gone off cheese for some reason!! Although he scarfed some cheese on toast yesterday which surprised me, perhaps it is back on the menu again.

I think a beef stew with dumplings sounds like a good possibility this weekend too

[HellomynameisIcklePickle]

Just thought I'd say greek yoghurt and avocado going down very well today thank you!

(And mac and cheese for tea last night)

Is the supermarket's "greek style" yoghurt the same thing though? The proper stuff is expensive.

[anothernumberone]

What is wrong with those percentiles? I would not see any need to change his diet it sounds excellent. Why develop a taste for fats in a perfectly healthy child?

[charitygirl]

Snort at 'why develop a taste for fats?'. Humans being have an innate 'taste' for fats as they are essential for brain and body. Healthy fats are a great thing to feed a baby, and all the suggestions above are spot on. The idea of feeding a baby a 'lowfat' diet is ludicrous and unhealthy.

Greek 'style' yog is fine btw.

[HellomynameisIcklePickle]

another - he definitely looks healthy and he is happy. But as I said a lot of the good stuff gets spat out and the unhealthy bready things which are easier to eat get woolfed. So I'd like to try and help him increase his calorie intake without giving him an unhealthy diet of easy to eat things like his weaning biscuits which go down very quick!

My dh thinks it's coincidence but when I started offering him yoghurt more often he had his next growth spurt which was over due.

He's always been tall and skinny but when he became active he lost a lot of his reserves and even though he didn't grow he dropped from 50% to 25%

He still has a lot of feeds and cant go over 5 hours at night. I will always offer bm milk but it will be nice if he starts to need less too.

[Parliamo]

Bread and pasta are not unhealthy

[magpieC]

I'd you want to do more potato based things then mashed potato mixed with "things" and then fried into patties or sausages work well - fish for fish cakes and/or cheese are good and can have veg mixed in too.

[Splatt34]

My DD loves avocado but finds it a bit slippy to pick up so has it mashed on the goodies crackers. I would say just keep offering what you do.

I have the opposite problem, at nearly 9 months she is on the 98th centile for weight, eats everything and loads of it, and is down to 2/3 milk feeds. I'm interested your giving grapes already, the only thing that worries me.

[eltsihT]

I would introduce some snacks.

Slices of Apple, mango, chunks of banana. Grapes(I give them cut in half) chunks of cheese, crackers etc

[wherethewildthingis]

I make broccoli and cheese muffins for my seven month old, he LOVES them and as I put butter and full fat milk in they give plenty of calories!

[anothernumberone]

Charity girl I am interested to know where I said feed the child a low fat diet. I think it is crazy to be suggesting using cream to make up a babies porridge or throwing extra olive oil into pasta, for a child who is perfectly healthy and is getting a completely healthy diet.

[HellomynameisIcklePickle]

Splatt I'm still avoiding nuts for allergy/choking reasons but he gets his grapes halved, like eltshiT does. The way I see it, half a grape is pretty much the same as half a cherry/plum tomato.

wherethewildthing I'd love a recipe or a link if you have one?

eltshiT I definitely should be doing some more snacks but I really struggle with time. I'm paying more attention to his routine so I can figure out when I can fit it in - it's difficult because he takes ages to eat his meals and I can't give him a biscuits at random intervals because the dog gets a bit bonkers!

Parliamo I struggle with this a bit as my diet is very unhealthy and pretty much every meal I like a big dose of carbs which I know isn't great. There's a balance to be had somewhere. I also struggle with the white/wholemeal options and have decided (for now) to use white bread and pasta as that is what I eat.

another - I don't think I am cramming my baby with fat every opportunity but he's making it clear to me he would like a bit more of something. The other day after a big dinner he ate 3 large pots of yoghurts! I want to help fill him with the right foods and as he's not taking much cheese at the minute, and he drinks a fair amount of water at mealtimes I think it's ok to enrich his dairy a little bit with a dollop of double cream or greek yoghurt. It all gets thinned out with the rest of what he is eating anyway.

[Parliamo]

Sorry my initial post was a bit abrupt, I got interrupted! You sound like you're trying very hard to get a good balance anyway. I wonder even if you're over thinking it. I'm no expert, but I would suggest it's better to think of no major food group as unhealthy. After all, it's only too much of something that's bad for you in the long run.

White over wholemeal is generally better for children anyway. I'm sure I've read wholemeal fills them up before they've had enough calories as its more difficult to digest. Likewise, small children should have a higher proportion of fat in their diet than adults. I would think carbs is a good way to fill up your little boy, especially if that's what he seems to want. He's still too young to be over feeding himself. It's a good idea not to encourage to finish his plate, and not reward with sweet things, but other than that just let him get on with it.

Fwiw, my three have had ridiculous appetites and I know what you mean about fitting it all in, especially with 7 feeds a day! I wonder if you could reduce that, if you want to. I have to, as I am going back to work and I know from experience, she (dd3 8 months) will just wait and take on more in one go.

[anothernumberone]

Sorry OP I did not mean to get at you. I was responding to the rude snort comment. My child is 2 and still in some 12-18 mth clothes though mainly 18-24 month old clothes. He is also on the 25 percentile. He is skinny like his Dad but perfectly healthy.

I genuinely tend to worry more about the current trend towards children becoming obese than feeding up a child to get them up the centiles, it is so easily done. Some of the children in my older children's class are very big and it makes things very difficult for them in terms of sports and activities. I also think our culture has this innate tendency to try to fatten up babies from birth and then spends from when they turn 3 on giving out to mothers because heir children are over weight

DS cut down on his feeds himself around the 18 mth mark and still feeds the odd time although he is cutting that out. I totally agree that a spoon of creme fraiche or cream in porridge once in a while is perfectly fine. But I think adding extremely high fat food to a diet day to day to up the calorie intake is not the best course of action especially at 10 months. Your baby gets most of his food from you, including the best type of fats, at 10 months although his solid intake will continue to rise. I would just keep offering a wide variety of food types as frequently as necessary.

[HellomynameisIcklePickle]

Parliamo I know my post seems like I am obsessing slightly but day to day I don't worry about his food at all. It's so easy to get into your own little rhythm and then realise "there is more I can be doing, but what is it!"

As said, he had a really good BLW dinner, thought I'd finish it off with a yoghurt and he scoffed it down... and 3 yoghurts later I thought I'd like to help fill him up a bit without it being all yoghurt!

another I know you weren't aiming the comment at me but I guess I thought if I clarified my position you could understand where the other poster was coming from.

I have no problem with my son being on the 25th centile - he's just like his Dad too! There are pictures of him as a child with legs like matchsticks, and I'm grateful he'll have his Dad's metabolism rather than mine. The "fatten him up" is a joke, I don't think he needs to be fatter as he is clearly healthy.

I did feel at some stages I was feeding my son healthy "diet" food, mixed with lots of white bread and pasta and I just wondered what middle ground there was - mainly through more substantial vegetables like avocado and banana. What else was there to help give him energy to support him through his growth spurt other than yoghurt yoghurt yoghurt! and philidelphia sandwiches!

[anothernumberone]

My little fella loves soup he would eat it until it comes out his nose. I make it really thick and he can dip bread and butter into it. He loves fruit too. He also loves raw peppers and knawed on them from about 10 months, tomatoes but I think you wait until after 1 for those, cucumber was always a hit. The benefit of blw imo is that you just give them whatever is going from your plate. As long as there was no salt in it my lot got it. Indian, thai, spag bols you name it, they tried it.

They all go over and back from eating everything to nothing but they have yet to starve.

[rallytog1]

To be fair, I think the childhood obesity problem is more down to sugar than fat. For example, there was some research done that showed children who drank full fat milk were less likely to put on excess weight than those who drank semi-skimmed. Fat also isn't addictive in the same way that sugar is, so I wouldn't worry about your baby developing a taste for fat!

[wherethewildthingis]

Broccoli (and/or cauli) and cheese muffins:

6 cooked broccoli florets, chopped
4 oz (1 cup) grated Cheddar cheese
8 oz (2 cups) self rising flour (or -to reduce salt levels - use all purpose/plain flour plus 3 level tsp baking powder) 6 fl oz (3/4 cup) milk - use whole milk, or breastmilk/formula if you prefer
3 tbsp olive oil
1 egg, beaten

Preheat the oven to 375 deg F, 180 deg C. In a bowl, mix the flour, cheese and chopped broccoli. Add the milk, oil and egg and blend thoroughly. Grease a 12 hole muffin tin and spoon in the batter. Bake for 25 to 35 mins until golden.

[wherethewildthingis]

Oh, and you can freeze them then just blast in the microwave for about a minute!

[HellomynameisIcklePickle]

Ooh that looks yummy thanks!

[geekaMaxima]

anothernumberone - I'm the poster who suggested the high-fat foods in the first place and I stand by it for the op's particular circumstances. Sometimes it's necessary to increase a baby's weight and what the op describes fits that.

A weight on the 25th centile means little unless you know the height centile, and if the op's 10 month old is wearing the clothes of a 12-18 month old, his height centile will be at the higher end. When a baby's weight is 2 centiles or more below height, they will have relatively low fat reserves under the skin. They are likely to be still healthy and happy, but they don't have the reserves to see them through a bout of illness or d&v without the risk of becoming seriously underweight and finding it difficult to fight off the infection. Increasing the baby's weight acts as physiological insurance, just in case he or she catches something nasty. (Hope I'm not alarming you here, op, but really wanted to be clear about this).

At 10 months old, you still want most calories to come from milk and the op's ds sounds like he is already eating a good quantity of solids. Adding more solids in the form of fruit snacks, as some pps suggested, is unlikely to increase his weight gain, and could actually decrease it, as the extra solids will displace some milk, but - because fruit is lower calorie than milk - will end up with him taking in less calories overall. Rather, increasing the fat content of food via cream or olive oil increases the energy density with a minimal increase in volume, leaving the baby with greater calorie intake overall. And the fat content can be gradually dropped back to regular levels when the baby hits a more secure weight.

Babies and toddlers need fat at high levels, much higher than adults, both for brain development and physical growth. Much of this should be saturated fat in dairy, meat, avocado, etc. rather than mono- or polysaturates in olive oil etc. As a pp pointed out, it's sugar that should be treated with caution as regards obesity.