How do I make toddler gain weight?

[Changemyname12]

Hi, my 2 years and 4 month old son has fallen under his percentile line at the last health visitor weigh-in.

She now has given me an appointment on January 14th for the Saturday weight clinic.

I have weighed my son today and he is still not gaining. He has plenty to eat and we feed him regularly. The problem is whenever he is ill he stops eating. He's had this horrible cough that he picked up from the childminder and is now on antibiotics for it. I literally have to force him to eat and he's just picking at the food.

How do I make him gain weight? Any suggestions? I am a bit scared of the next appointment, what they will say if he is still not gaining and what they will do.

Thanks for any advice xx

Instead of just adding butter to everything you could you could try ground flax seeds cod be stirred into just about any meal or smoithie, chia seeds and pumpkin and sunflower seeds. These foods are all nutritious but very calorific. Freeze smoothies into lollies in help soothe sore throats too.

It sounds like the 50th percentile was more of a blip than dropping back into the 25th though.

My advice would be to stop weighing him. I never let the HVs weigh mine after they were newborns, it causes nothing but trouble. You can tell just by looking at toddlers if they're doing ok. And besides, you can't make them eat. They go through phases at this age. Just offer a balanced diet and he will be fine.

Sorry my phone keyboard went into one.
flax seeds could be stirred into any meals or smoothies

We have one of these and have found that supplementing his diet after yet another bug does seem to stimulate it. We've been giving him a pediasure 'hot chocolate' last thing.

With our poor eater it has more often been more about saying no to the unhealthy stuff he wants/MIL wishes to stuff him full of like a foie gras goose and making room for meals. But yours looks hopefully a bit young for bad influences 🙂

The only way is to make every mouthful very high calorie and nutrient dense - peanut butter, cream, cream cheese, butter, banana, full cream ice cream, avocado (if he'll eat it) egg cooked in butter, full fat milk with added cream and abidec drops. Little cubes of cake made with almond flour to Victoria Sponge ratios of fat and sugar.

I feel for you. DS was underweight for years. Every mouthful was a battle.

I really feel for you having gone through similar with one of my children. It is so tricky. Mine eats almost nothing the minute he has any type of illness. He isn’t great at eating when not ill.
We are under paediatric care for his weight and the advice from multiple doctors is to literally let him eat whatever he wants. It feels so wrong to let him eat crisps, cake, chocolate almost unrestricted but we’ve got him to just over the 1% bmi doing this (he does also eat “normal” food) and I’m probably going to get flamed for writing this.

I don’t want to worry you but it’s just that poor weight gain can SOMETIMES be indicative of other health problems, for example heart problems. This was the case with my daughter (though we already knew about the heart problem). It almost certainly isn’t the case for your son, and it probably would have caused weight problems when he was younger, but that’s why HVs worry about this seemingly unnecessarily. it’s highly likely your child is absolutely fine - you’ve basically already identified the issue, it’s that he doesn’t eat when ill and he he’s been ill a lot - but I imagine that’s why the HV wants to keep an eye. I’m really not trying to worry you, most children this won’t be the case but for a small minority the HV making a fuss might help spot something that might otherwise be missed.

one tip we were given by a dietician is to stir ground almonds in to everything (porridge, cheese sauce, baked beans…) They taste of nothing and add good fats and calories effortlessly! See also gutter and cream as mentioned above.

Oh I had constant hassle over DD1's weight. She was 9lb2oz at birth and only 19lb7oz on her 1st birthday. She was off the top of the chart for height though. She is now 20, still very tall and a normal healthy (but athletic) weight. You would describe her as slim, rather than skinny. When she was 10, I had a letter from the school nurse to say she was overweight but shortly after that she had the most massive growth spurt ever but didn't put on much weight, so returned to her normal slimness.

I wouldn't worry too much, OP. It sounds to me like you are doing the right things. Trust your instincts.

I mean, to me that looks like a relatively normal pattern of toddler growth. They don’t gain weight in a nice linear fashion. Which is exactly as you saw - he jumped up the the 50th before returning to the 25th, which has been his baseline centile since birth. He hasn’t lost weight, he’s just not currently gaining it as quickly as he did before. Sure, if his weight stalls and he starts plummeting below the 25th centile I’d be worried, but if he’s still roughly sitting on the 25th, I’d probably carry on what you’re doing.

I really do not think adding lots of butter, cheese and sugar to things is a good idea and im surprised by the amount of people recommending it

Talk to the dr first and they can help you with meal plans and additional calories in the correct way if doctor thinks he needs it

Has he had growth spurts height wise recently?

I think you should see the 50th centile measuremen as the unusual measurement, and remember he is on the 25th centile, just like he's always been.
Keep offering food like you normally would. Let him decide what to eat.
Settling back on to a centile he usually sits on is not cause for concern - unless he has actually lost weight.

I’m amazed your 2yo is still being weighed by a HV. Why? Are there other medical concerns? Children grow at different rates at different times and it sounds like your child is just smaller, they’re not actually underweight before or after this slight centile shift. I can’t see anything to worry about here I think HV is being a bit ridiculous and making you worried for nothing.

I thought exactly this.

If he's generally been on the 25th centile and that is where he is now I don't see a problem.

And why is he still being weighed? I had a premmie with IUGR and even she wasn't tracked beyond the first few months.

I am not sure to be honest. He has a 10 month old sister, so maybe they think they could weigh them at the same time?

Is it normal for 10 months old to still be weighed?

I think I will refuse any more weighing appointments after January.

Ds is 2.7 years. Was 99% born for height and weight.

Now 80th height but 8th weight.
He can’t eat nuts or dairy whilst doesn’t help, but has also been ill on and off for months and like yours refuses to eat when ill.

Not uk, so paediatrician checks more often here. But he checked and even tested for coeliac in the summer, but seems to think he’s fine and said many children don’t stay on equal measures or same as born.

Dh is very tall at 6’4 so Ds isn’t ever going to be short, but I’m 5’4 hence why it put him at 99% height as it’s based on mothers height. Ds very active so I think he just wears off calories

It is specifically recommended that children under five not be given a low-fat diet because their appetites are often small and they need the calorie density. Sugar isn't a great idea if avoidable, because of risk to teeth and the inculcation of habits, but palatable fats are healthy. Children don't have the same nutritional needs as adults.

@Potato28 children’s diets should be 35% fat, much more than adults. Cheese, butter, full fat yogurt, avocado, nut/seed butters etc all great choices for fats

OP my son is 25 months, haven’t heard from an HV since 6 weeks and he hasn’t been weighed by anyone except the allergy clinic since around then, so maybe I’m the extreme other end, but I didn’t think any babies were being weighed regularly past a year unless there was a specific concern

Is there a specific concern or reason that’s led to him being weighed? I don’t think my DD was weighed after being a few months old until she had the Reception height and weight check at school.

Is it normal for 10 months old to still be weighed?

I think I will refuse any more weighing appointments after January.

I think most weigh in clinics are voluntary abs by 10 months, most Mums have gone back to work so don't bother getting their LOs weighed. I got my PFB weighed a few times but I think DC2 was weighed about 3 or 4 times at most.

So he's actually on his centile, which has always been the 25th?

He's 100 percent fine and your health visitor is an idiot.

I never weighed mine past 6 weeks, I could see they were growing!

@modgepodge

Read the thread properly, the child is on his birth centile,

Macn cheese is a winner in our hosue

I think its much more likely that the 50th centile reading was a bit out (maybe he needed to clear his bowels or had eaten a lot that day or they were using scales that hadn't been calibrated) and he's 'dropped down' to his normal line. My 2 DS are tiny, both on 9th centile and 25th for height. I can feel it when I carry friends kids that mine are so light. But they eat really well and are happy kids that are full of energy. I'm not in any way concerned. In fact when I see the photo you posted my youngest is much more slight that yours, yours doesn't look under weight in the slightest.

You can put every intervention in place but they are the ones who control how much goes in to their mouth. Ensure he's not eating anything 'low fat' and try and squeeze in as much as you can...double cream instead of milk in mash, add cheese to everything, cream in porridge. Mine eat much better when we serve things family style and all eat together at the table, wee bit controversial but if you ditch the highchair he will be able to pick what he wants from the table. If he's not eating something after a while take it away, it's just stressing both of you out. There is no way I would go to a weekly weigh in clinic, maybe an annual one at a push.

I agree. I only weighed my DS for his first year, and I weighed him myself.

Only went to the HV weigh-in once as the whole thing was ridiculous. It was January, and the waiting room was so full of family groups with obviously sick older siblings that many new mums with infants had no-where to sit. Then at the weigh in, DS had to be completely naked, and peed all over my coat! 😫 I bought some paediatric weighing scales and never went back.