To not put oil/butter in my ds's food to try to fatten him up?

[froken]

Ds is 9 months old, I went to get him weighed today (he has a very small/almost closed soft spot from very young so I have to have his head measuered every month and they weigh/measure him at the same time)

He has gained about 0.1kg in the last 6 weeks.

The nurse was worried about him not following his curve, he was 4.5 kg (10 pounds) at birth and on the 98th centile, now he is 10 kg and on the 50th centile. he looks chubby, he has a little buddah belly and chubby legs. He was 55cm at birth which was also on the 98th centile but now he is only 72cm which is around the 50th centile. me and dp are very average in height so it is no supprise to me that he is average height.

The nurse asked me about feeding, ds eats dinner and lunch, he eats parridge with fruit for breakfast and I breastfeed him lots throughout the day.

She said he was probably not gaining weight because of me still breastfeeding him and if I wanted to continue breastfeeding him I should add oil/butter to his meals to give him extra calories.

Ds moves all the time, he is not stop crawling, pulling himself up and cruising around the furniture, he has been like this since he was 6 months old.

I feel like adding extra calories with no nutritional value to his diet is a bad idea.

AIBU to ignore her? His head measurment was fine but not the nurse wants to see us next month to watch his weight.

She's talking bollocks about the BFing, but otherwise I suppose it depends on what he eats - what is his diet like?

DS was like this though. Never stopped moving and was a very scrawny baby, still is at 6yo.

It's fine as long as you are actually feeding him butter and oil.

One of the worrying things is numpties feeding their kids low fat, low sugar etc.

Ignore and report, this is extremely bad and unprofessional advice. She shouldn't be working htere if she is giving out that sort of advice, bloody madwoman!

I wad told the same with both of my boys, who were born on 50th centile, and dropped slowly down to 9th (ds1) and 7th (ds2).

I ignored the hv and now have 2 healthy 50th centile sons :)

Healthy fats like butter, and certain oil are good for him anyway...so it doesn't make sense to restrict him. I suppose as long as he's eating real food throughout the day, in addition to bf and he isn't hungry, then he's fine.

Look up muesli malnutrition. Well-meaning parents feeding kids low fat food when in fact they need high fat, calorie dense food.

Can be counter productive giving high calorie foods though - they're still at an age when they feed to their needs, its only throwing sugar into the mix that overrides a natural appetite. So if you drown something in butter they'll feed less at other meals. Ime anyway.

But basically both height and weight have dropped, in tandem, to the same percentile. This would suggest to me that actually he's doing just fine, and having been born larger he's now finding his own level.

Well babies do need some oils and fats to grow healthily.
Ignore the bit about Bf but make sure he is getting some fats. They are essential for brain development and cell membranes and several other things!

Things like butter and coconut oil are great for him :) but she is talking absolute turds about the BFing though!

The charts they follow overestimate weight especially in breast fed infants. My children both travelled along the 98th centile at the beginning son came down to 50th and settled there. Daughter stayed on 98th and was really chubby at a year. Sounds like he is fine. I wouldn't worry about the length either as these are notoriously inaccurate at birth. Keep up the good work and well done with the breast feeding.

There shouldn't be any need to "add" butter and oil because it should be in there already. If you are deliberately excluding fats then yes, you do need to add them . No baby should have a low fat diet, nothing to do with bf.

You are wrong to say that the calories in butter and oil have no nutritional value.

I feed him a mixture of our food put through a blender, so roast dinners, stew, pasta with different sauces and jars.

One of the problems is that ds has learnt to escape from his higchair straps and so after about 5 mins he stands up and trys to climb out of the highchair. I don't force him to sit down and eat but I will continue to feed him on my knee but he will wiggle untill I put him down because he has very important work to do like take all the books of the bookshelf.

I really thought that a child won't starve themself, if they are hungry and there is food infrount of them I really believed that they wouldn't wiggle to get down.

it is difficult with breastfeeding because I don't actually know how much he eats, he has always been a very quick feeder, she asked me how many times i fed him a day and i had no idea , I must count tomorrow.

Do you actually avoid feeding him any fat?

I use a far higher fat content in DD's food than adult food. Babies eat far less and need a more calorie rich mouthful than adults. For example, I use unsalted butter to cook with where I would use sunflower oil for DH & I. She is offered full fat yoghurt and cheese as snacks as well.

It sounds like catchdown growth to me. Both of mine were the same - over 10lb at birth and around 50th centile after a few months. Some of us just breed big babies who are destined to be average sized children.

He's only 9 months old, so most of his nutrition should come from milk. There is a saying 'food's just for fun before they're one'.

Personally I'd ignore her on the basis that if she's so dumb about bfing then I wouldn't trust any other info she gave!
Dd2 was 10lb3oz at birth, then slowly dropped to around the 50th centile where she's stayed ever since. She's on the same line as dd1 who was 8lb4oz. Birth weight has little/nothing to do with eventual size.
Trust your sons natural appetite.

Provided he is having protein, carbs and fats in his diet and is healthy and active, I would ignore what she said. Under 2s should normally have full fat milk etc, not semi skimmed but I'm sure you know this.

My ds was & is still small due to being premature and I was advised to add extra calories in his meals. So I added cheese, butter & full fat milk.

I don't avoid fats for him at all. It isn't that I feel like I should cook without butter/oil when making food she was suggesting that I add oil/butter to all of his meals including his breakfast, fruit and jar meals. We avoid salt and honey and that is it, we don't give him sweet things apart from maybe a lick of an icecream or a mouthful of cake at a birthday party.

The attitude to breastfeeding here (non uk) is terrible after 6 months. I am going to start studying this month and I asked their advice about what is the best way for dp to give ds milk while I am away (possibly 2 full days a week) they advised me that he is old enough to just eat food he doesn't need milk anymore. I have a good friend who was told that breastfeeding is effecting her sons growth hormones negatively and she should not be breastfeeding anymore (d-friend's son is the same age as my son) shockingly we luve in a country that is often held up as a very supportive society in regards to breastfeeding.

I thought food was for fun until a year and breast milk should still be the main source of nutrition.

You're not really answering the queston about fat in his diet now which worries me a little. He needs things like full fat dairy products such as yoghurts. Does he get anything like that because 'fats' are NOT empty calories for little ones.

Doesn't really matter what he eats if you bf on demand surely?

A v good, v wise, vl PhD-sciencey friend once put on a v innocent face when I was crying about having to take DD to be weighed (when she wasn't gaining as fast as hv wanted her to) and asked 'is all this weighing making her any heavier?'.. It wasn't.

I don't think there is a problem. Your DS was a very large baby at birth and now has become an absolutely average baby. If he is on the 50th centile for both weight and height, he is completely in proportion and certainly doesn't need to be fattened up. In fact, if you increase his calorie intake, he will only get fatter - not taller, so he won't be in proportion and may become overweight.

Ds2 was 10lb 7 at birth and kept above 95% until about 10 months old when he got gastroenteritis. This triggered his coeliac, but wasn't diagnosed until 22 months. He'd dropped to 50% but was skinny, listless, no longer pulling himself up, barely crawling. Ate well, but due to the gluten I was inadvertently poisoning him with throwing up after most meals and not absorbing anything much from the ones he didn't. It was very obvious that he wasn't well (to me at least, until I got the Drs to take not of the drop to 50% in conjunction with his symptoms)
If your lad is active and enjoying life then I doubt he's coming to any harm. If he's too busy to take time to eat a lot just make sure what he does eat is high calorie but that doesn't have to be unhealthy

He eats full fat food. his favorite food is fish so I will make sure I buy oily fish to cook for him (and us yam!)

I just feel like I don't want him to learn that things like porridge and fruit have lots of oil added to them.