To ask for high calorie recipes my 5yo might actually eat...!

[YukoandHiro]

I'm close to losing my mind with my 5yo and her eating.

Short history:
Severe CMP and egg allergies (epi pen carrier)
Never been keen on food from day 1 of weaning
Was ok weight (25th centile) til I stopped BF at 2y 8m
Since then has slimmed down a lot. August birthday so smallest in her class by far - skinny and very short, dropped off the charts for weight by age now but probably just running along the bottom by height (she is in age 4 clothes for height but the waists are always loose).

I'm worried about her weight and her attitude to food. Every meal is a battle with screaming and crying except for the obvious beige foods like sausage chips and beans. She has school lunches as she won't eat packed lunches but often apparently only eats fruit and bread the whole day.

Obvs I can't load foods with cream/cheese

She's never drunk much milk (Oatly or Alpro growing up) and we battle to get enough calcium into her daily.

We try so hard to follow Division of Responsibility but I do get frustrated and I've definitely done a lot of bribing around pudding rather than leaving her hungry just to get the calories in her.

This is a long way of saying - has anyone got any ideas for calorie loaded foods that might actually be attractive to her? All she eats is bloody beige carbs and fruit, and then not much of it.

have you looked into stuff like elmlea? has anyone offered you prescription foods?

That's good to know @MinorWomensWhiplash1 - she's loves oranges and she has one most days

Milkshakes work well. Chocolate or strawberries with teaspoon of nut butter, honey/brown sugar, ice and whatever milk she’ll tolerate (or none tahini will add calcium). Make a small glass in a liquidiser so she wants more.

Just seen your update re: allergies - are seeds okay? If so tahini/sunflower butter/soy nut butter will add good fats into porridge/pancakes/flapjacks. You can blend silken tofu into smoothies or a kind of chocolate mousse for extra protein.

Beans: on toast, hidden in shepherds pie, made into burgers.

Fish: salmon (for good fats) in fish cakes or fish fingers, disguised with golden breadcrumbs.

Will she eat meatballs with chips/spaghetti? Either bought or homemade. I’d also not rule out the occasional vegan protein shake if she’s really underweight.

My cmp can tolerate goats milk and goats cheese. He isnt fan milk but will have custard but he loves goat cheese. Helen's farm do hard version of goats cheese that's really creamy.

@godmum56 We use Oatly and Alpro products which are supplemented to be as close to a nutritional equivalent as possible to cow's milk - but she just doesn't really eat enough.
Honestly my 1yo eats three times her portions!

That’s great. Is she generally well, plenty of energy etc? I really fret about my low weight DC too but really it doesn’t seem to affect them at all, plenty of energy to run around and learn. I try to be relaxed about it but I know it’s hard!

@Hankunamatata How did you find out they tolerated goats? Did you have a skin prick test done?

This is an allergy food site (American) with lots of recipes.
www.kidswithfoodallergies.org/recipes-diet/?cat=0#res
There is a category chooser top Left so breakfast, mains or whatever. It might just be trial and error. lots of kids are fussy, even without allergies, so they spend a few years eating beige food, I get that it’s not ideal but there is time for her to start liking other food. I think the best thing is to just stop the battles tbh. It’s better she eats beige than doesn’t eat.

if it’s weight you are worried about then what about calorific treats eg these bars made with full fat coconut milk? They are 277 calories each

Swap peanut for almond butter as allergic to peanuts I meant to say.

@MotherWol thank you so much - lots of good ideas there. She does like salmon. She only really likes fish actually, we struggle with meat.
But meatballs with chips is a great idea. Apparently she did once eat meatballs with gusto at school - her teacher made a note to tell me as it's so rare she gets properly stuck in to lunch!

What about having energy dense snacks freely available?
Dried fruit, nuts that are OK for DD2, flapjacks...

DS1 used to have ( skinny, and still is as a teen, but we didn't have the allergy restrictions) breakfast, breakfast 2, snack, lunch, snack, dinner, supper. It felt Iike constant food, but if you went for a mixture of beige things she will eat, and things that are every dense, but only small might you get more into her?

There are lots of posts being added, but something I've not yet seen mentioned is oily fish, which should be ok with all allergies? But I've been writing this for a while, as DS2 keeps asking questions!

@Itsnotthesameasitwas thank you for that recipe it looks great - they are both definitely fine with cashew so I can swap that in

Tagging because I'm a couple of years behind you with an underweight daughter.

I'm not having much success but all I can really suggest are:

• nuts/nut butters. I've lately started literally feeding my daughter a couple of spoons of peanut butter at bedtime
• coconut milk rice pudding
• pasta with oily things like pesto, or if she will eat a tomato sauce, hide things in it (blend meat into it)
• when cooking with mince buy the highest fat % variants

Tbh though dieticians I'm always a bit 50/50 on, they suggest high fat diets but my fat is slow to digest and makes you feel really full, for a low appetite child I'm not sure it actually works. I think trying to get a load of basic white carb in can help as it digests quickly and easily and they actually like it.

I share all your feelings about how hard it is every day .

Porridge with whatever milk sub and whatever nut butter you find? If she won't eat it for breakfast, then make it into pudding (add choc, marshmallows, toffee sauce, etc) as at least then her pudding will be nutritious!
Roasted whole nuts as snacks?
Are animal fats okay? If she likes carbs what about relatively plain risotto/pasta but just go to town with sausage, fatty bacon, mince etc?
Fruit smoothie with neat coconut cream (much more calorific than coconut milk)?

i like Kids eat in color on Instagram. She’s a dietitian and has programmes for different things, one being “picky eaters” as she calls it. May be worth a look, just in case she has any posts which appeal?
My son had fpies reaction to fish and weaning was a nightmare, we had so many excluded foods. He grew out of it by 3 though and afterwards I realised how much time and energy and worry that mealtimes has become.
Sorry, I don’t have any suggestions but if you are concerned about weight gain now and need advice, can you try your allergy team again and see if they can make suggestions and review? Or via the gp/ health visitor for a different opinion?
I hope you manage to get some support/ suggestions as it’s not nice worrying about weight gain and what to serve all the time.

No we did a food challenge.

@FatAgainItsLettuceTime sausages sandwiches for breakfast is a good idea. We tend to end up having cereal because it's a way to get a certain amount of soy/oat milk in her but if we used a calcium rich bread it would be a good swap and with lots more calories

Would these drinks help? uk.yfood.eu/collections/vegan/products/vegan-tasterpack

Each bottle is around 2000 calories and they're milk free.

(If you want to try them, I have a discount code you can use. I'm not affiliated with them, beyond using the drinks!)

How difficult for you op

I would get her as involved in cooking as possible and also in the shopping for ingredients.

can you give her sausage and chips but add one thing to her plate that is new, not a big deal if she actually eats or not but it might be that one day she might try it.

For a nice relaxed dinner one evening that you can all sit down to do a buffet - lots of the things she likes and can eat with some of the things you enjoy too. Add newer things in to and just let her help herself to a plate of what she likes.

As pp have suggested smoothies if she’ll drink them but get her to help make them. Get her an apron and a chef hat!! Make the preparation exciting.

Are there any yogurts she can eat? Alpro for example? Can you make dips with them that she can dip fruit into?

Try and take a relaxed approach to her eating, she may be small but don’t compare her to her pears. As long as she’s not starving and is eating something she will be ok. And if dinner time is more relaxed she’s more likely to be more receptive to trying new things.

Hi OP, I feel for you I really do. My DS has lactose intolerance which is in fact easier to manage than what you describe and he doesn't have allergies

My DS loves a thai thing I do - onion, sweet potato and coconut milk with a shop bought thai red paste (I only use a bit so not too spicy) and served with home made flatbreads. I do add peanut butter to the thai sauce but you could leave this out easily or substitute with a different nut butter.

How about homemade spicy tomato beans and sausage with mash too? Or a mild chilli with lots of avocado on the side?

PS - you can make the thai sweet potato thing into a really nice soup by adding more coconut milk / diluting

@Greenkitten thanks, I've never heard of this.

After a particularly awful week with it all (the heat won't have helped) my DH have decided to try to get a phone appt with her dietician to discuss further

I had such a similar experience with my son. He was tiny and losing a lot of weight. He had an allergy and had a ,bit of an aversion to food as he had to have a lot of medication when he was young so avoiding food felt like the only thing he could control.

We basically relaxed mealtimes loads. Just stopped the battle. If he didn't eat then so be it (a lot easy said than done). We would make things that we knew he liked, so he loved sausages but we fried them on lard instead of grilled them.....anything to add extra calories and bulk. He loved hummus (chickpeas are high in calcium) so would have that a lot, with pitta or even just on a sandwich.

My main advice would be don't worry if she will only eat certain things for now. My son is a healthy 9yr old now who's favourite meal is steak and calamari!!

@MinorWomensWhiplash1 No she shows no signs of being unwell - eg she has a lot of energy, is learning and focusing fine, always running about.
It's almost like food just at best bore but at worst repulses her. She was awful to wean. She barely ate one meal a day til 2.5, so it's not new behaviour as such. It's just I guess I thought it would self correct a bit by now and that school would make her hungrier etc.