DD1's weight

[manchestermummy]

Sorry, I know this is a thread about a thread in a way but I'm sitting here stressing about DD1's weight.

DD1 is 3.4 and is tall for her age. She also kind of looks to me to be big for her age too. We weighed her last night and she's 16.5kg. Having calculated her BMI she's an okay weight but only just IYSWIM.

I was overweight as a child and it was a miserable way to be. I don't want my children to be the same way.

I think DD eats ok, typically as follows:

Breakfast: a couple of mouthfuls of Weetabix (if we're lucky) and a small handful of raisins.
Doesn't always have a mid-morning snack, depends how active she's been.
Lunch: If at home, cheese or ham sandwich (I grate the cheese), sometimes with a bit of hummus and pepper. Yoghurt or fruit.
Mid-afternoon: Again, depends on how active she's been but typically one of those Goodies fruit bar things (the one a day things, not a cereal bar) or breadsticks and a satsuma.
Dinner: A small portion of what we're eating of which she usually only eats half. Always served with vegetables which she makes a good stab at. We try to cook from scratch most evenings, if not we might have scrambled eggs. Yoghurt or fruit (depending on what she had at lunch).

We never have anything like ice cream in the house, sweets and chocolate are very stricly rationed. She drinks water with meals, sometimes semi-skimmed milk or watered-down juice (she like it this way, btw!).

The trouble is she's not very active. She swims once a week and hasn't been in a pushchair since she was two and a half and we walk short journeys, but over the winter she's developed a bit of a park/out of doors phobia. She gets cold but won't dress warmly, and goes nuts if she gets wet. We do stuff like dance in the house.

I'm out of my mind with worry that she's going to end up like me (I'm not overweight now, however) and DH isn't taking me seriously . I was bullied, I couldn't find nice clothes to fit and had zero confidence.

Dont think ive done this right, dont know if this helps

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/1164477-to-be-annoyed-that-at-age-5-DD-has-been-labelled-as-OVERWEIGHT-borderline-MORBIDLY-OBESE

The spring is coming on soon - would dance classes work for her? Or how about learning to cycle? (Both of you).

Don't worry too much though, you are not passing on your bad eating habits you had growing up, so history should not repeat itself. :)

dress her up warm (don't forget you're in charge ) & get her outdoors at the park...could you go with a little friend of hers ? Most kids love going to the park (even I did & I was lazy!)

Also perhaps try to get her to a local gymnastic class once a week & just a 20min walk to the shops/library every day is good practise. Has she got a scooter she could go on ? They're good for just going round the block & getting the blood flowing.

Great this is on your radar, btw. I keep an eye on my DD's because I was a chubby child. My mum seemed to think it was good to be chubby, I hated it.

We do walk daily (she has a baby DD and I don't have a double buggy and we both hate the buggy board), and she gets a runaround at nursery. She's terribly shy though so if there are any other children in the park she cries and wants to go home. Sometimes she'll cry just at the thought of it. I think she'd love gymnastics but the local classes are for 3.6 up so we need to wait a couple of months.

My mother used to tell me I was fat; MIL thinks fat is good.

She does have a bike and can just about cycle, but again, she won't go on it outside our garden because of other children. I'm certain she wouldn't use a scooter. She had a go on her friend's and hated it.

It sounds to me like she eats a very healthy diet and does enough exercise. I think your husband is right and you should just relax.

I was a slightly overweight child too. My parents strictly regulated treats as well. The result was the first opportunity I had I went and spent all my pocket money on loads of sweets. Until my 30s, I had a hard time regulating the amount of "treats" I ate. In fact, I read about a recent scientific study in which the researchers showed that children not given things like biscuits or chocolate at home ate twice as many as kids who were allowed relatively free access to them (sorry don't have a link).

Just because your daughter is slighly chunky, please don't restrict the range of food she eats to only very healthy things as you are setting her up for problems in later life. You may have to accept that she is naturally on the larger side. Having now got over my earlier sweetie addiction I realize that this is the case for me. I am a size 14/16 but I cycle 7 miles a day five days a week and do not eat between meals. I have never been any smaller and my BMI says I'm obese. My GP told me to ignore BMI, as it is a blunt instrument and not a correct indicator of whether someone is unhealthily overweight.

I know you are only trying to do your best for your daughter, but please try not to project your own anxieties onto her.

here is the link

Sounds like you are doing great with her - diet sounds fabulous. Honestly, I really would relax about this - she will probably get more active as she gets older (my dd1 did and she was always happier indoors at 3). You could try ballet (pink uniform is very appealing to small girls) and swimming if you want to do some more activities with her.

Well, DH and I had a good chat about this over the weekend and we decided that the best course of action was to just be more active, so this weekend we've been running around parks and climbing etc. Good fun. We're not going to restrict foods as such, but carry on not having naughty snacks in the house. This is also for DH's benefit as he's terrible when it comes to certain things!

She does ballet at nursery so as long as I'm paying for nursery I'm not forking out more.

I just didn't want her to end up like me. It got to the point when I was about 6 (and wearing adult sized 10/12) that I wanted to do dance like my friends and my mum said I couldn't because I was too fat. I wasn't in any way active as a child: weekends were taken up with religious observance and our diet at home was awful.

So I'm feeling better about the whole thing now!