Overweight (?!) 23mo

[chunkatron]

My little girl has always been big. She was only 7lb 6oz at birth, but drank and drank for the first 6 weeks and jumped up to the 80th centile. It all evened out, and that's where she stayed for a while, but she crept further up the chart over the course of her first year and settled on the 98th centile at around a year. But she's tall too, so she's always been in proportion.

I've not had her weighed for aaaaaages, as she's a healthy growing girly with a great appetite and no issues.

However, we had to take her to A&E recently (thought she'd hurt her arm, but false alarm) and they stuck her on the scales before giving her Calpol. She's 18kg/40lbs !!!!!!

She's waaay off the chart for weight, and although she's still tall (90cms), her height and weight are no longer on the same centile. She doesn't look fat. Chunky yes, with little michelin man arms. But not hidiously overweight. She's just really stocky. I'm the same. I am overweight at the moment, but I still don't look as heavy as I actually am.

I'm now worried I've got an overweight child, and I'm not really sure what (if anything) I should do.

As I said, she's got a healthy appetite and eats normal family meals. I think we eat healthily, and she loves fruit and veg. She doesn't stop moving, and does lots of walking. The only thing I'd like to change is that she still has a lot of milk, a bedtime bottle and milk in the night. But she's clearly not ready to drop this, and there's no a hope in hell that I'm going to let her cry it out at night instead. We're about to move her into a bed, so I'm hoping that may stop the association with milk as she'll be able to have a beaker handy if she's thirsty in the night.

Has anyone got any words of wisdom?

My DD (2.5) has recently put on quite a bit of weight- I think I was way too generous with sweets We eat healthy food, I cook from scratch etc but because they are so small even one small snack too many will make them put on weight.What you want to do is to implement a new diet so she doesn't lose weight but rather grows into it iyswim.

Can you give us an example of what she eats and drinks during a day?

Otoh I have just realised that DD is 92cm and 15.5 kg and looks quite chunky. 18 kg seems a lot.

If she's having a lot of milk I would tackle that - especially if it's in a bottle. Milk in a bottle at night is terrible for her teeth too.

Just to give you a comparison my dd is 23 months and is 26lb and on 91 centile weight and just below 75th height. What does your dd eat during day? Try keeping a days diary and post it up and we can compare

Winnybella - Normal day would look something like this:

Breakfast - Peanut Butter on Toast, or Rice Crispies
Snacks - Pretty much exclusively fruit - grapes, blueberries, strawberries. Or sometimes a Humzinger bar if we're out
Lunch - Some combination of sandwich/ham/cheese/fruit
Dinner - Home cooked meal of some kind always including at least 2 x veg, oven chips is as processed as we get really.
Pudding - Usually a yoghurt or fruit

Then she has 8oz bottle at bedtime, and usually 6oz overnight at some stage.

RitaMorgan - As I said, I know the milk is something we need to change.

Ditch rice crispies for start- porridge would be much better.

What about portion size?

She definitely sounds obese, you should stop the milk...you don't need to leave her to cry! But you can be firm with a 23mth old. You need to make sure she is having the correct size potion of food..which she cleary isn't! Remember fruit has calories too, swap for raw veggies maybe.

I guess it's more the volume of food. She just always seems to be hungry!

That sounds roughly the same as my dd I guess as you say something's may be genetics as well. I would get her out and about running around as
Much as poss as that will help. Does she have anything with sandwiches at lunch? Also try wholemeal bread/brown bread.
My dd has
Breakie- bottle and cereal or toast
Mid morning snack- fruit or biscuit
Lunch- sandwich or sardines/tomatoes on toast or scrambles egg
Milk in afternoon with fruit
Tea- smaller portion of our dinner with yoghurt for dessert
Milk at bedtime

They only need about 12oz of milk a day after 12 months, and that includes all yooghurts, cheese etc too.

Rita really? I was told by my HV last week that my 16months old needs to be drinking a pint of milk a day still.

Peanut butter is essentially pure fat. Ditch that and give her one weetabix in a bit of milk for breakfast. Also what do you serve at dinner with your 2 vegs? Is it always meat or do you also serve fish or vegetarian meals? If meat, are they lean cuts eg chicken, lean mince, or fat ones like sausages or pies ( the crust is also very fat, as is gravy)? You can also replace chips with rice.

How many oz is a pint? 6-12 months they need around 18-20oz, then 12-24 months around 12oz. There's a bit here about cow's milk after year.

That's pretty heavy!!!! Not sure how she can't look overweight, perhaps you have got used to how she looks and this is a bit of a wake up call. Not that I don't trust the hospital but I would put her on your scales at home, just in case that reading isn't correct!!

They are all different but perhaps she is just eating too much too much of the time. I have a much smaller, older (2 and a half) daughter, about the same height and weighs about 27/28 pounds, that's about 12 Kg. She is about the same height. She also has milk at both ends of the day, so I wouldn't blame that.

Recently DD is looking a bit chunkier and I put it down to her Kit-kat habit. She has one a day at the moment!!! However, she's so skinny normally it's a bit novel to seeing her look more like your average (still quite skinny) toddler.

My 4.5 year old DS, very big build is only 19/20 kg and he is 116 cm tall so 18 kg does sound very big- if the reading is correct I would go and chat to the HV or doctor. Much better to sort it out now rather than at 5/6.

well she is only having 14oz of milk, so not loads more than she should be having. how big are her portions and how much is she moving around during the day, she does sounds very heavy for her height.

when you say michelin arms do you mean just chubby or with rolls or fat? i remember when ds1 was a baby he looked like he had elastic bands round his wrists and foreaarms as he was soo chunky, he remained fairly chunky until about 4yrs and then shot up BUT he is now 11 and we do have to be careful about what he eats as he has a tendency to overeat, he has always had a healthy appetite but is not a 'physical child' prefers to read, draw etc so we have to encourage him to exercise and not let him snack or eat too big portion sizes.

i would try and go for a healthier bfast like porridge, make sure she doesnt have too many snacks, ds1 would often snack but i think it was out of boredom/habit ie when he was in his pushchair he would have a snack so he would sit happily, ditto in the car, in hindsight this wasnt a good habit to get into and i havent done it with my other kids!

watch portion sizes and get her running around, jumping on a trampoline etc and try and reduce the bedtime bottle to 6oz and only offer water in the night, she doesnt need milk in the night and it really isnt good for her teeth :)

hth

also if she is that big check she is in the right kind of carseat, some have a weight limit and it may be that she is above the weight limit without you realising?

Yeah, they can slim out a lot at 4/5, but if that really is her weight I'd have a look at what she's eating- write it all down in a food diary it might surprise you!!

primafacie - replacing fats with carbs isn't really a good way to go - peanut butter for instance is great for protein as well (which is why you'll see body builders with huge jars of it)

I suspect that a touch of genetics, and then portion sizes is to blame - we have the same difficulty with our adult portions and have to take a step back and actually weigh food to be sure we're being sensible.

One slice of PB on toast = 250-300 calories
One weetabix with half a cup of milk = 100 calories
The slice of bread for the toast, alone, is more caloric than the cereal, so it is not a case of replacing fat with carbs, more like cutting down on both carb and fat.

Thanks for the bodybuilders analogy, that made me smile

That sounds a little heavy, my DS however is 30 months, is 89cm and 27lb, he did start off at 4lb 10oz and 43cm tho, but even so he eats like a ruddy horse, and still doesn't seem to gain a ton, I'd drop the bottles tho and just add milk to breakfast or cups etc, yoghurts etc have a lot of the calcium they need anyway.

Portion sizes make a real difference, but talk to a GP or HV about it. Most HCPs will not recommend putting your toddler on a diet, as such, but keeping portions reasonable, monitoring milk intake and letting the child "grow out of" their excess fat, iyswim.

My DS was similar and we really looked at his milk intake. He now only has milk with/on breakfast and snacks, and half a small cup at that. It did make a difference.

You do right to address it now: my neighbour's child is 7 kilos - approx 1 stone - overweight now at the age of 3 and her mum is v worried about it.

Just a thought- are you on semi-skimmed milk already? This can cut back on cals quite easily and they still get their milk fix.

I was freaking out about having a 14.5 kg 2 year old, imagining I would have some monster child, but now I have a 15.3 kg 3 year old (very tall and toned) due to nothing more than a. Dropping bottles and b. The natural increase of activity as they become more physical. As well as all the excellent portion-control advice above, try swimming every week if you can get to a pool, make sure she has several opportunities a week to run around a playground and discourage the use of the buggy where possible (even though this is a major PITA sometimes, esp when they are feeling reluctant...). My DC got a scooter for her birthday which helped as it was an appealing alternative to riding in the buggy.