15 month old not gained enough weight

[Rflo92]

Hi all,

My 15 month old boy has only gained 150g in 3 months since his 12 month check. He's very active, literally never stops moving unless he's asleep, he sleeps well and is developing normally. (Walked at 10 months and talking quite a bit already). I still breastfeed him twice a day in the morning and before bed. He eats reasonably well but prefers fruit and veg.

The doctor has said to try to feed him more high fat (healthy fat) food to up his calories so we will do that from now on.

But just wondering if anyone else has gone through this and have any advice or recipes for cramming in lots of healthy calories into not very many mouthfuls!

Thanks!

We have the opposite problem with a chunky toddler and she eats a lot of:

• Nut butter. She would literally eat it off the spoon if we let her but good to add to fruit / porridge
• her go to snack is cheese rather than any kind of ‘toddler’ snack.
• Dips are good, hummus, tzatziki etc.
• we give Greek yoghurt quite a lot.
• Meal wise, bean stews go down quite well and have a lot of fibre, protein, good stuff!

Agree with pp about hummus and peanut butter. Mushed up avocado and cheese of any description.

You can also get ground almonds and put them into porridge or yoghurt - we sold them as ‘sprinkles’!

Add an extra drizzle of olive oil or butter to his pasta / sauces

This sounds exactly like my 18 month olds diet who looks a healthy weight to me.

• Avocado - mashed on toast is usually a good one
• Butter and olive oil - use more for cooking/frying any of their food
• Cheese - cheddar and feta are good high fat, low processed options
• Nut butters - in porridge, yogurt, on toast
• Full fat Greek yogurt
• Full fat milk
• Nuts/seeds - you can buy ground nuts or just chuck them in a food processor yourself. Cashews can be soaked and blended into soups and sauces, makes them super creamy.
• Oily fish - salmon for example. Can flake and put into a fish pie, that way you can also put butter in the mash and cream in the sauce

Search “calorie and nutrient dense recipes” and you’ll get what you’re after :-)

Homemade pesto pasta is a really good one - plenty of olive oil, pine nuts and Parmesan to increase the calories

I had xhunky toddlers, ideal foods they had were Pasta, full fat yogurt, rice pudding, curry's, bananas, fish, toast and malted milks.

Full fat milk, cream, butter are your friends.

Homemade cake or flapjacks are also good 😊

Eggs should be an every day food. Limit grains; focus on meat and veg, and make sure hes having red meat at least a few times a week. Keep it simple, things like cottage pie (can bulk out with red lentils and use sweet potato mash, lots of cheese on top), spag bol, chilli con carne, make sure the meat and veg is 80% of the portion. Also lots of full fat dairy. One of my favorite easy breakfasts for babies and toddlers is double cream mixed with mashed banana and natural peanutbutter. Cook with lots of butter. Dont be scared of fats, saturated fat is only "bad" when its from Mc Donalds and is part of an unhealthy diet, saturated fats in red are essential for developing brians and good for you. Basically watch 80's dieting advice and do the exact opposite.

I second what a lot of people say above - full fat yoghurt and cheese really helped my small baby gain a decent amount of weight. We also mix steamed veg with a bit of butter to for some extra calories

Random question but has he been checked for UTI? Our son had weight gain issues and after months of worry it turned out he had chronic urinary tract infections that were preventing him from gaining weight. Once that was sorted he was fine - I wish he'd been tested earlier. There were no obvious symptoms that would have indicated this was the issue.

Yep. My child has gained more than twice that in the same period. I was told by the physiotherapist that walking that early is actually not great for muscle development and crawlers develop better. Concentrate on getting the days in, there is no such thing as bad fat. And do some climbing.

Do you want to give us a rough idea of what he eats now so that we can see how to get some extra calories into him?

So for instance if he likes fruit how about apple slices spread with smooth nut butter?

My daughter only gained 300g between 7 and 13 months. My HV said it was a common time for weight gain to slow as they are more active but their appetite hasn't increased accordingly. She was under paeds and a dietician due to reflux and allergies and they were happy as long as she didn't lose weight.
She was slow to eat properly and needed her pre weaning amount of formula (3-4 5oz bottles plus 1 8oz) and 3 meals a day to gain weight. She didn't eat enough to drop formula until 20 months.

Thanks everyone for the advice.

He actually eats a lot. For breakfast he has fruit, yoghurt and cheese or peanut butter on toast every day. He eats less at nursery but always something- at least the first or second course (today was chicken stew with potatoes for example). We live in Spain so lunch is always a soup/rice/pasta first course and then a meat or fish main.

For dinner he eats well. He loves spaghetti Bolognese, chilli etc. Yesterday for example he had noodles with chicken and veg in peanut butter and coconut mild sauce which he absolutely devoured.

He went through a month without eating at all at nursery and being a bit fussy at home so I'm wondering if he was behind weight wise then but now he is eating well.

I will try all these suggestions in terms of getting extra fat in too.

Thank you