Need 3yo to gain weight

[clinellwipe]

3yo DS has had two stomach bugs in January and has lost a significant amount of weight (vomiting for over two weeks in total plus hospital admission!). He's always been slim but now he's skinny.

He is quite a fussy eater at the best of times and we try to not give too much dairy as he gets constipation (he had CMPA as a baby and we thought he'd grown out of it but now realising its probably causing his bad constipation)

Any ideas for calorie dense food? His clothes look so baggy on him :( he's very tall for his age and before January had no concerns about his weight/growth

Nut butters are great for a lot of calories quickly, and have good nutrition all round. In sandwiches, smoothies or otherwise - cashew butter is favourite here but others obviously just as good (and cheaper!)

Have you calculated his BMI? If he's in the normal range, I would just wait for him to regain his appetite and regain weight lost. Unless there is an underlying health issue that should happen naturally.

If he is actually underweight or borderline underweight, I would add nuts, dried fruit, cream, cheese etc to sauces, avoid foods that will be too filling but not calorific (e.g. swap wholemeal for white), make smoothies or milkshakes to add extra calories, offer plenty of snacks or see if you can fit an extra mealtime into the day.

I think that's the official NHS advice for gaining weight for children. However two of my children have lost weight due to illness and both have been told to eat more biscuits by the hospital so I suppose that's an alternative too! I think some children really do struggle to regain weight on a healthy diet (even following the advice above).

Hi OP, sorry to hear LO has been unwell. I really sympathise with you as my DS (3 years old too) always loses a lot of weight when he’s unwell. Like your LO, he is a naturally slim and very tall toddler so it’s always worrying. He recently had a very severe case of croup (ended up hospitalised) and lost a lot of weight.

We didn’t do anything specific but I did make him his favourite comforting dishes to encourage him to eat more (chicken pot pie, spaghetti bolognese etc). I also baked a lot for him (as he was so unwell I wanted to treat him to cheer him up) so I would make him banana loaf and cookies.

I don’t know if this is poor advice, but I sort of gave up trying to give him ‘healthy’ foods all the time and instead, just gave him what he enjoyed. He was really unwell and just needed the comfort.

Sending love!