chubby toddler

[ollyoctopus]

Hi - just wanted any advice or hopefully reassurance about my chubby daughter! Now 27 mths and weighing 34lbs (on about the 95th centile for weight). She is tall for her age but not hugely so.

She was only 6lb11oz born but piled on the weight very quickly and by 6 wks old was already on the 91st centile. She was exclusively breastfed and I carried on breastfeeding until she was 12 months old. HVs reassured me breastfed babies often put weight on like this but it tends to plateau out - it never did!

I have always given her healthy food and she will eat anything - so eats plenty of fruit & veg. She never has any junk at home (honestly) and we are very rigid with her portions and number of snacks. She does go to nursery 3 full days a week but they also have strict instructions about limiting her food - eg. she is only allowed seconds of vegetables and has a small bowl of custard rather than the full pudding. But obviously I'm not there so I do sometimes wonder if they are telling me the whole truth.

She seems completely obsessed by food - she asks for snacks all the time, even when she has just finished a meal. She usually gets upset at the end of a meal and asks for more. It can be very wearing especially as we now have a new addition!

I know I am lucky to have a child who eats well, and I know it should be easy to get her weight under control but I don't seem to be making any headway and it really gets me down! I am really paranoid that people think I feed her junk or have her sitting in front of the TV all day (she is very active). In my eyes she looks like a sumo and it just makes me want to cry!

She never ever has a day when she doesn't eat well and she always finishes everything.

Has anyone any experience of this? Any advice on what I can do differently?

not so much advice, but you could totally be describing my DD, now 3.3. Born on the 25th centile for weight and 75th for length, she has remained at the 75th for height. But she rocketed up to the 91st centile for weight at 6 weeks and has stayed there.

DD is an amazing eater - loves vegetables, curries, seafood, everything apart from raw tomatoes and raw onion. It is easy therefore to ensure she has a balanced diet, but she always has room for more. we do limit portion sizes. She gets 1/3 to 1/2 of an adult portion of dinner. We always have pudding - fruit most of the time, home made cake or ice cream when we've got it.

I think one of the key issues is her activity levels. She has always been a very laid-back child, and prefers reading, painting, baking (obviously), jigsaws etc to running about. She would always choose a sedentary pursuit given the choice. we do try to ensure she gets exercise every day, whether it's a good walk to the library, or park/soft play. She was initially a very reluctant walker, so we went cold turkey on the buggy, and now she knows she needs to walk everywhere there's no protest (but still quite a lot of dawdling!).

I do think it's a hard thing to address, No-one wants to label their child at a young age, or make issues around food and body image. But I do think that left to her own devices she would eat more and do less.

When younger she was noticeably chubbier than her peers, but she looks less different with every passing month.

I should add as well that I was a very chubby child until the age of 5, and slimmed down at school. I am still a fairly normal size (12-14 but tall) with a normal BMI. So we are also hoping that DD will follow this pattern.

Could you perhaps list a typical days worth of food?

Does she get plenty of protein/carbs etc?

www.littlepeoplesplates.co.uk/tot-it-up-tool.html

My ds was the fattest baby and toddler you could imagine, even his folds and folds. He was also exclusively breastfed, then weaned onto healthy food, never given junk, he was six before he had a macdonalds for the first time! It lasted until he was about 30 months. Then he slimmed down, and now he is tall, and skinny.
So I would say don't stress too much, go and see your gp and talk about your concerns, maybe make a food diary for a week before you go, to put it in context, and maybe if he/she feels it is necessary they will refer you to a paed.

Thankyou everyone - I have just used the tot it up tool which was excellent and apparently she is eating the right amounts of everything...

I have already seen my GP and asked if we should see a dietitian and she thought that was completely OTT and that we just had to be strict with her and keep her activity levels up. I'm just frustrated that we have been doing that since she was about 13 months old and don't seem to be making much progress! I should add that my husband and I are both normal weight but were both "round" when little.

I am keeping my fingers crossed that her appetite will naturally start to decrease - from what I have read it should do at about this time as their growth slows. She just seems obsessed.

I have no friends in the same situation (their kids seem to hardly eat and are all very tiny) so it is reassuring to hear that your children have slimmed down eventually!