How can I 'fatten up' my daughter?!

[enid]

My dd1 (nearly 5) is getting skinnier and skinnier. She is starting to look pale and drawn (probably tired from starting school) and I feel the need to 'feed her up'. Problem is, she hates most dairy - milk, cheese on things, milk sauces. She won't countenance mash either, or butter! She would eat calorific sweet things but don't really want to encourage much of that. She's eating less and less - yesterday she had about four tablespoons of porridge, two biscuits and a couple of apricots for her school snack, pasta with tuna and tomato sauce (a smallish bowl)and then wanted raw carrot, raw cucumber and a bowl of soup for supper. She loves eating raw veg - I know its healthy but I'd honestly rather she would eat mash, so I can smuggle loads of butter and milk in it! She seems to have plenty of energy, but I feel like clucking round her a bit.

Any ideas for calorie boosting foods she might like?

Most of my ideas for this one have already come up but can enthusiastically second the G & B Chocolate Hazelnut spread Enid, that stuff is amazing.
Good quality ice-cream, as a Rachel's/G & B devotee such as yourself might know would be a good sweet treat.
Re the pale and drawn - I'm really sorry, I can't remember if you are a vegetarian family? If not, try her with lamb (apricot/Moroccan-y stews, mild curry, Lancashire hot pot). I am told it is the best red meat for children to assimilate iron from, better even than beef.
Ds (5 and a bit) looks thoroughly spavined in the bathtub sometimes - large eyes and a little ribcage atop a pair of bruised, spindly legs. I know that "where did my chunky little monkey go" feeling very well!

Are you trying to up her calcium intake by smuggling in butter & milk? If so, did you know carrots are a very good source of calcium. My dd2 is getting heavier and healthier and she is lactose intollerant and only eats fruit, vegetables, crackers (no bread), pasta. Also, since I cut the biscuits out, she seems to eat a lot more, especially fruit.

Flapjacks are delicious and healthy. Plus a daily vitamin & iron supplement if she really does seem pale and unhealthy. If nothing else it might help you relax a bit more about her being thin. I think some kids just are very, very skinny though.

what a lovely lot of responses, thanks everyone .

Marina - that is exactly what she looks like in the bath!! v funny. She loves lamb chops actually so maybe I'll give her those a couple of times this week.

I have bought the choc spread - but will have to add it secretly to the peanut butter so she doesn't clock that there is a JAR of chocolate in the house. I will also have to hide it from dh as he will eat it with a spoon I know.

aloha, yes I will try and get a multi-vitamin today - I usually pooh pooh them a bit as I am so cocky about my healthy cooking (thanks Scummy ) - have done flapjacks but she says they are too sweet - grrrrrrrrr!

Pidge - Bread and butter pudding sounds delicious but she really hates milky things and I have tried puddings like this and she won't touch it. I think I might try and make a pear tart this weekend and absolutely FILL the pastry with butter, oh dear and I'll have to eat the leftovers damn

I've been noting all these great suggestions, so thanks for starting this thread. My dd is 9, skinny as a rake and I was thinking only yesterday HOW can I fatten her up - her arms look like sticks. She sounds just like your dd,ie: she loves fruit, & adores cucumber salad with vinaigrette dressing, but really seems to hate meat. She'll eat pasta with a bacon cream and cheese sauce, which sounds horrendously unhealthy doesn't it but I give it to her just try to fill her out. Have you tried egg mayonnaise sandwiches on soft brown bread, my dd sometimes takes that to school.

Well, we are all now thoroughly addicted to toast/green and blacks spread/crunchy peanut butter and I have put back on the 5 pounds I had spent 2 months losing .

I sat and watched dd1 eat a large plate of lamb and potato stew followed by a massive piece of pear tart yesterday and felt at peace with the world . Not that I am showing love for my children through food or anything .

Oh good, I was wondering how you were all doing.

Am going to try peanut butter noodle sauce for my two when I get round to it

You need the five pounds to protect you from the brisk country winter!

apologies for the hi-jack but can you tell me where I can get this green and black stuff?

it seems to be recommended on every other thread on MN and I'd love to try it.

Sainsburys and Waitrose both sell it Emmatmg.

enid, along the pastry/cream/eggs route will she eat quiches/tarts? they are a very easy way to eat 1000 calories without hardly noticing. You can fill them with her fav veg (as well as all the creamy eggy cheesy stuff).

otherwise the worlds most fattening food is cheesecake. give her a slice of nigella's once a week and she will have put on a stone by xmas

Enid - I've started giving my two extra vitamin supplements and it did seem to have made a difference to my pale and interetsing boy. But he's just started school too and he's looking pale and drawn now - our half term is a week away and I think he's just ready for the break. I only wish he's eat raw veg like your dd....

just an update - don't know whether its the supps or not but today for lunch dd1 (and dd2 for that matter) ate a large plate of pasta with sausage sauce (like bolognaise but using garlicky sausages instead -yum), some raw veg, then 2 slices of toast/peanut/choc, a yogurt each and have just biffed off to the tv room with a large plate of cut up fruit and 2 babybel cheeses .

dd1 looking much better and beginning to colour up nicely too. Thanks again for the advice everyone.

oh enid, that's lovely news

does the dislike of dairy include ice cream? a cheap ice cream maker turns home made ice cream into health food, especially banana ice cream, and it is also a children's "activity" to help make it.

Avocados - as someone else suggested - are great cos you can mix them with so much other stuff. My dd is addicted to them!

Do be careful she doesn't get a complex - i was always a skinny little girl, the boys at school used to bully me and say i was anorexic - which i wasn't. This forced me to binge eat to try and fatten myself up, throughout my years at senior school and hey guess what, i long to have my skinny years back now! and i've kept the appetite that i trained myself to have