Any dieticians (or people who know about feeding toddlers) around? Bit worried about DS.

[neolara]

I've just started to notice my DS, aged 15 months, is shorter than most of his contemporaries. I finally got around to plotting his height in his red book (HV measured it last month) and I realised he is below the 2nd centile. My husband is 6'4" and I am 5'7" so I wasn't really expecting him to be short. Now obviously, if he is just genetically programmed to be short then fair enough. However, I suppose I am slightly concerned about two things and I was wondering if anyone thought they might be relevant.

Firstly, he is vegetarian. He eats a pretty varied diet - lots of veg, beans and lentils. He does not eat fish. I've been veggie for nearly 20 years and think I should be able to feed my children a healthy veggie diet without any problems. (My DD is also virtually veggie and I have no concerns about her height.) My DS is fairly chunky and eats a huge amount, so I'm not concerned about weight at all. I'm very reluctant to feed him meat, but if not giving it to him is compromising his health (or his height), then obviously I would.

Secondly, he refuses to drink milk. He eats porridge every day made up with a third of a pint of milk and he also has yoghurt and cheese. Do I need to up his milk intake? If so, any idea how I can get him to drink it?

DS has a veggie diet at nursery and only eats chicken/meat if we do at the weekend

Lentils are a great source of protein IMO

I don't think you need to worry too much about the milk - if he eats yoghurt and cheese plus milk in his porridge sounds ok to me

Also, can't really help re the height, as me and DH are quite short so DS is not going to be a strapping 6 footer!

I'mnot a dietician either but it sounds like your ds has a healthy diet. If he wasn't getting enough nutrition surely he wouldn't be 'chunky'. I've been a veggie for nearly 30 years (started when I was 5 - so not that old really!) and I've never read any research that being vegetarian can affect ones height!

My dd is a veggie too - although she does have fish on a friday with dh (non-veggie).

Bump.

agree with the above. I think your LO has an excellent diet!!! There is no reason why her growth would be affected
Had a long converstation with DD#s dietician from hospital yesterday as she is showing signs of failure to thrive now (aged 2.5 and very difficult about food) and she said height is affected long after weight ie you would have a skinny child before you had a short one iyswim (mine is skinny and is not growing heightwise now hence the concern).

His diet sounds fine, and so does he tbh - maybe a big growth spurt is not far off.

I have a short ds too, but he is also light (height wobbles along between 3rd and 10th centile, weight hangs around 3rd and occasionally pops off the bottom for a bit) and dh and I are both short - dh unusually so -, so I can appreciate it might seem surprising to you. But from your description I wouldn't say he's not thriving, and I wouldn't be surprised if he shot up at some point.

Thanks all for you views - all very encouraging, especially Jasper's.

I'm going to stop worrying, carry on feeding him lentils and wait for the growth spurt.