Am I under feeding my 2 year old? Worried af

[Nc4post99]

Hi,

So DD is 2 and a wee slip of a girl. Little bit of a backstory for her, measured small in pregnancy so was induced at 37 weeks and weighed 5lbs- 1st centile weight and 5th length. Bad tongue tie resolved at 3 months. At 6 months 9th centile all around, except head at 25th. At 10months, just under 25th for length and weight head just above- she ate well at that point. At one year check Real tough time from HVs about her size (they wanted her bigger) and breastfeeding, told to force feed her which led her to have quite a bad food aversion. She fell a centile and she’s never recovered. We paid to see a private paediatric dietitian ( looked at her diet and observed her eat) and private paed who weren’t concerned about Dd but were infuriated at the HV suggestions.

Now at 2 she’s still in 12/18 clothes and just looks so small compared to her peers, a lot of people comment on how tiny she is and how they think she’s 1. She’s got bundles of energy and is quite developmentally advanced for her age (3/4 word sentences).

We have her 2 year check coming up and whilst milestones don’t concern me, I’m worried about the comments on her size. She’s unwell constantly (colds, coughs, the runs etc) so GP requested a full blood culture to check all is ok there so we’ll get the results if she’s deficient in anything this week but I just wanted to check that her daily diet looks ok or if we’re under feeding her.
We do 3 meals and 3 snacks a day, nursery have no concerns of how she eats. She isn’t breastfed anymore but has at least 10oz of cows milk in the day+ 2 petite filous yogurts + portion of cheese. She has a large cup of oat milk before bed (too much dairy can cause anemia apparently)

This was yesterday;

Breakfast- bowl of cereal -1 weetabix (but we alternate rice crispies, coco pops for a treat, shredded wheat etc) with about 3oz of blue top milk and half a medium banana ( the bowl is one of those blue munchkin adhesive ones)
Snack - slice of buttered malt loaf with a cup of blue top milk
Lunch- 3/4 slice of buttered toast with a scrambled egg (scrambled in butter) veggie sticks (hummus on the side but she left that) half a large apple and a petite filous.
Snack- cheese and crackers (3 circular crackers, you know the kind) with some cheese about the size of 2 index fingers. Small cup of milk.
Snack 2: box of raisins and 2 squares of dairy milk (doesn’t normally have a lot of chocolate but we went to a park where there was a fair so it was a treat, this also isn’t typical but we fed the ducks at the park and she ate one of the hot dog buns we’d bought for the ducks lol, she normally wouldn’t have that much for a second snack)
Dinner : nachos (dw not Doritos, I made the ‘chips’ from white tortillas that I sliced, spritzed with oil and baked. Topped the chips with tomato salsa, then veggies, then cheese and some shredded chicken from the day before and then more cheese) she probably ate about half a tortillas worth (just a normal
Size one from asda) with toppings. She then had some grapes about 5 and another petite filous
Bed-5oz of oat milk

Does this look ok to you? If not please tell me. Some days she eats really well but others not so much, not full on refusal anymore (thank god) but just smaller quantities.

I guess I’m just after a bit of reassurance if this looks ok or if actually I’ve been under feeding her.
Also any sort of ‘encouraging’ her to eat more leads her to dig her heels in and refuse. Lately we’ve been letting her ‘cook’ ie assemble things like the nachos and she’s taken a real interest in it but it’s not helped up the quantities xx

@Ihaveoflate

Thanks *@Nc4post99* - we've tried that but she's a wily beast and not easily fooled!

She used to eat everything but she has become much pickier over the last few months. I think she'd happily live off plain Jacob's crackers. I'm hoping she'll eventually start expanding her repertoire again if we just keep putting things in front of her.

Food is so emotive, isn't it? I sometimes envy parents of good eaters but I'm sure they have worries of other kinds. What I have learned is not to be so bloody smug about having a good eater - it came back to bite me in the arse!

Ah she’s too smart! One day you’ll be thankful for her cunning I’m sure lol.

Yeah it’s so emotive, and there is a lot of pressure on parents to have a ‘good eater’ (whatever that means) and have a ‘big’ child. We just get constant flack, especially because we’ve not been able to get into see a GP due to her colds or sickness bugs they just redirect to children’s A and E and each time she’s weighed there, the staff wince at how slight she is. Weight gain shakes, appetite stimulants, and even different types of feeding tubes have been mentioned at those weigh ins, all shot down by paediatric dietitian and paediatrician but doesn’t half put the fear of god into you

Mine was born premature due to IUGR. He's a perfectly healthy 3toddler, but has been wearing smaller sizes since he was born. He's always been around 9 percentile, up until few months ago when his height and weight started to pick up.
All consultants said most IUGR babies pick up by the time they are 3-5 years old, it just takes longer. Might this be the case with yours, given she was born earlier as you measured small (my case was a bit more extreme)?
Also, since the restrictions lifted earlier in the year, it's been illness after illness from nursery! He's got AT LEAST runny nose and cough every other week, lasting for 4-5 days and when it happens his appetite reduces massively. Then he gets very hungry to compensate, but it only lasts until the next bug. No wonder he's not heavier.

Hi @user1471523870, we were under fetal med in pregnancy to check dopplers and placenta and they were 99% confident she wasnt iugr but who can say.

I thought the milestone was 2 for iugr or sga kiddos that 90% show catch up by 2 year old and the remainder will stay small or if under 0.4 centile may qualify for GHT.

She’s never been under a paed due to her birth weight, we just paid private after the HV said we weren’t feeding her and he referred us back to the nhs. Maybe would have been better if she was monitored all along xx