How to gain weight

[Emsy9898]

So I'm currently breastfeeding, but really struggling to gain weight. My doctor has told me I'm not healthy enough and it can affect my baby girl. I'm 5'1 and have never been a big eater or weighed a lot. But I used to weigh roughly around 8-8.4 stone, but have gone down to 7.4 stone and just can't manage to get it up from that, despite eating better, and more often

Can you give us an idea of what you eat on a day? I'm slim and found that I lost weight when I was BFing DC1.

Things like drinking full fat milk each day, eating more protein and taking a decent vitamin and mineral supplement each day did help

@Emsy9898 there's also a helpful Infant Feeding section on MN which you might find useful

Has your doctor referred you? Because a dietician can advise you. There are weight gain powders you can add to feed but you aren't probably in that place yet.

What do you eat and drink? Because drinks are typically a pretty easy way to add to your diet.

Drinks are a really good call, especially as lots of coffee shops now have their Autumn Menus out.

For instance the takeout [[https://www.costa.co.uk/menu Maple Hazel Latte from Costa has 1099 calories.

If you want to try your own drinks maybe full fat milk with banana, a few berries and a bit of peanut butter mixed up?

Agree with asking for a referral to Dietitian too.

And if you haven't already swap to full fat milk, butter and yoghurts

Maple Hazel Latte from Costa has 1099 calories

Great for OP. Bad for me!

Just realised my link to the latter didn't work 🤦‍♀️

It's here.

What's your BMI? Doesn't sound like it would be too low at your height

When my dd had to gain weight she needed to eat 3 meals plus 3 snacks a day, to keep portions smaller everything was cooked with double cream and/or butter.

You can have double cream with porridge for breakfast, cake for a snack, soup with added double cream for lunch, chocolate bar in the afternoon, usual dinner but with added butter in the evening.

We also introduced pudding every day.

Milky drinks and milkshakes for drinks.

We aimed for at least 3000 cals a day which saw a gain of approx 0.5kg a week.

Complan shakes.

I sometimes have one as I can sometimes be underweight.