Slow growing baby - fatty/protein ideas?

[squizita]

My dd has always tracked the 9th percentile but over 2 months since solids started her growth has slowed and she's now on the 2nd. So quite small!
The HV gave her a check over and decided it's the "plateau" many babies get when they suddenly move more and develop at 6-9 months.
However as dd is small and not very greedy for solids (still prefers milk) she suggested upping fats/oils and proteins and avoiding baby staples like carrot.

Only one snag ... dd gets bunged up without veg/fruit/pulses.

Give me inspiration for recipes please also reassure me the hv wouldn't overlook if she was unwell and/or if your dc slowed their growth 6-9 month.

Joking aside I tend to dr Google and get anxious. HV knew this hence she talked me through the check over- DD slowed growth but is appropriately fat, strong, alert and hydrated. Her poo (bar needing fibre) is like peanut butter which I understand is normal.

Things like yogurts/ cheese are good. Don't.worry.too much about slow growth my 2nd girl hardly grew after 4 months until a she was well over a year. She is now a healthy sized 4 year old who at one stage wasn't even on centiles despite their being nothing wrong with her!

DS needed to put weight on, the dietician recommended Mascarpone cheese (shed loads of calories) but I'm not sure if you can give it to babies - worth asking your HV or asking her to refer you to a dietician?

Ooh thanks we have some of that. I will check but I'm sure it must be pasteurised! Or a brand that is must be out there.

She loves plain yoghurt. Might add it to wertabix or something.

Avocado. I give it as a finger food and the scoop the leftovers from the floor and mash and then spoonfeed.

greek yog plus pureed blueberries and banana.

Rice with mince and tomatoes plus sour cream.

egg yolk - my mum used to spoon feed me runny egg yolk as a baby. Not sure if it's recommend these days.
omlette with lots of melted cheese.

Also courgettes and sweet potato roasted in lots of olive oil. Perfect finger food.

Thanks. I think she finds egg a bit indigestible (not a food allergy or anything, just a bit rich) but I guess I could mix it into other things. My DH was also weaned on runny egg. If only they'd officially say whether lion stamps make them sage (too pfb to think 'oh they are').

The HV said to avoid banana and rice but I'm as although they are known to be a bit binding I can't see a link with her not pooing often myself. She pooed today- it's not constipation poo, it's peanut butter texture -just a slow weaning food.

Will give her more avo, she has had that before and liked it.

Peanut butter on toast? I had a second centile baby who wasn't gaining much weight and so I added cream cheese to all his veg. Butternut squash and cream cheese with some couscous for texture was popular. Also added ground almonds to cooked fruit with greek yoghurt. Yum! Cream in his weetabix or porridge. French toast with cream cheese on. In retrospect worrying was pointless but you can't see that when you are there. He was also a bottle refuser and i was heading back to work so I was super stressed!

Thanks Chilli. Those sound great. I guess your LO grew eventually?

Hello. My littlest one is a prem, and so little on the centiles and slow to gain weight. It's become my obsession to try to feed her up (just my luck she's a fussy madam) but a
I found that as a toddler - cheesy pasta with little shells a big hit, mini magnums (ducks to avoid flaming), mini chedders/cheesy straws/pastry type things, anything along with the healthy diet we all eat to try to cram extra calories in. Advacado with all meals. Wafer ham. Battenburg cake (the marzipan!)

Yes yes to all the suggestions above. I was another one with a prem tiny who was slow to gain. I tried cream in porridge/wheatabix etc. fruit purées with a bit off butter melted in are nice and creamy. Avocado was a real staple for us, I was so happy when an Aldi opened here, 2 for £1.49. Mashed avocado with philli, chunks of avocado as finger food. Scrambled eggs have always been a good one. Pancakes of every sort, mashed banana and ground almonds with an egg for example. Slow cooked bolognese type dishes with sweet potato mashed with butter/cream cheese. You can add a handfull of lentils to the bolognese. Eggy crumpets (like eggy bread but take on more egg, just have to make sure they are cooked through), nice 'sweet' with cinnamon, or savoury with a bit of cheese in the egg. Mashed chickpea 'Fallafels' with a bit of ground cumin, fried and then with full fat yoghurt to dip.

Banana and rice can be a bit binding, but fine as part of diet, just maybe not most things on a rice cake. Also rice cakes have far less calories then a bit of bread if that's a concern. I add butter to everything DS gets on toast or on a crumpet before the fruit, hoummous or peanut butter goes on. He gets fruit at the end of a meal so he eats the protein/fatty bits first! Muffins made with butter and egg and with cheese. Peanut butter on everything you can get it on :) I think if you avoid making too many meals all about veg sticks and fruit (which is so easy to do when weaning, they make great finger foods) and go in with the richer food first. Also baby food pouches tend to be almost all veg and fruit so I don't like to make one a whole meal, I give a fruit pooch after food sometimes instead of whole fruit. Yoghurt, DS will eat a yoghurt even when he's stopped eating the solids. I finish every meal with one if I can. He's tracking his line but I found myself relying on veg and fruit too much at the start and thought he looked a lot leaner so I made a real effort to make sure he was having meat and eggs and dairy with most meals. Meat is a hard one but he has some strips of chicken, I save bits of roast pork or beef from Sunday lunch (I mainly slow cook joints so they are soft) and whip a bit out of the freezer. I found fish fingers a success, one doesn't have a lot of salt in. Make fish cakes from flaked salmon and potato, maybe add some peas.

Bug she's not quite on a whole meal yet. No main then pouch. Half a bowl/pouch would be a good meal.

She's under 8 months though.

But what are you counting as 'a whole meal'? There no prescribed amount that constitutes a whole meal, so she's not necessarily working her way up to something, if that's part of your worry. I more mean that if I decide to give DS lunch of a small cheese sandwich (and not an adult one, one or two fingers of bread like soldiers) and some cucumber or fruit, I make sure I put the sandwich down first so he has that and when he's taken as much as he wants I offer the others. Sometimes I stick everything down at once but enseems to find that overwhelming. Part of this may be you overestimating what other babies eat. She seems to eat a normal amount. Add more fat to that if you want and it should be fine. Yoghurt is a good follow up though as its basically liquid and he'll eat it even when he's gone through the rubbing food around phase. Also she doesn't have to get to some set amount of food per 'meal' to offer another 'meal', DS was still just picking when he went up to 3 'meals' a day, it's just a third opportunity to pick and it doesn't have to be a set amount to replace a milk feed, nor will it even neccassarly replace one of she's still hungry.

I mean, when discussing 'meals' it's just referring to the act of the baby sitting down and attempting to eat some of the food offered, right?! That's what I mean by it. You don't have to be getting her on some kind of adult meat and two veg plus dessert. It's much more sporadic and picky than that. If that's what you are worried about in terms of sad faces at what she has, you have no need to be.

Ah right so! DD will eat some of everything thankfully. She's just had crumpet and cream cheese with raspberries. Ate about 1/3 of the crumpet and liked up plenty of cheese. 2 raspberries.
Then became very grumbly ... think though some of the constipation cleared yesterday she's still in dire need of another poo.

Check the type of yoghurt - Total Greek I think has highest fat &protein (but may not be cow's milk?). Anyway, brands vary greatly in fat/protein levels and when they are only eating a little it makes a difference.

My DD was small and put on high calorie formula (prescription) so if your HV has not suggested that you should be reassured!

Annabel Karmel has a good cheesy lentils recipe, and you can add extra olive oil.

It's easy to say, but try not to worry and focus on getting a good range of foods, just add in calories where you can with cheese, cream, butter, oil, etc!