How can I put weight on my baby

[Dakiara]

Hi,

It's kind of a health visitor issue I am afraid, but I should probably add some history before asking my questions. Basically my wee one has only been gaining between an ounce and an ounce and a half per week since starting weaning at five and a half months (he used to gain from 7-11oz). I am seeing a dietician for his milk allergy at the moment, and she reckoned his weight wasn't a huge issue. However the health visitor has said that if it continues to drop she will have to have a word with the dietician. I get the feeling that she doesn't believe that I am introducing new foods (I have always been wary due to a strong allergic history, and well, whaddya know - milk allergy), and keeps asking me if he has had any meats or finger foods, which he has. So I'm left with two sets of conflicting impressions and I don't know who to believe. It's making me stressed about his weight gain and I feel that I should probably try and make him put more on or eat more somehow.

All that aside, my questions are firstly, are there any high fat snacks that he could have (non egg, soya or dairy) that would make him fatter? Secondly, is there anything else I can give him apart from olive oil and pure sunflower spread in most of his meals that would add to his weight?

Many thanks for any ideas anyone has!

Personally, I would not be keen on adding oils or anything else to my lo's diet just for weight gain - babies are all different shapes and sizes, and if your dietician is happy with how your lo is doing, then I would not worry too much.

My dd is lactose intolerant, so that eliminates a whole section of food from her diet, but she is doing just fine otherwise. I have had conflicting advice from dietician and HV, and I chose to follow the dietician's advice on the principle that her training is specifically to do with food and nutritional requirements. Introduce new foods that your dietician is happy with, let your lo eat what he needs, and try to keep his diet as varied as you can within the limits of what is good for him.

I have noticed that dd grows in spurts - she has periods of being constantly hungry and sleeping a lot, and then she just grows, almost over night. Unless there are cause for concern about your lo's health, then maybe consider getting him weighed less frequently - over a longer period of time, his weight may average out more.

you haven't said how old he is, but if he's under 12mo he should still be getting a fair whack of calories from bm or formula - much easier to add in a milk feed than try and coax in high-fat solids at this age. And that's if there's a problem at all - I'd trust the dietician over the hv.

Thanks both, I think I just panicked - feeling a little better with more sleep and reading your replies. He has around 8-12 feeds in 24hrs (bm) so haven't been able to jam another in there (and wouldn't have the energy left if I could!). Will have a chat about it with the dietician when I see her next, see if I can get him weighed there instead perhaps. I don't mind if he gets referred by the HV for poor weight gain, but just want her to stop going on about it and insinuating things tbh, so perhaps the way to have that happen is just to not see her and get my dietician to look at it properly.

i loaded DD1's food with butter, cheese etc which made her gain weight well, however with dairy allergies you can't do that.

Have you tried giving avocado, bananas etc for snacks?

btw, ignore HV - they don't actually know much outside the norm. I had to limit dairy with DD2 as it made her face hot and she scratched til it bled, but the HV kept telling me to give her more cheese, yoghurt etc to get her weight up. She didn't really have a clue.

x-post!! DD2 lived on avocados! A fantastic food for when you're out and about too.

He has banana with his nutramigen porridge (ew) - I only use a little though (an inch or so) as I wasn't sure how much I could give him without bunging him up like a wee cork. It gets around 15ml of the nutramigen into him though, which is more than the zero amount he'd eat without it!

Haven't managed to get him to eat slices of avocado (he cannot pick them up - anything I can do to help him?), though I do pop it in with his tuna and potato cakes when he has them as a binder and he loves it mashed up with banana (weird child liking that combo!). Tried him on guacamole (without the lime as he seems to react badly to it), but he hates the stuff!

Had been considering carrot cake, but it uses syrup as a binder, and he's not meant to have much sweet stuff yet is he?

my dd likes avocado mashed up with olive oil with a smidge of paprika and this then pu on triangles of toast. You can butter the toast first as well for extra fattening

He's 9 months old, tried hoummous around a month or two ago but he didn't like the lumps! Will have to give that another go though if it's good for snacks and such, thanks. And will try him next week on the avocado on toast, see if he likes that any better.

sorry just running out the door but I have same problem as you and told give high calorie stuff if you look in weaning there is a thread called little acorns ?? slow weight gain? loads of support there.

Thanks, will take a look!

oops!! It's in Breast/bottle feeding topic just bumped it for you now