Ideas on how to boost DS calorie intake?

[thetraveller]

DS (now 6.5 months) has been slipping down the weight centiles for the past 3 months. He was over the 90th centile when born, and is now closer to the 9th. I thought once he started on solids his weight might pick up more, but this has so far not happened. I'm not too worried, as he's otherwise happy and meeting all his development milestones, but would still feel better if he put on a bit more weight. Started weaning him at 25 weeks. He eats loads (mostly fruit and veg purees so far, with some yoghurt and other dairy products) and has just moved up to 3 "meals" a day. He's also still on 5 milk feeds each day (still breast-feeding). The HV has referred us to a GP (who we're seeing later this week) and has also suggested trying to get more calories into him by mixing cream, butter or cheese into some of his solid feeds. Does anyone have any other ideas for boosting his calorie intake?

Avocado is excellent for boosting calories. It is also an excellent first food too and packed with nutrients.

Otherwise, adding a small amount of olive oil to vegetable purees will help (actually official WHO advice, not normally given out in UK as there is a bigger problem with obesity than skinny babies).

Otherwise, reduce the amount of fruit and veg which are too low in calories and fats for babies to have a lot of (baby will get the nutrients from breastfeeding anyway) and concentrate on getting in more carbohydrates which will be higher in calories.

I had a similar thing with DS & I agree with Unseen. I also found increasing ds's intake of meat/fish in relation to fruit/veg/dairy made a big difference too... he was so active at an early age I think he found the meat harder to burn off so quickly. He loved home made rice pudding for breakfast & his little sis (now 7months) seems to be the same I can give you the recipe if you want?

That's really helpful - thank you. Will try mixing some olive oil into his purees and do more meat, fish and carbs. The rice pudding sounds great - would love the recipe!

I wnet through this with ds1 who was on the 2nd centile for most of the first two years of his life.

I used to make puddings with double cream and make him eat these. Also I ended up buying powdered baby food for some of the meals and making it up with milk and cream, not the water that is recommeded. Sometimes I would use this on the side of our normal meals as a top up.

I agree you need to minimise the fruit and veg at this stage as they are calorie light and go for the carbs and protein.

In the end I have got him up to the 25th centile and panic over