8 month old baby losing weight - need high cal recipes please

[ladylush]

Started weaning dd at 6 months and have just moved on to stage 2 this week (she was 10 weeks prem so have taken it slowly as advised)so has only just started having protein. Weight gain had slowed down 4 weeks ago and this week she actually lost weight I am bf quite a lot (about 8 times a day - though she only has a good bf when she is sleepy/at night). She won't take formula or bm in a bottle or cup but I add it to her breakfast. I just feel so worried. I need some tips on how to increase cals. I don't have a lot of confidence in my pureeing abilities (!!) so have been giving her Ellas Kitchen pouches which she likes but only has about half a pouch at a time. I'd like to try cooking so I have more control over calorie content.

Has she been ill recently? The weight loss is a concern, but it might just be a blip.

At this age, the most calorific thing you can get into your DD is milk and so I would breast feed as much as possible for the next few weeks. Any other food you give is going to be negligible in terms of calories. BM is much more fatty and calorific than vegetables etc.

But in terms of calorific foods to give - avocado is a winner, as is cheese (you could give her sticks of it to nibble on), and creamy food too.

BTW weight plateauing at this age is totally normal and healthy for a breast fed baby so don't worry about it unless she goes for months without gaining much.

Anything with full fat milk is good -- cream cheese (on toast or dipped in breadsticks), slices of cheese, yoghurt, cauliflower cheese etc.

Avocado is high fat, you could give her slices to suck on or mash up with banana. Home-made hummus is dead easy to make and also high fat.

If you are cooking for yourself at home then she should be able to try most stuff you have, as long as there's no added salt. But if you're not confident about cooking then Annabel Karmel's cookbooks are very easy to follow. I'm a terrible cook (DH does it all in our house!) so have found the AK book pretty useful for some easy ideas.

Hey, Is your HV concerned about the weight loss? Has baby started to crawl as their weight tends to dip when they do? Weight gain does slow down and that is totally normal.

As for high calorie cooking, I think a healthy balanced diet is best... I like the Annabel Karmel weaning book for recopies. There are alot of ideas in there and simple to follow. Check your local library or get it from amazon on next day delivery.

That aside, whole milk, butter, avocados, full fat cheese, oil rich fish, eggs are good calorific foods. My DS loves:
scrambled eggs made with whole milk and butter on toast fingers with avocado on the side.
Mashed potatoes, cream cheese and roasted red peppers mashed up together.
Tuna mayo with tiny pasta shapes, with peas and sweetcorn is another firm fave.
Fish pie.
Reduces salt and sugar baked beans with fresh chopped tomato mixed through it on toast with melted cheese on top.
Couscous with roasted up veg.
Grilled steak (fingers) with shallots, mushrooms and spinach.

My DS will at lunch/dinner will have a main dish, as above, and then some fruit and a little yoghurt, either a Rachels organic one or some plain yogurt.

Try BL weaning too, there is no need to smash all the food. A good mix of textures and finger foods at 8m is a good idea.
I HTH.

TPL Thanks. I will try avocado. I tried cheese but she gummed off a big bit and didn't seem to know what to do with - started crying. I had to take it out of her mouth. No teeth yet. She has only just started eating textured foods so I am going to try home cooked mashed food this week and see how she gets on with it. In answer to your question, no she hasn't really been ill. She gets sick a lot as she has reflux (though doesn't seem to be in pain anymore)and it's mostly her milk feeds that she vomits (roughly twice a day). Since just before she turned 6 months old she has lost interest in daytime bf and is more interested in looking around the room, smiling at me etc. etc. Even when I take her into her room and draw the blind etc. (where she feeds well at night) she knows it is day time and won't play ball! Health visitor said she is not worried about dd cos she has some rolls of fat and is bright and alert. She also said that some babies lose weight when they start weaning as they are burning more calories than they are consuming due to hitting an active phase in their development. She advised me to continue with bf as I am but to focus on getting more cals into her meals (she is having 3 a day). Tbh I can't really bf dd any more than I am because she is not interested - will only have a few sucks then pulls off.

TNMM thanks - those meals sound delicious But dd can't cope with bulky foods yet - only just moving away from purees. The tuna mayo with pasta stars is a good idea - she may cope with that. Will make some today and see how she gets on with it. Any ideas how to puree or make meat softer that don't make it look/taste disgusting? I put some homecooked beef in the blender yesterday with a bit of water and it looked totally gross. dd did eat a bit of it but I tried it and it wasn't nice.

You should be giving 5 meals a day, 3 main ones and 2 snacks. I used to put DS in the high chair for snack to make sure he would eat it!

Snacks-
raisins, hummus and bread sticks
2 rice cakes with cream cheese, some orange segments
grapes, dairylee/laughing cow cheese triangle
fruit cup, small slice of banana bread
half a crumpet and butter, some apple

Keep going with the BF, keep offering it to her, even a few sucks is good! Babies are very adaptable, so if you keep at something it will usually happen IYSWIM. Same for new foods, just keep offering them to her, and if she gets upset then take it away, but keep introducing new things. She will get used to them.

ds's dietician recomended mixing a scoop of milk powder in with his food. He also gets high calorie formula on prescription to mix in with porridge etc. I roast veg in goose fat or dripping rather than boiling them for purees. I give him lamb or roasted duck as it is quite fatty and I make egg custard using double cream instead of half cream half milk. French toast made with brioche is good once they can feed themselves as is fried egg cut into strips.

DS also likes salmon curry made with coconut milk and thai green curry paste. You can puree it and mix with rice. You can cook the rice in coconut milk for extra calories. Rice pudding made with butter and cream is good too.

Avocado mashed with banana and formula milk is easy to do.
For meat dishes, AK has a really nice beef casserole recipe. However if you roast some parsnips and sweet potato chunks, these can be pureed or mashed with any cooked meat. Since they are very sweet, they make pureed meat much more appealing.
Fish can also be very easy. I used to grill fish fingers and then take off the coating.

Yeah, purées don't look appetising! I used to blitz meat with mashed pots, butter and cream cheese, or sweet potato or carrot makes it tasty/sweeter . Also what we make for baby- ie no salt or sugar can taste pretty bland, and the texture is not what us adults are used to, so don't be too put off by the taste.
sprouting gives some great ideas.

Suet pudding (like jam roly poly) is very easy and dumplings. Garlic bread with extra garlic butter.

I've been doing this for a while and ds still looks like a piece of string with eyes so its possible I'm not very good at it.

lol sprouting Thanks for ideas Maybe some babies are just outliers iyswim. Thanks runningoutofideas
Plenty for me to think about.

Yes...it may just be the build of your baby, just naturally very petite. My DS is 15m, and has just grown out of 3-6m clothes. He has always followed his line of being on the 9th centile, but did dip when he started to crawl. I stopped weighing him at 9m!!

I know it is a bit diff as your baby was prem.

dd is in 3-6 month clothes but weight is still corrected. She was on 25th centile but has now dropped to below 9th. It's weird thinking she is meant to be petite because dh and I are very tall as is ds (who was a large term baby).

I know, I was a huge baby and so was my DH, although now I am 5'3 and pretty slim...

it is weird isn't it?

I've been to the shops and stocked up on double cream, hummous, full fat rice pudding, custard powder, avocado and some soft cheese. Lets see if she'll eat it now!

I just had dd weighed this pm and she lost a pound so this is a very interesting thread for me thanks OP. (she ahs been poorly with throat infection and a bad cold the last 3-4 weeks though.)

For cheese you can give her grated cheese, my dd loves it.

Sorry to hear that June2009 - am guessing your dd is a month older than mine?! Hope she gains again soon. Yes she likes grated cheese. I added some to her dinner tonight and she liked it. The main problem I have with dd is that she seems to like a lot of flavours but she doesn't have the appetite to eat substantial quantities. I think it is quite tiring for her to eat solids. After a while she starts squirming and crying so I stop. She can usually be persuaded to eat a fromage frais afterwards so at least is getting a few extra calories but I am now thinking maybe I should try offering her formula before each meal. Today she accepted some in a doidy cup (breakfast and dinner). She only wants to bf when she is tired and I don't know how much she is actually getting iyswim. It doesn't help when she vomits some of the bfs (like 4am this morning - projectile).

ladylush good shopping! Have you tried smaller meals more often if your DD gets tired/fed up?

Also around this time(8/9m) babies can get fed up of being fed and like to try and self feed. Do you give her finger food? Or give her her own spoon? I found while DS was contemplating eating a finger of avocado, I was able to shove a spoonful of something in his mouth.

I think you sort of have to trust that she is getting as much as she wants from BF, but its a good idea to keep offering her sips from a Doidy cup. Will she drink from a free flow spouted beaker? Can you express and put some in there?

thatsnotmymonkey I did think about smaller meals more often but I don't want to start a routine that's impossible to maintain. I am struggling as it is what with 3 meals a day and intermittent bfs. I can do it now and then but not every day as otherwise nothing else would get done and ds would play second fiddle even more so than he already does.

I think she is struggling with the textured food. For example, I made her chicken with cottage cheese (with pineapple) and yogurt. She liked the flavour but struggled to break down the lumps iyswim so made a kind of churning noise with her gums and only ate half of it (maybe even a third). I think I will try adding water next time so I can get it smoother when I blend it (more puree like iyswim).

Re expressing - I get so little that I have given up. I've tried two pumps (one electric) and only get about 20ml if I'm lucky. It's just not worth it. I've got 40ml in the freezer that took 3 days to collect

Distraction techniques - yes I sometimes give her a spoon. She spends more time putting her hands in her mouth to feel the food than she does actually eating it. I gave her a square of toast yesterday but she kept getting cross when she couldn't bite off enough of it or when she dropped it. I find what works best is giving her a toy such as a teething rattle (plastic so doesn't get too manky) and shoving in the odd spoonful when she is playing. Meal times are VERY messy.

I wonder if her prematurity means that whilst she wants to feed herself/eat more textured foods, that she isn't actually physically/developmentally ready yet.

Yeah, it is tricky isn't it to get the balance right. It sounds like you are doing the right thing and I guess this is just a transitioning time for your DD at the moment and she will get over this little bump.

One thing, please don't think I am being terribly critical, but maybe give cottage cheese a miss, as it is so low cal. Try some Philidelphia or Laughing Cow mixed in instead. Also yoghurt and cottage cheese can be a bit sour/dry so your DD may not like that??

Oh no I don't think you are being critical at all I welcome the suggestions Actually I realised that last night - it is very low fat. I am going to add some full fat soft cheese to it today and next time I will substitute the cottage cheese for normal soft cheese. She did like it though funnily enough. She also liked full fat soft cheese (sucked it off bread sticks) and hummus (sucked it off pita). Will try avocado today. I think the emergence of teeth will help her a lot and enable her to eat things like bread (which she shows a lot of interest in but just can't eat yet).
The meal she eats best is breakfast - she likes fruity porridge. Just wondered if normal porridge might soak up more formula than the fruity porridge - although that also contains formula already.

Tahini- what you put in hummus is very calorific, so you could make baba ganoush with that and see if your DD will eat that too. I would give some organic rolled oats/porridge a go too, as yes I think it would soak up more liquid.
What about tofu, it is really nutritions and soft.

My friend who's a GP and has a v.small daughter herself recommended stirring double cream or olive oil into anything you give - helps to up the calories in a big way even if only a teaspoon or two. I froze double cream in an ice cube tray and often just popped a cube into whatever my dd was having.

Good luck!