My twin boys were born at 28 weeks weighing 1000 gms and 780 gms respectively. The one born at 780 grams has had weight gain issues since the start. They are 19 months now and my smaller son is weighing only 19 pounds. He does not have any health or development issues, but he has had problems accepting texture. Our pediatrician attributes it to his reflux that he had as a baby. He is eating mosly fork mashed food, like khichri and banana. He is still not accepting finger food. He usually licks the finger foods before putting them away. We are giving him 4 solid meals (BF: Cereal with mashed banana and milk, Lunch: Khichdi, Before Afternoon nap he has 4 oz of milk, Evening Snack usually either some fruit which I can fork mash and feed or something like suji kheer or sabudana kheer, Dinner: Mashed potato, eggs or chicken with rice or sabji rice all boiled a little extra so that it is very mushy, then before bed time he usually has a 6-8 oz bottle of milk, he gets up at 5 am has another bottle of milk 4-6 oz and goes back to sleep). So that is what he is having. We had Nestle Carnation Instant Breakfast to his milk. Our pediatrician asked us to add some heavy cream to his milk which we started last week. We used to give him pediasure but he had lost his appetite so stopped that. We add one tablespoon of ghee to most of his food. I try to give him one egg a day and a lil chicken I still give him Cerelac mixed with mashed fruit and milk The pediatrician had his blood work done and the reports were fine, no thyroid issue or anemia. Is there anything else that we can try for his weight gain ? My other son ( his twin brother) is 22 pounds and gaining stably. Any suggestion, traditional ideas, meal additions, anything .. will really be appreciated. Thanks a ton everyone for your time.
Sands, the one thing that worked for me is adding olive oil and flax seed oil to the prepped food. Not sure if that is an option with you given that you already add ghee. How about avocado? I also mixed boiled egg yolk in a few of his foods, not exceeding 10 eggs a week. We also tried to add malted ragi into our diets and added the powder to food like idli. I would look at three meals and 2 snacks for this age. DS actually was on three tiny meals and three snacks - the last one being just a cube of cheese (at that age, shortly after that we stopped all dairy). Do you think you will be able to fork mash cheese. Looking back at DS' records, he was also around 19 lb at 18 months - the next weighing in for us was at 24 months and he was around 25 lb at that point. I followed corrected age till he turned 2, so he was around 25 lb at 25 months. He was then in the 10th percentile and now he is in 35th percentile, the only way the weight gain has happened for us is when DS started taking more carbs in his diet closer to the 2nd birthday. I know our problems are diametrically opposite, but making the food calorie dense did help us gain weight. HTH
Items that come to mind to me are: creamed veg soup (boiled veg in little water, puree and add a thin white sauce, adjust seasonings) egg nog chicken soup quiche malted milk (you can get Carnation at Walmarts)/Ovaltine/Horlichs From what I know of nutrition, I would not worry excessively about too many eggs at this stage as little kids need the cholesterol for development. Lots of protein and fats are needed also for brain development. You will have to taper off a little later.
