Monday, March 14, 2011

The littlest of gals

She's a mere slip of a girl, our T. And she has just proven this by falling off the bottom of the weight-for-age percentile charts. At her 18 month vaccinations she's weighing in at just under 9kg. Great news for those of us who have to lug her around, but slightly concerning for others.

Again, I have had a GP ask 'do you feed her enough?'

Sigh.

Of course I do.




I have to admit that of late quite a lot more food has been ending up on the floor than in the tummy. I think I need to pay more attention to exactly what is being consumed. And I think if she's not taking in her dinner I need to be doling out more yoghurt and milk to fill the gaps.

It's funny, her brother was similarly skinny (and still wears some size 2 at age 5 - shhh, don't tell him, I just cut the labels out!) but not that wee. Madam T seems to be extra-teeny. Short of giving in to her desire for 'bikkie' every 2 minutes, I'm not too sure what I can do to plump her up a bit. She gets offered a lot of food. Most of it healthy (with the odd bikkie etc thrown in).

Every time I start to get a little worried about my kids and their weight I talk to my mum. Who rolls her eyes and reminds me that I was exactly the same when I was a little one (these days, unfortunately, I have the opposite problem...!).

In all other ways, T is bang-on for her age.





So what to do? Not worry about it? Hmmm.

3 comments:

Super Sarah said...

Your little one is just perfect, but you are right, you can try and boost the calorie content of what she eats rather than increase the amount. Full cream in sauces, full fat yogurt, the special ones that taste like ice-cream! Oh, ice-cream is good too. Lots of cheese, peanut butter, butter on toast instead of marg. Full fat milk. Obviously not too much or for too long because apparently at two we should start to be concerned about the amount of saturated fat we feed them. Its tricky but so long as she is full and not hungry, don't worry yourself. I have made a promise to myself not to sweat the eating thing anymore, if Amy is hungry, she will eat. If not, well I can't make her!

Melody said...

MissL seems to be turning into a fussy eater - most 'meals' as such are ending up more on the floor than in her tummy too *urgh* - though she's near the 11-12 kilo mark I think. She does love cheese, yoghurts, bit of ice-cream, has 2, 200ml full-cream bottles of milk a day, likes ham & cheese toasted sandwiches and pasta. I always think that if she's hungry she will eat. *fingers crossed*

Cath said...

My fifteen year old was a teeny tot too, and at one stage started losing weight. A dietician friend recommended that I give her lots of protein and to include it in every meal, and snacks too. Basically 5 little meals a day. Oh, and we cut down any sugar she was having. So it was teeny squares of cheese, "little girl" sausages, "little girl" eggs (quail eggs hard boiled), peanut butter fingers of toast... The end result was a more contented, chubbier little one. That was a long time ago, but the advice really helped at the time. Now she is a beautiful young lady of fifteen. Hope this helps.