Highly nutritious meals for 13 month old?

[mushka3000]

HI,

I need some recipe ideas for my 13-month old. She has slowly but steadily slipped from 80th percentile for weight at birth to less than 30th percentile now. She is meeting all her developmental milestones but she does look thin. I am average build, DH is skinny.

She eats but only small amounts at a time. We try to offer her food 5+ times a day. She also nurses 5 times per 24 hours.

Her ped suggested less meals bigger portions but that seems off to me.

TIA

[tanyalynn]

What does she eat now?

Also, do you have a reason to think that she's not just settling into her own growth curve? A third of kids are smaller than her, and birth size is not well-correlated to adult size, so there's got to be a shift from one curve to the other at some point. Were either you or DH a bit smaller than average as you were growing up? Regardless of where you are now (since some kids hit growth spurts earlier or later than others)?

Are _you_ concerned?

[mushka3000]

I am concerned because she is not following any curve and actually seems to have plateaued with very little growth in the last 6 months. Also, she looks skinnier than her usual self at the moment. Plus we have been stressed out and busy and probably not taking good care of her diet.

At the moment she eats everything we offer but is just as likely to throw a previous fav food on the ground as eat it. She hasn't had any food allergy reactions so far but she hasn't had nuts or shellfish yet. I'm thinking Nuttella might be a good thing to try.

We are going to try some vege/fruit smoothies. I'm still looking into this. I'm thinking it might be a good way to get calories and nutrients into her - high fat yogurt bases and/or avocado.

[kjbrown92]

Smoothies with coconut milk? things fried in coconut oil?
I would do those type things before Nutella. There's not much nutrition in that.
Avocados. Gravy. Oils.

[mushka3000]

Yeah. I just looked up Nutella. 21 g sugar and 3 g protein per 37 g serving.

For some reason I thought that Nutella was super high in protein.
This is why I need advice!

[noobmom]

Your daughter's birth weight is more reflective of her environment during gestation (your body/womb) than of her natural build. My DS was 50% percentile at birth for height and weight but quickly dropped to 10-15% percentile. It was concerning at the time, but he's stayed in that range and now it's clear that's where he's supposed to be. My DH was always small for his age until he hit puberty and now he's over 6' but only about 145 lbs. We figure DS is on a similar track. That said, DS's weight/height ratio is good, he's just overall small for his age.

That said you know your child and so if she seems very thin to you it's good to look at her diet. Avocado and full fat yogurt sound like good choices. Have you been feeding much meat up to this point? Eggs would also be good, you could start with yolks if you want. Beans of course are very nutritious and my DS has always loved lentil soup.

I'd be surprised if she's not getting enough to eat if you nurse her 5 times a day plus solids.