Help my DS gain weight

[ABO Mama]

My DS is 7yo, and about 4th percentile for weight.  He has always been skinny.  His Ped suggested adding a scoop of instant breakfast to milk to get extra calories into him.  I did buy a tub of Carnation instant breakfast, and while it does add 5g of protein to a cup of milk, it also adds 20g of sugar, which seems a bit excessive!  Not to mention the other artificial junk in it.  He does, however, love the chocolate flavor (he is my chocolate boy...candy just isn't worth eating unless it's chocolate!).  There must be something better out there, but this was all my store had on the shelf.  I can buy on-line, if someone can point me in the right direction.  Whatever it is, it will have to taste good, otherwise he won't drink it.  I'm going to work on getting more fats into his main meals, but a yummy drink for an after school snack is a start for my picky eater.

[womenswisdom]

You could make a smoothie with whey or egg protein powder (chocolate flavored) instead.  However, I have to ask whether *you*  think there is a problem with his weight.  Someone has to be in the fourth percentile.  It's just a description of the relationship of people's weights to each others and there in not anything inherently unhealthy about being in the fourth percentile.  Look at it this way - if everyone below the fifth percentile gained weight, there would still be people below the fifth percentile, because it just describes those people who are in the bottom five-percent weight-wise.  There will *always* be people below the fifth percentile.  It does not mean that they are unhealthy or underweight necessarily.  Is there any other reason for concern?

[poorlittlefish]

One thing--I feed my skinny dd instant breakfast and they have some with no added sugar.  It has 7grams I believe.  Still a good amount but I am not too worried about it.

[tinybutterfly]

You can add just dried milk.

We were also told to use whole milk and add 1/2 and 1/2 or cream ( or the instant dried milk.)

Avacadoes, brown rice and bananas might be helpful to add to his diet.

I know it can worrisome. BTDT.

FWIW ds#2 was our very, very thin child. He has always been healthy ( except for ear infections) and at 16 his BMI is finally up to 16, which for him is great! He is just THIN. I used to be like that, too. Now not so much. lol.

Good luck!

[mumm]

Subbing!

My 10 year old, 5' tall, 50 lb son has been encouraged by our pedi to both increase his calories and his protein.  The concern being that once puberty hits he won't be able to keep up with the growth spurts in a healthy way. 

We've only been successful thus far in increasing his protein by getting him to eat more eggs which I add cheese to.  We've also switched his milk to whole milk but he seems to just not drink as much of it.  I don't want to make an issue of his weight or of food.

I think that he just eats what he needs and he is meant to be skeletal.  His energy is good even if his bmi is 6.

[ABO Mama]

I do think that he is a healthy skinny, but any cold that he gets is hard on him, because he doesn't have much reserves to start with.