picky toddler losing weight, help.

[lari]

I took my 24 month old DS to his 2yr well baby visit and apparently he's lost 2 lbs. since October.  I have to take him back next month for a weight check. :(  A little background, DS is a horribly picky eater and he goes to daycare during the day so I can't control or be aware of exactly how much he's actually eating.  Usually they just tell you whether he ate "good" or "light".  What he will eat SOMETIMES: certain types of bread, jelly, peanut butter, some crackers, cookies, chicken nuggets, breaded fish, deli meats, yougurt, cottage cheese, cereal, certain pastas, spaghetti sauce, most fruit, milk.  He will not eat: chicken breast, casseroles, hamburger, potatoes of any kind, any vegtables other than green beans or corn, ice cream, cake, ham, hot dogs.  That's all I could think of off the top of my head.  How do I get DS to gain some weight?  How can I get him to try different foods?  I offer whatever I'm cooking for dinner every evening, but if he doesn't eat anything I'll offer something I know he'll eat about an hour later.  I really feel like I'm setting him up for some horrible eating habits and bad nutrition as well, but at this point I just need to make sure he's gaining weight instead of losing.  Has anyone else out there dealt with this?  What worked for you?  If it helps, this is what he usually eats for the day:

breakfast: yogurt, cereal, juice 

lunch: PB&J, banana or fruit cup, pretzels or crackers, milk

snack: whatever daycare serves usually crackers, grahams and juice

dinner: offer whatever I fixed, but usually he only eats milk, cottage cheese and some crackers

FWIW: he is a high burner and has had 2 bouts of the stomach virus since October

Any help is appreciated.  TIA

[pbjmama]

2 lbs is alot. Is is possible he was still dehydrated from a virus? st: yogurt, cereal, juice 

lunch: PB&J, banana or fruit cup, pretzels or crackers, milk

snack: whatever daycare serves usually crackers, grahams and juice

dinner: offer whatever I fixed, but usually he only eats milk, cottage cheese and some crackers

For food, I would replace juice with milk or other calorie dense drink, make sure everything is full fat. Add whole foods where you can, make the fruit cup and actually piece of fruit cut up, make the graham crackers a piece of whole grain bread with butter. If you need to sub some daycare foods have your dr write for it so the daycare will comply. Your kid will not be the first one with special food needs. Good luck!

[Sleepymamaov2]

My 26 monther is a picky eater as well.  Funny, he prefers carbs, fruits, and veggies over meat and chicken.  He was off the growth chart for the first year and a half or so and finally crept up to the 25th percentile at his 2 year checkup.  We accomplished this by adding as many extra calories as possible.  He loves cheese so we put it on one item per meal.  We added flaxseed oil to his whole milk.  It looks strange but adds 120 calories per tablespoon and DS could not detect it.  This could also be mixed into yogurt.  Afler breakfast, he'd get a high calorie, high protein smoothie with all kinds of nutitious goodies that he'd suck down in minutes. He loved milk and would drink it before eating his food so we would give the milk only after he'd eaten about half of his meal.  We also limited his milk intake to about 18 oz a day so that he'd have room for solids.  Spacing out meals and snacks so that he'd be hungry helped.  If you DS doesn't like potatoes, maybe he'd like sweet potatoes, which I would either make into fries or mix with butter and a little sugar and nutmeg. My picky DS ate it up.  We put butter on his bread, veggies...His ped said it's ok to continue with the whole milk when she'd normally recommed 2% for most 2 year olds.

[lari]

pbjmama- I will definitely switch to cut up fruit instead of the fruit cups.  It's a little more work, but a great idea.  I don't think I'll be able to pull off switching out the daycare snack when all of the other kids are getting crackers and he LOVES crackers, but I guess it's worth a try.

sleepymama- where did you get your flaxseed oil?  He didn't like sweet potatoes last time I offered them, but that was months ago, so I think we'll try them again.  What do you put in your child's protein shakes? 

Thanks for the suggestions.  Please keep them comming.

[byzentina]

My 2.5 yo son is very picky too.

Edited by byzentina - 5/4/12 at 8:15pm

[marispel]

I make my own whole grain waffles (I found off of allrecipes.com) - it calls for whole wheat flour, wheat germ and ground flax seed (which you can find at most grocery stores/walmart).   I make a double batch and freeze the waffles.   I always add butter to anything I can.  It tastes great and lots of calories.

My DS is a snack eater.  We really have to work at watching his snack intake before meals.  It's hard sometimes because I know he is hungry and he'll want a snack 15 min before dinner.   In the past I would give him a few bites of something just to pacify him, but doing that curbed his appetite enough so that he wouldn't eat much dinner.  Now, I stop what I'm doing and get him busy doing an activity to take his mind off of the snack.   Sometimes I have to use a movie just to buy me more time to get dinner on the table.   BUT - he eats more when he doesn't have that snack, so it works.

Can your DS eat nuts?   My DS loves cashews, almonds, peanuts.   Those have great protein and high calorie.

What kind of Peanut Butter are you using?   I would recommend an "All Natural" type peanut butter (Peanuts and salt only).  My DS loves Whole Grain English Muffins, so I lightly toast it, add a little butter, then peanut butter and honey.

Also - I keep my butter in a little covered tupperware dish in the cupboard.   I DON'T refrigerate it.    I keeps for several days at room temp.  It's so much easier to spread butter when it is soft!   You can start with a 1/2 stick and see how fast you use that up.  

If you're giving juice, try to switch to V8 Fusion (not the light version) - I water his down too and I only put a little in his sippy cup.   If he wants more I add even more water and just a little juice.  He usually doesn't like this, but it stops the nagging for more juice.

I also offer our DS whatever we're eating and he NEVER touches it.   I used to worry about it, but I've read that it could take 12-20 exposures of that food for hiim to even put his finger on it.   That's alot of exposures so I just keep doing what I'm doing and know that he will eat when he is hungry.  I just need to offer him healthy foods and limit his snack/juice.

[Sleepymamaov2]

Hi, Lari.  We buy our organic filtered flaxseed oil from Whole Food; they label it as "Flax Oil".  If you get the Whole Foods store brand than it's not as expensive. But it's amazing stuff, full of Omega 3's, lowers cholesterol, helps prevent constipation, and adds needed calories.  We can't go without it.  Makes yummy salad dressing too!  Best of luck!

[ShwarmaQueen]

I've got a picky eater too. What about eggs? I fry a couple yolks in *coconut* oil and DS will usually eat most of it.

Also, have you tried cheesy mashed potatoes? I make them w/ butter and whole milk, then grate in about an ounce of cheese to his portion. If he hasn't had much protein I sneak things into his mashed potatoes- hamburger meat, broccoli, etc.

What about beans? DS likes mashed pinto beans on a tortilla w/ cheese. I usually stir in a spoon of olive oil to boost the calories. 

He also loves dark chocolate every now and then- ok not the best thing to give a toddler but it's got iron and fat- and he needs both so it's not too bad. :lol

[Eresh]

nak

Your list of foods is very similar to what DS1 eats.  He's always hovered at 15-20thbpercentile by weight and 99th percentile by height.  Fortunately our ped met DH so he understands his body type is genetic.  How we add calories for DS1 --

french toast -- I make it with whole milk and smother with butter and a touch of maple syrup.

hot breakfast cereal -- stealcut oatmeal or bob's red mill 8 grain cereal with a touch of maple syrup

scrambled eggs with whole milk -- he goes through phases of liking eggs (or not)

full fat everything -- cheese, yogurt, milk ...

add butter to everything

i would suggest trying sweet potato fries again .. you might also try mashing baked sweet potato together with a generous amount of butter.  sweet potatoes are a big nutrtional win and toddlers seem to like things in fry form

i also make whole wheat waffles from scratch and freeze them for him.  i'd totally not thought of adding wheat germ and flax seed so i'll have to do that next time

almond milk

granola clusters -- especially some of the "health food" kinds have lots of good protein and some hidden nutrition -- there is a certain kind of cocoa granola clusters that DS1 LOVES ... i think he thinks it's junk food :)

[lari]

Thanks for all the wonderful suggestions.  DS loves waffle's so I'll try substituting whole wheat instead.  He seems to like peanuts, so I may try some other nuts too.  I already switched him to V8 fusion so that he's getting at least some vegetables and he seems to like it.  Unfortunately, he doesn't like butter, eggs, french toast, oatmeal, beans or potatoes of any kind.  I guess I'll just keep trying to offer these foods over and over.  It's just really frustrating.  I always said I wouldn't worry about what he eats, but that's really hard to do when he's not gaining like he should. *sigh*