High Calorie Foods for Underweight 13 Month Old

Hi K. I am a Registered Dietitian and what we usually recommend is adding dry milk when cooking her foods such as yogurt, casseroles, milk shakes, muffins, cookies, sauces, gravies and cream soups. If she will drink fruit juice don't dilute it but don't offer more than 1 serving per day. Add butter or margarine to breads, hot cereals, pancakes, casseroles and vegetables. Add Cheese to meat, potatoes, vegetables, pasta, rice and cream sauces. Also, use peanut butter on breads, crackers, fruits an vegetables and you can also blend into ice cream or yogurt. Make Jell-O with juice instead of water and add mashed fruit to milk, yogurt, shakes, ice cream and pudding. You can also add honey to fruit.

Also, you should establish a regular schedule of meals and snacks every 2.5 to 3 hours and be consistent. Reinforce good eating behavior with praise and positive reinforcement but do not concentrate on eating too much. Also, I would limit any distractions so she can focus on eating. Finally, include foods she likes and introduce new foods slowly. Hope this helps. If you have any other questions please ask!

1 mom found this helpful

K., my son is supposedly underweight (10th percentile), although he looks very healthy to me. Still, he drinks whole milk, and I mix butter, almond butter and cream in his oatmeal in the morning. I give him avocados and don't shy away from butter, in general. He also eats a YoBaby yogurt almost every day. Sometimes I will also make smoothies with yogurt and almond butter and wheat germ.

My daughter used to underweight as well. She just didn't eat much at mealtimes. My doctor recomended putting cheese on just about everything she ate. I used low sodium cheeses and just put a little shredded on her vegetables or cubed with her snacks. Peanut butter is also very good. Besides pb&j, crackers and celery with peanut butter are kids' favorites. Pasta also has many calories and kids love them. My daughter is now at the 35% mark and very healthy. Good luck and I hope I helped.

If she is eating healthy, nutritious food, I would not worry about the charts and percentiles! She might be a late weight gainer!

Coconut milk is high in good fat and therefore calories...could mix it with some types of food...or add to a shake.
Coconut oil is in infant formulas...in case you think I am off my rocker.

My son was small for his age now he 3 1/2yrs old and he gained little bit of weight. I have a friend her son is going to be six soon and hes small for his age as well. So she might catch up or she may just be little for ahwhile. I give my son cookies, pop tarts, but he also gets my genes. I am 5'3 and skinny. His dad is 6'5. Hes tall like his dad.

My youngest was also very underweight. Our Dr reccommended using high fat foods such as cheese and ice cream. He suggested putting butter (or olive oil as a healthier alternative) to foods to increase the fat intake.

At 1 year you are introducing her to a ton of new foods....she's just figuring it out, and as she gets more active she will (hopefully) get more hungry. Make sure there are no other issues like allergies, and a lactose issue that makes her tummy upset, no ear infections (you didn't mention). And 5 meals a day. Play the snacks based on the time of day, she can eat eggs now too which are high protien. And ice cream are for very rare treats. They get a taste for that and will reject the other stuff.

Make sure you are putting veggies in front of her every day. Both my boys love the frozen veggies (peas/green beans/mixed), and especially in the summer....I just give it to them frozen.

I don't have too much experience with this as my babies have all been chunky. However, a friend of mine used to make pasta for her baby, and instead of draining all of it, she would use a slotted spoon to lift some out for her baby, that way the oil t hat you put in the water would stick to the pasta rather than being poured out when you drain it. She also used to put butter on everything, that was one suggestion from her ped when her son was "underweight"

Hi K., My daughter is also in the 5th percentile; she was born small and has always been small. I always get the comment "oh, she's so petite". As long as she's eating on a regular basis,I wouldn't worry about it too much about it. She's probably just as active as my daughter, who will not sit in front of the tv. Her pediatrician did suggest a pediasure daily and she actually loves the taste of those, but we don't give them every single day.

You can give her either Pediasure, or the cheaper alternative, Carnation Instant Breakfast mixed with whole milk. It's tastey, has vitamins and nutrients for her, and will beef up her daily calorie count. Good luck!

Hi K.,

I am a SAHM of 3 boys and have another baby on the way. All of my babies were very big at birth (smallest was 9 pounds) and they all grew off the charts. I nursed all kids minimum 13 months, maximum 18 months. I am a bit of a self taught health freak and have always taken great pride in feeding my kids the healthiest things I can find. Might I suggest reading a book called "Super Baby Food" by Ruth Yaron -- it is fantastic. Your baby is only 13 months old and has a lot of weight gaining time ahead of her, so don't stress out too much. However, there are a lot of things you can do to help her out to "pack on the pounds"...per se! When my 3rd child turned a year old, I started feeding him full fat yougurt mixed with a teaspoon of flaxseed oil (you can buy it at Hi Health or other health food stores, get the kind you have to refrigerate). "Yo Baby" is a great brand of yougurt that you can find most anywhere, but Trader Joes has a yougurt that has even more fat that is made with cream -- and it comes in the perfect serving size. It comes in a six pack with banana and strawberry or vanilla and blueberry. Just mix it with the flaxseed oil and down the hatch!! I gave this to #3 every night before bed. I would NOT recommend using margarine on ANY food as it is SOOO bad for you!! Use good old fashioned butter, and put it on EVERYTHING!! Whole wheat bread, pasta, oatmeal -- and make grilled cheese with it too. Oh yeah...scrambled eggs cooked in butter with melted cheese. The list could go on and on! Extra Virgin Olive Oil and avacados are good too -- don't just feed her "fat" for the sake of feeding her fat -- make sure it's good fat. And make sure she's not drinking too much whole milk -- it's tempting I know, but she will not want to eat food if she drinks too much. The biggest thing you can be careful of is to make sure that she is not snacking all day long. My sis-in-law has a daughter going on three years old that weighs barely 20 pounds -- and she lets her snack all day long and doesn't understand why she won't eat a good meal at breakfast, lunch or dinner. I'm sure your daughter is going to do great this year and I wouldn't freak yourself out over the fact that she's small -- but read the book I recommended and you will get so many great ideas!! Good luck and happy feeding!!

A.

Hi K., I'm a mom and grandmother, and also infant-toddler
developmental specialist. We see underweight children all the time and our resident pediatrician recommends adding butter and/or cream to anything you can, and also lots of avocados! Hope it helps, J.

Hey! Both me and my 14 month old have had to pump up the calories this year (I was nursing away more calories than I ate). One thing that REALLY helps is drinking the carnation instant breakfast as a snack instead of a meal replacement. For your baby you can just combine half a packet with some whole milk. If he likes avacados or bananas those are super healthy, yet more caloric fruits and vegetables. Everything dairy that's possible should be whole milk-yogurt, etc. His doctor suggested buttering everything I give him. My doctor told me to use real mayo on as many things as possible. I'm still working on him but it seems to have worked well for me.

The doctor should have offered suggestions of specific foods if she thought this was a problem. She's still so young where whole milk, cheese, and yogurts and ice creams (unless there is an allergy) would be good. Wasn't the doc concerned that she's gone from 50th%ile to 5th%ile? Cream cheese or butter on a bagel...at least they are low sugar, some fat, etc. I'd ask the doc to be more specific because you can also get drinks like PediSure that are high calorie, etc.

My second child was a preemie and was small for her age up until she turned 6 years old. She was also in the 5th percentile most of the time. Our pediatrition recommended feeding her supplement shakes (such as ensure) or creating fruit smoothies with regular ice cream or yogurt. My daughter loves these!

Try giving her a pediatric nutritional drink - like Ensure. My daughter has the same challenge, and is 19 months. She was a 4 lb preemie, so weight gain is always something we struggle with. Fruit juices are also good because kids love them and they're full of calories.

Also, something we've done is to let her eat whatever she wants. Right now she loves fruit/cereal bars. They make ones for toddlers and they're easy to chew up and swallow. Hailey also likes the Gerber juice treats - they're 100 calories a pack. Some meals consist of an entire avocado these days, but it's better than her not eating at all.

Nut butters - peanut butter, almond butter, etc are also good. I put them on toast.

Good luck!

Hi! Has your doctor suggested pedia-sure? It is a high in calorie drink for low weight children. You can always ask for a referal to a nutritionist, which I would recommend. Sometimes high calorie is not what you need, but high in nutritive value might be what you do need. A nutritionist could help you there. Children usually need more fat in their diet until they are around 2 - 3 years of age. It helps in brain development. But, too much fatty foods or high calorie foods may lead her onto the path of a not eating correctly later in life. Good luck!!

first let me say I am not weight obsessive. I had 4 kids they are now grown and when they were small my 2 youngest who ate just as good as my oldest were considered to be very underweight. I was told by the dr to feed my oldest of the 2 lots of high calorie foods like bananas etc. well I did and she is now an overweight adult now I am not blaming her weight totally on this dr prescribed diet but I would not feed a child high calorie foods just for the sake of gaining weight ever again. I now feel that a child will catch up or will be small if she is supposed to small. as long as she is eating foods that are good for her and the right amts and she is not getting starved by you (and I mean nothing offensive to you) or she is just not eating that I would let nature take its course. at 1 year old that is too early to really tell.
both of my children were diagnosed as failure to thrive. they caught up soon enough.

my youngest I decided to just contuinue to feed him because I knew he would not starve.

I just took a look at what they were eating (healthiness wise)and if they were actually eating it and not leaving it on the plate or tossing it in the garbage.

My son is underweight for his age (about 5th percentile) and my dr suggested to give him pediasure.

I don't believe that it has really improved his weight, but it makes it so he doesn't lose any.

His weight has always gone up and down since birth. Since I have been giving him pediasure, it has stayed constant.

It is a little pricey, but it is worth it for my family.

good luck

Hi, I know it's been awhile since you posted this, but I wanted to add some suggestions. My daughter and I are vegan, so I have to make sure that she gets enough calories and fat, since she doesn't eat any meat, dairy or eggs (all the traditional high calorie fare). A couple people mentioned olive oil, and I think this is much better than butter. Just like the butter idea, however, you can put it on everything- vegetables, bread (my daughter's favorite), pasta or in smoothies. Sunflower seed butter is good too if you want to avoid nuts. Also try calorie dense foods like chopped dried fruit in muffins, ground flaxseed in pancakes or on soy yogurt, with cereal, etc.

With these suggestions I also wanted to agree with the other posts that maybe there is no need to worry quite yet. Kids fluctuate so much that it is sometimes hard to determine if they are really not growing well or if the doctor's appointment just fell at an off point. I would make a few minor additions to her calorie intake and wait to see what happens in a few months.

Good luck,
K.

My ped suggested we add Carnation Instant Breakfast powder to my daughter's whole milk to add some calories. Play around with flavors and the amt that you add to the milk to determine what tastes best to your child. She drank it for awhile and then refused, but it did seem to work. Also we would feed her a small amt of Breyers Vanilla ice cream every night. Between the two she gained a few pounds in a few months. But she's still small for her age....the ped is no longer worried and says that as long as she's growing at her pace and continues to be on track in other developmental areas there's really nothing to worry about...she'll just be small. (her father and I are fairly small people though so it probably is genetic)
Best wishes!

Has she recently started walking, cruising or crawling more? Children sometime lose weight around this age because they're burning off more calories. If she is healthy & active - keep an eye on it, but I wouldn't worry about trying to force feed.