My 14 Month Old Has Not Gained ANY Weight Since He Was 9 Months Old!!

hi M., I know excately what your going threw, my son is 29 months old with severe food allergies, your lucky that yours are only a few my son is allergic to 30 foods and can only eat 6 foods safely which are watermelon, carrots, broccoli, apples, bananas, and lastely which we just started is pork. he is allergic to everything else. so as you can see it is very hard for him to gain any weight with those foods. He drinks neocate jr and I have to buy this flavoring from their website and thats the only way he will drink it. we currently weighs 22 1/2 lbs he has been in the negitive for the growth charts basically his whole life. I was thinking if yours is on the neocate you should try the flavoring and use a straw thats how I got him to drink it in the beginning. I see a great GI in Boston at Mass gen who has changed our lives dramatically. He also had/has severe eczema which has started to finally subside since the neocate. Also have you tried going to Whole foods they have a lot of foods that a safe for allergic kids and I belong to a few websites that has helped me alot as well: allergykids.com,kidswithfoodallergies, there are a ton of websites I could steer you towards. Great books that are avail are -Whats to eat and Parents guide to food allergies. So you can see I have been dealing with this for a long time and have read just about everything avail about food allergies. So if you have any questions dont hesitate to ask. my email is ____@____.com good luck

2 moms found this helpful

Hi M., I found this website wholesomebabyfood.com it is really informative. I also found a couple of other sites with prepackaged food but since he's a baby I didn't think you'd need those yet. But check it out, and my son is 9yrs old so I'm a little out of the loop and don't remember what is average weight for 18 months. I just thought of something, does that mean since you breast feed that you are also on the special soyfree dairy free diet? I would assume so...I feel for you, when I was breastfeeding I had to give up salsa it made my baby sick, and I thought that was bad!

Your son is 14 months old and the only real food other than baby food that you feed him is hot dogs? I think the problem is that your still feeding him baby food. My son has been sharing our meals since he was at least a year. Maybe you should just try feeding him real food, other than what he's allergic too obviously. I bet it would make a difference. Normally I'd say to try pediasure but I believe it has real milk in it so it probably wouldn't work for you. Pasta would probably be a good thing, any carbs that he not allergic to.

Is avocado okay for his food allergies? That's chock full of nutrients and fat. Good luck!

Hi~I know both of my boys kind of plateaued at that age with their weight, esecially if he has begun to get more active. Keep nursing, I was able to nurse my son until 20 months. As far as the baby food goes, he is fine eating that. One of my sons would not eat table food at 14 months and my DR said he was perfectly fine fine eating the baby food. He would eat more than 10 jars a day!! It was at least healthy, better than lots of butter and oils on other food. Have you looked on line for any support groups? Surely your son is not the only one with these allergies. Maybe your allergist could connect you with some other mothers. maybe even make an appt. with the nutritionist at your local hospital. Good luck!

My son had problems with weight gain due to other medical issues. What about asking for a prescription for duocal? It is a calorie powder that you add to all drinks/food. It really helped my son to get to a decent weight. Just an idea.
T.

Hi M.,

DOn't worry about him eating just hot dogs, my sister ate only veanna sausages for 3 years. Her pediatrician said it was fine. My son only ate chicken nuggets for a year. You might want to talk to a nutritionist on some other options to give him. Also, a great website: http://www.kidswithfoodallergies.org

Good Luck

K.

Have you tried adding olive oil to mashed veggies, etc? We did that for our daughter and it worked wonders. We also started giving her an egg on most days. We did hard boiled egg yolks (a little dry if you do them by themselves, but we mixed them into stage 3 foods) to start, then added the whites after she was a year. Now she likes scrambled eggs (in olive oil) for breakfast. Good luck.

I agree with the PP. Keep nursing...the more the better! That's better for him than any formula or cow's milk could ever be. Babies do slim out when they start getting mobile, but of course 5 months with no weight gain is a little concerning.

My daughter actually LOST weight from 9 months to a year, which was quite horrifying for us.

Push high calorie (but healthy) foods. Of course with his allergies you'll have to be careful. Avacado is a wonderful food. So are bananas. Get in the habit of mixing a bit of olive oil in everything you cook. Hotdogs...blah. Nitrites, cruddy additives...not food for a growing body.

He has a peanut allergy. Has the allergist told you avoid all nuts or can you experiment with some nut butters? Almond butter spread on a bit of bread is chock full of healthy fats.

M.,
I hear you on the weight issue. My dd was a wonderfully round, smushy, roly poly baby for a long time. Now, at 14 months, she hasn't gained but a pound or two in the past 6 months or so. She's getting longer, and leaner, and I'm sad to see the rolls go:-( We're still nursing, too, and I sometimes wonder if I should make her eat more food. Of course, you can't MAKE them eat! The pedi isn't worried, as weight gain typically slows at this age anyway. I do have a book called Raising Your Child Without Milk (http://www.amazon.com/Raising-Your-Child-Without-Lactose-...) that has a lot of really great recipes and ideas for adding the calcium and other nutrients into your child's diet without milk. So much luck to you! H.

M.,
Have you tried bananas, beans, ground turkey meat, or avacodoes all are very healthy, have good fats and are great as finger foods. It took a couple tried with the avacadoes but now my son loves them and would eat a whole one if I let him. So keep trying, I have been told it can take up to 28 tries before kids decide they like a new food. Thankfully it usually has taken us about 10 tries. Good luck.

Hi - have you tried any homemade breads as you can control what goes into it. Of course, finding the time to make the bread is always an issue! Have you tried tofu?? You can disguise it in many ways and it is really good pan fried....

Just a few suggestions, hope they are helpful

M.

I went through a similar thing with my first daughter. She was 4 weeks premature and weighed 6lbs 8oz. She was always under weight on the growth charts and I had he vlood tested for everything that could be wrong with her. Nothing was wrong with her she was just small. She weighed 18lbs FOREVER!! She was in a size 3 diaper still at 2 yrs old when I started potty training. SO I hope this helps.. your baby jus might be small like mine. Now she is 8yrs old and tall and slim.... she weighs about 50lbs.

I think I could have written this myself (except my son does not have allergies). I breastfed my son till he was 19 months. He is 2 next month and still wearing 12-18 month clothes. The pants fall off him if I don't turn them over once at the waist. He is 22lbs and has gained about 2 lbs since he was a year old. His pediatrician is not worried in the slightest - she told me that the natural and normal weight gain at this points plateaus drastically because toddlers are so active.

Getting my son to eat anything but pizza seems to be a constant battle these days. We are happy when he has a good eating day, but there are some days where we wonder at how he can be surviving.

I have been told that all this is completely normal and not to stress about it.

You've done a great job breastfeeding your son - keep up the great work mama! I don't think there is a lot to worry about, but perhaps try making veggies for him that are smothered in butter (blend them if necessary). Also, you can hide a lot of things in his favorite meals - we hide carrots and spinach in pasta sauce, for example.

Can he have cream of wheat? My kids use to love that when they were babies. You can make it with water and add fruit to it.

Hi M.! My 4 yr. old was born at 27 weeks, 1 lb. 4 oz. and we struggled with weight up until about a year ago. She is now 50th percentile for both height and weight, but more important than that, she is healthy and developing normally. We saw a nutritionist in the Pediatric dept. at UMass and found her to be very helpful in identifying healthy foods that provided the "biggest bang for the buck" (avocado, bananas, coconut milk, etc.) and in sneaking in extra calories here and there (jelly, ketchup, dressing whenever possible). For us, parmasean cheese on everything worked, but I'm sure she'd have some great ideas specific to the allergies you're dealing with. I'm happy to share her name and contact info with you if you are interested. Have you talked with anyone at Whole Foods or the like? Many of their employees are pretty well-versed in allergies and specific dietary issues.

We put Duocal (a "tasteless" powder of concentrated carbs and fat) on anything and everything. I mixed it with breast milk, juice, cereal, spaghetti, homemade baked goods, anything moist. We called it "magic sprinkles." You can buy it at the pharmacy without a prescription for about $25-$30/can, but you can also try to get your allergist or pediatrician to write a prescription for it so you would only have to pay your insurance co-pay.

As for only eating hot dogs, eating one or two foods exclusively is pretty common. Hot dogs aside, your son is getting the nutrition he needs from you. You could look at the hot dogs as simply bonus calories and fat. I would imagine, too, that anything you would normally make with milk, you could make with expressed breast milk. Pudding? Add some Duocal... tasty and loaded with calories and nutrition!

Lastly, I read parts of "Child of Mine: Feeding with Love and Good Sense" by Ellyn Satter (recommended by the nutritionist) and found it helpful in putting my mind at ease. I know how anxious we were about every ounce our daughter gained or lost and consequently about every bite she took or refused. Try to trust that he's getting what he needs from you and that you are doing a remarkable job providing for and nurturing him!