Benjamin has a history of riding the bottom of the bell-shaped curve when it comes to his weight. Before six months, he was in the 90th percentile. He didn’t see the doctor again until after his first birthday, and he had dropped to the 10th percentile and then again to the 5th. His most recent weight check put him at the 3rd percentile.
But there were jumps all over the page. One visit, the nurse would say he’d gained, the next say he’d lost even more. My trust in baby scales has diminished to just about nothingness. But I knew he wasn’t in the 90’s anymore.
And there were reasons, other than starvation, that is:
I got pregnant around his first birthday, which would have reduced my milk supply. And he was a Super Nurser. His nursings didn’t slow any, but he wasn’t getting the nutrients. We were still offering the same foods to him, but he didn’t start eating more to make up for the lack of breastmilk.
He started walking at 9 months, running and climbing by 12. The burning of extra calories could have caused the weight slump.
Genetics don’t affect a baby’s body build until after the first six months. Benjamin does have a lot of short, skinny people in his family! (Not me!)
So I wasn’t worried. But we still tried to get him to eat more. When we would normally send a child to their room during dinner for acts of disobedience, we kept Benjamin at the table. When we would normally demand more supper be eaten before ice cream, we allowed Benjamin to partake in dessert. Truthfully, it was frustrating to not have discipline at the dinner table! But we were trying to fatten our child up…
One day, while discussing this dilemma with friends, I heard myself explaining that Benjamin DOES eat a lot… in the mornings. It is not unusual for him to have 5 or 6 little bowls of cereal! And so I got to thinking about what it is that he eats the most. We don’t buy Cinnamon Toast Crunch or Fruit Loops. But even the best cereal still doesn’t have the nutrition that he needs, if he’s going to be eating more of THAT than lunch and dinner combined! I was especially convinced of this after reading Donielle’s post about cereal nutrition. Even without that evidence, cereal has no fat, healthy or otherwise. And most boast this claim proudly! How were we supposed to set our child up to thrive by depriving him of normal, natural, healthy fats?
So I started putting more effort into breakfasts. I made scrambled eggs. French toast. Sausage and biscuits. Even waffles and pancakes have more healthy fat than cereal, as they are made with eggs and oil and served with butter. (And to cut down on the sugar high, I serve them with honey or jelly instead of HFCS, er, I mean syrup.)
Benjamin approves:
(He was originally given an empty plate, on which I was going to place ONE biscuit. He got impatient and switched HIS plate for the BISCUIT plate. And began munching away.)
After serving this to him every morning for a couple weeks, it was time to take him in for his two-year appointment. I wasn’t really expecting to see much of an improvement, as we hadn’t been doing this very long. But he jumped from the 3rd percentile up to the 10th! I even asked that they weigh him again. (Given my mistrust of the scales). And asked that they check the chart again. I didn’t want false hope.
It may be true that his previous weighing had been erroneous. It could be that these breakfasts have nothing to do with the weight gain; it was just time for him to grow. But right now, I feel confident that we’re doing something right. When he goes back in the fall for another weight check, we’ll see if it was false confidence or not.
I find that my daughter, also around the 5th percentile (unless they weigh her with her clothes on!), tends to eat more at breakfast too. Especially since she decided to sleep at night instead of nursing 2-4 times.
Yeah for you and finding something to help Benjamin get more healthy food. I am reading a book right now called Healthy Child, Whole Child that I will be reviewing soon. I often think of you while reading it (even if this is the first ever comment I’ve made on your blog!).
YAY! fatten that little boy up! maybe he’ll weigh as much as Caylee some day. he he. 🙂
Thanks for that link about the cereal. We’ve been a mostly yogurt and granola family for a while, but there is still TONS of cereal in our house. Hmmm . . . need to work on that.
Also — I realized that several people mentioned the WHO growth charts in your prior post about his percentiles. But, just for good measure — here’s a link to the Kellymom article about breastfed babies and growth charts. I love my ped. but even they use the formula charts (and I noticed at my last visit that all the charts had formula ads down the sides of them — how wrong is that??) Maybe we should all print out the WHO chats and take them with us to our next appointments 🙂
Breakfast is such an important meal. It makes me crazy to hear people tell me, “Oh, I just have a ‘Breakfast shake’.” Or, “I don’t have time.” Or, “I’m not hungry in the morning.” (There is a simple reason for that, by the way. When you eat too much at dinner the night before, your body works all night long to digest what you ate which can disrupt your sleep, cause you to gain weight, and you’re not hungry in the morning because your body is exhausted from working all night.) Anyway, I wake up every morning a half an hour before everyone else in my family to make sure I have breakfast started. This is our heavy meal. Fruit, protein, whole grains and dairy all packed into a meal that will sustain even the hungriest of people (or reset the system of the worst nutrition offender).
I know you worry about his weight but if he is healthy, he is doing fine. You are teaching him the importance of eating breakfast which is probably the best thing you can teach a child about eating.
My fourteen month old is also a big breakfast eater. I feed him as much as he’ll take because he never seems to eat too much at lunch or dinner. We eat oatmeal about three times a week and he’ll eat as much as my husband and I. He’ll also drink a big sippie cup worth of smoothie at the same time. I sneak all the nutrients into those items as I can. You can put flax seed, nuts or all kinds of fruit into oatmeal. In smoothies we put fruit, yogurt or kefir, coconut milk, flax seed, and spinach, kale or chard. Sue Gregg’s website also has a great blender batter waffle recipe that I use at least once a week. You put in most ingredients the night before (to soak) and just add an egg, baking soda and salt the morning off so it is super quick.
My son also ‘plummeted’ to the fifth percentile around ten months but developmentally he is on track and I have no other reason to be worried about him. So I just ignore the doctor if he makes too big of a deal of it.
Hi, Glad to hear he is putting on weight 🙂 Just our of interest where did you buy your baby scales from? Also what brand did you get?
Thanks 🙂