View Full Version : He's so skinny... Should I worry?
I'm a bit worried about Mitch... He's just turned 2, and still only 11kg. I got him weighed back in November last year, and he was 11kg then too.
He's not sickly, just doesn't eat much.
I was giving him a cuddle before putting him in the bath earlier tonight, and rubbed my hand down his bare back, & his spine is protruding :(. His little arms and legs could almost break!
How do I get him to gain weight? Should I even worry about trying?
This is all new to me... I come from fat stock :p :laughing:...
Chunkydunks
26-06-2008, 20:24
Ds was the same. he has now started to get a little bit move on him but not much. He's 4 and only 15kgs. At 2 and a half he was 14kg. I know its because he's such a fussy eater that he barely eats so I don't stress too much. As long as he's not lossing weight I don't worry too much.
Ds has 2 nicknames ATM. My mum calls him lucky legs.....lucky they don't snap off and go up his bum:laughing:. And we call him spare rib......his ribs stick out a mile.
We started giving DS some pentavite and toddlers milk but now he's not doing too bad with the eating (infact some days he won't stop so he must be going through a growth spurt) so we just have the ovaltine max for milk (no longer available in coles or woolies but I get it from the warehouse and places like that for $2 as oppsed to $4 or $5). Hopefully they'll fill out sooner or later.
My DS is a runt too,and hes 3 in October.I havent weighed him in yonks but I reckon hes only about 14kg max.He can still wear size 1 pants,size 3 falls off him,size 2 aint much better.
If he runs round nude,I can see his ribs:eek:
But he eats heaps,most definatley healthy,and has heaps of energy.
Some kids are just runty:D
Milliner
26-06-2008, 20:30
Sarah, did you take a good look at Bails? He was 9.8kgs at 2 and STILL isn't 10kgs. Hasn't gained a thing in over 6 months.
He doesn't eat very much at all either. You just can't force feed them, he eats when he is hungry.
It used to worry me a lot but he is happy and healthy (skinny, but healthy) so that's all that matters.
Is your DH skinny? Mine is so that's where Bails gets it from. I can see his ribs, shoulder bones, his arms and legs look like they could break too. :crying:
Fuchsia!
26-06-2008, 20:30
I wouldn't worry, Jax was about 10kgs at 2. He was quite skinny it was hard to get food into him, he eventually grew an appetite and now he eats like a horse. Theres this powder stuff you can get from the chemist that you sprinkle on there food and it helps them gain weight and is also packed with vitamins. I have no idea what its called as a lady was telling me about it.
Maybe ask your chemist next time your there and check it out? DO you still go to a MCHN? Maybe see if you can go back and check his weight
My DS was the same, never seamed to gain weight, and he's quite short, at 1 he was just over 10kgs, at 2 about 12kgs, at 3 just over 13kgs and now at 4 he's 15kgs, and not even a meter high yet lol
if your concerned about your DS maybe have a chat to your gp and see if you can be refered to a nutritionist
as long as he's healthy and gaining and getting taller that is all that matters
3BoysBlue
26-06-2008, 20:32
DS1 is 2 and a bit and hes 10.10kgs and looks so skinny and tiny
but he eats and is a healthy and happy and very energized little boy
some kids are just tiny and others are bigger
DS2 is only 10mths and already close if not over 9kgs so every bub is different
threeofthem
26-06-2008, 20:41
I am in the same boat but i think my kids are meant to be skinny, neither eat alot dd is 12 kg at 2.5 and ds is 1.5 and only 9kg. Some days i worry but on the whole not anymore they will be what they are meant to be. I also give dd the ovaltine max for milk and they both have a multi vitamin as i don't think they get enough with their food.
I wouldn't worry about it. DD1 only tripled her birth weight recently, at 2 1/2. They are 'supposed' to have tripled it by the time they are one. Summer just gone she was wearing size 0 shorts....she was 2 last Novemeber. She's a string bean through and through. She also hardly ate anything....
We had to put her on formula as well as vitamins recently cause she ate so little (had refused all vegies and meat in all forms for 18 months) and now she is eating properly (and off formula) and she gained about 2.5kg in 3 months. We go back to the dietician in August and it'll be interesting to see if she's gained more. She's now on par with a friend's DD who gained weight like a normal baby and child. There's 10 weeks difference between them and they now weigh the same....in the past we have always laughed about how tiny my DD was compared to my friend's DD.
If you're concerned you can get a blood test to see if he is lacking anything but if it all comes back good then don't worry about it! DD1 looked like a skinned rabbit when she was naked.
I wouldn't worry about it. DD1 only tripled her birth weight recently, at 2 1/2. They are 'supposed' to have tripled it by the time they are one.
Yikes! My DS tripled his birthweight just recently and he is 5!!! Mind you, he was 5.94kg at birth :laughing:
As a mum of two very active, tall, skinny and supposedly underweight kids - if they eat well enough, get plenty of vitamins in their food and are still really active ... don't worry!
I have always had health professionals remark on how skinny my kids are, get stunned by how much they eat and tell me not to worry as they are active and healthy and it is just the way they are going to be!
I would only worry if they were suddenly not eating and becoming lethargic ...
If you are woried about his weight I would sugest giving him Pedisure (providing he not still BF is he is ignore me i am clueless) Pedisure has 1 cal per mil is lactose free, and has all the fat and butrients that he needs KWIM, some kids live on just that where as he would be having it as a suplement, You can even get it on a script at the hospital, other then that could try adding sustagen to his normal milk, there is also a carb poweder caled polyjoole you can add it to liquid of can sprinkle it on his food
thats only sugestions i have
We had to put her on formula as well as vitamins recently cause she ate so little (had refused all vegies and meat in all forms for 18 months)
Mitch won't eat any meat either. At dinner he'll probably have 1 mouthful of carrot, 1 of broccoli and some mashed potato. That's all. I've tried so many different dinners... He hates pasta, rice... :(
I know I'm being silly for worrying, because he's not going to starve himself... It's just hard yanno?
I'll talk to the chemist about some vitamin supplements.
Thanks guys :hugs:.
I wouldn't worry about it if I were you. My DD will be 3 in Oct & she's not even 10kg yet!
its all good and wel people saying dont wory my child is only what ever weight KWIM but clearly it is worying the OP hence why she has posted KWIM
All kids are difernt i know that all to well but sometimes is is a wory sometimes its not
Mitch won't eat any meat either. At dinner he'll probably have 1 mouthful of carrot, 1 of broccoli and some mashed potato. That's all. I've tried so many different dinners... He hates pasta, rice... :(
I know I'm being silly for worrying, because he's not going to starve himself... It's just hard yanno?
I'll talk to the chemist about some vitamin supplements.
Thanks guys :hugs:.
After working with a paed dietician I have tons of ideas to encourage eating. DD1 was terrible. She wouldn't even have a mouthful of dinner. She literally lived on 2 weetbix for breakfast (sometimes she'd eat one mouthful, sometimes she'd eat the whole lot), one honey sandwich (always honey), and between 1-3 pieces of fruit (all at lunch time). Then from lunch (which is at 12pm) she wouldn't eat until breakfast the next morning. Never woek up hungry, never asked for food.
After working with the dietician she now eats 2 weetbix for breakfast, then she has some of DH's toast some mornings, has morning tea (fruit and some crackers), then a sandwich and a piece of fruit for lunch, then some more fruit, or something home made for afternoon tea and then she's asking for more food at 5.30pm when I tell her dinner will be ready soon and she sits down and 9 nights out of 10 she'll eat most, if not all, of her dinner - vegies/meat/pasta/rice...even soup! Sh'es always asking me for food!
If you are interested I'll type out what the dietician's suggestions were....if not it's all good!
I wouldnt stress hun, Mitch is a normal healthy boy.
Vitamin suppliments wont hurt if he isnt eating much variety of food... omage 3 too !
My boys take a chewable multi and a fish capsule every day.
in saying that I am worried about Ethan for the exact opposite reason ! he is such a bombaa !! :o
so see, either way we worry.. its just our job as mothers :p
forbetoel
27-06-2008, 15:01
My son is 2 years and 4 months and is 10 kilo's. He is not the biggest eater, but I have never used weight as a major indicator of health. My son is otherwise a healthy little boy, who has energy to play, get into mischeif, he interacts well with the family etc,etc...all firm indicators that he is developing normal for his age. :)
I am quite sure your son is fine too.
For toddlers, you gauge their food intake over two days rather than one day, so you will see that they will eat more the next day after practically starving themselves the previous day.
A wise woman once told me this and I have done it since DS started solids. Its true, he does make up for it.
He also grazes. he has a little bit here, a little bit there. Instead of fighting it I just work with it and offer him his lunch over the whole afternoon. I know he will win if we engaged in a battle, so why bother I reckon. He's going to grow out of it while I go mental in the meantime unless I just go with the flow.
I met my nephew when we were on holiday, and I sweardagod the kid just ate and ate and ate until his parents told him to stop. He's 2 and must weigh about 14 kilos. He looks about 4 years old!!
DH's nickname at school was Bones, so I guess you don't have to look far to see where my kid gets his build from.
I get a bit worried about DD as well. She's 27 months and weighs 11.6 kg with clothes on. She's so skinny, I can see her ribs. The only thing that's holding her size 2 pants is her cloth nappy otherwise the pants just fall off. Don't know what we'll do when she's toilet trained.
She's an extremely fussy eater and won't eat vegies and some days she hardly eats at all. She's on pentavite and has been for a year so at least she's getting some vitamins that she's missing out from vegies.
She likes carbs, lots of pasta and rice but has been in the 11kg range since January.
She looks like a lollipop with a skinny body and big head :laughing:
I have never tried this but i have heard to help fussy eaters put on weight you can add cream to mashed vegies or soup or whatever they will eat to make it more fattening!!
If you are interested I'll type out what the dietician's suggestions were....if not it's all good!
I would love that :hugs:... If you can be bothered!
Thanks guys... I'm a stressheadfreakazoid! :raspberry:;)
splish n splash
27-06-2008, 21:14
If you are worried then get him checked out.
My son is 2 and weighs 10kg. I had to take him to the doctor last week because he was off the chart with his percentiles. He should be at 14kg following the same curve. Luckly all his blood test came back clear and I just need to weigh him each week and make sure he doesn't loose weight.
So if it sets your mind at ease see your doc, i wasn't going to but the doc tok one look at his charts and said he was glad I did bring him in even though his test were clear.
Has he been wormed lately?
SuperWoman
27-06-2008, 22:40
I'm a bit worried about Mitch... He's just turned 2, and still only 11kg. I got him weighed back in November last year, and he was 11kg then too.
He's not sickly, just doesn't eat much.
I was giving him a cuddle before putting him in the bath earlier tonight, and rubbed my hand down his bare back, & his spine is protruding :(. His little arms and legs could almost break!
How do I get him to gain weight? Should I even worry about trying?
This is all new to me... I come from fat stock :p :laughing:...
My DS is the same. He is a skinny little thing. My SIL calls him string bean, lol. He eats, breakfast, lunch and dinner and snacks inbetween. Don't get me wrong, he doesn't scoff his food and doesn't eat heaps but he does eat. I just put it to him being naturally skinny. He sure didn't take after me, lol:laughing:. DS weighs about 12 kilos and he is 2 and a half. I understand your worry, I feel the same way half the time too cause I would love to see some chunks on him. He has always weighed below average and still some size 2 clothes are too big for him. He is tall though but such a skinny bum!:)
Ys_Woman
28-06-2008, 19:20
Ziggie if you are really worried please talk with your MACH nurse at the next appointment.
I had a great nurse when I was stressing about DS1. He was born 3415g (7lb 8oz) which was the 50th percentile but over the next few months started to decline. At 14mths he had reached 8.9kgs, At 2yrs he was 9.9kgs. From 16mths he wasn't showing on the graph at all. Here he is at 20mths with his six month old sister (who was on the 50th percentile).http://picasaweb.google.co.uk/Amypendragon/AmySPublicAlbum/photo?authkey=TbxMpDl92t4#5170402425185372514
My health centre sister looked at his diet and level of activity and suggested it may just be genetic. Frankly he didn't get it from me:laughing: but dh was very tiny as a child/teenager. She suggested if I wanted him to gain a bit of weight I should make homemade chunky chips..big fat ones. The hospital did blood tests and made us see a dietician..but she thought his diet was excellent and the blood tests came back clear.
DS1 is now 7yrs old and has put on a ton of weight in the last year. Now he is substantial and we are back peddling on the fat chips..lol.
If you think your son eats well from a wide variety of fruits/veg/meat/grain etc and is very healthy then it could just be genetic.
I hope you get some answers and peace of mind soon.
Amy:)
Ziggie, it's no problem. I know how stressful it can be! Everyone says don't worry but DD1 would go for weeks on end living on one mouthful of weetibx, half a sandwich and a piece of fruit. She never made up for it (Shed's rule applies to us these days but it never used to). Thankfully my paed listened, told me a year was long enough (even though she looked and acted healthy) and we got pro-active about it!
None of these are instant fixes, it will take time!
First off, being deficient in something can alter their taste so a multi-vitamin is a good start!
Routine - They must sit down for 5 meals a day. The recommended time is 20 minutes a meal. The rule in our house is you sit down at the table until I've finished eating. They don't have to eat but they must learn the routine of sitting down and eating. I don't do time outs for not eating, but I do do time outs for not sitting down while the rest of us eat. I started off with just dinner first, cause it was our biggest issue. Once she understood the concept of sitting down (no toys, no nothing...just really boring while everyone eats) for afternoon tea I'd just ask her to come and sit with me but I really wanted her eating the three main meals first. Once she started eating dinner, she just started asking for morning tea and afternoon tea of her own accord.
No special meals - Offer choices if you like (at breakfast she gets the offer 'cereal or toast' lunch it's 'what do you want on your sandwich, and what type of fruit do you want...dinner there's no choice cause I'm not making seperate meals at dinner time.)
Psychology - there are some words that are never spoken around meal time 'finish' and 'don't like.' You say 'you can do that when you're finished x meal' and all of a sudden she's finished and there's no turning back. So now it's 'you can do that after we have all had x meal.' so she at least has to sit there for the duration of meal time. And if she says she doesn't like something we don't repeat it we just say 'okay, you will like it when you're a big girl..I like it and I'm a big girl, daddy likes it and he's a big boy' etc.
Get them involved in cooking. DD1 had zero interest until she started eating but she now makes her breakfast (with help) every morning, we bake together at least once a week too. She loves it but before it used to be 'no, you do it mummy.' So just keep trying!
Rewards - Find what makes em tick and use it. Don't bribe with food (unless they are asking for something and then it's fine to say 'you can have that after you've eaten x amount of mouthfuls of food') but if sticker charts and the likes work then go for it! This was the hardest one for us cause for ages she'd rather miss out on the reward than eat. We got lucky one night and DH was throwing DD2 up in the air and DD1 asked for a turn. I told her for every mouthful she could get one throw. Any bribe in the past we had managed 1-2 mouthfuls. After 8 mouthfuls I was worried she'd vomit so I got out the tub of stickers (bought from a kids craft shop) and told her for every mouthful she could stick a sticker on her table. Over 50 mouthfuls later I told her to stop cause I was worried she'd explode! We took the stickers off the table the next night, repeated the process and we had success again. We then introduced the sticker chart. 6 mouthfuls of food for one sticker.....after 5 stickers she got a present. We had to cheer her for every mouthful and make it a game and she loved getting a present at the end (just small, cheap pressies. Her final present was a my little pony plate set and sometimes I tell her to eat the food so she can find the pony. It works.) Once the sticker chart was full I took her to Toys R Us and told her she could get whatever she wanted. We had talked about this before. She picked a $350 life size pony......I talked her in to a $40 train set :laughing: I had no idea how to wean her off the sticker chart but I just told her I needed to buy a new one, and gave her stamps instead (two stamps after eating all her dinner) and she's currently very satisfied with that and it's been two weeks.
Now that she eats dinner every night I'm stricter. I want her to learn manners too so if she's clearly stalling (taking 5 minutes to eat one mouthful of dinner) I tell her she's taking too long (after thousands of warnings) and that dinner time is over. This upsets her greatly but I stick to it (and feel terrible) cause she can eat all her dinner in 15 minutes so after an hour I'm more than done. If she doesn't eat dinner, she doesn't get milk before bed. She used to fill up on milk but the dietician told me to stop it and we have. She used to have up to 1 litre of milk a day. Now she has between 400-500mls.
That's about it really. Most nights I have to feed her, but I don't care. I figure she'll stop that once she starts pre-school next year. Considering he has just turned two I'd focus on the routine of stopping and sitting for meals, rather than the actual eating to begin with. Also, if you can hide food in food then do it! We couldn't! We're restricted with allergies anyway, but she'd also know straight away and would just spit it out and you'd never get another mouthful in her for a week! But if you can then hide it, and add some extra on the side, so he has a chance to eat his veggies or meat by choice, rather than deception!
Another thing I did was talk about the veggies as we bought them (meat too).We use a butcher and a green grocer and I always make a big deal out of going there and when we choose our veggies for the week I say things like 'we need some brocolli, what meal do we have brocolli at? Who eats brocolli? etc.etc. Now she's older I ask her to help me find it. So we stand in the shop, we start with fruit first and it goes like this 'this week we need some banana's. Can you find the banana's cause I can't see them?' and she looks for them and gets really excited. I praise her for finding them and then say 'I like banana's, do you like banana's? What about daddy? What about your sister? No she doesn't like banana's cause she's just a baby!' I probably look like a fool standing right next to the banana stand, turning around in circles with my hands in the air asking my 2 year old where the banana's are but she loves it and the workers all know us now anyway and the staff that are re-stocking usually stop and watch us, and they often join in too! We play the same game every week, for every piece of fruit and vegetable (the butcher's I get her to ask for it, and she pays) and she's often hanging out to eat something that we brought. Then at dinner time I say we're having x for dinner tonight! Who likes x? I like x' and she usually chimes in with an 'I love x!'
Hope that helps and you can take something useful from it! We've been working with a dietician for 6 months so it really does take time! Be patient, and be consistent!
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