Dr. said son needs to gain weight....suggestions?

[Bubblingbrooks]

Snacks...nuts (soaked) cheese whole fruit

Breakfast...omelets are a good addition. If you are going to do french toast, make it from sourdough or sprouted bread, and serve eggs with it.

 

[Wifezilla]

Freemotion is the healthy bread expert, I just don't eat it. Too many family issues with wheat for me to even bother. But french toast would get more eggs in to your boy.

As for a snack, nuts could work. You said he doesn't like cheese, huh?

 

[Henrietta23]

I have a skinny DS as well, 8 years old (9 in April) and less than 50 lbs. He's been at the 5th percentile on the growth charts always. That didn't change much when we took him off gluten and dairy, or when he went off the other foods we found he was allergic to either. His pediatrician and naturopath both stress protein at all meals. He has uncured bacon or sausage, scrambled eggs with goat cheese (thankfully he's not allergic to goat's milk), flax meal pancakes with goat's milk butter or almond butter.
He obviously can't eat school lunches but when he did I found the lunches in our town were really high in carbs and low on protein.

 

[2dream]

As an almost 60 year old woman who has always been under weight according to the charts, maybe no matter what he eats is going to make him gain weight. My Dr and my mom were always stressing over my inablility to gain weight. Apparently it did not hurt me to terribly bad. I gave birth to two healthy children, seldom miss a days work unless I really just want to and can still work circles around most folks. I will say that for a whole year I was at a normal weight, again according to the charts. But I don't think you want to put your son on that diet. (It consisted mostly of alcohol, ham sandwiches, fast food and late nights).
Would you believe that when all else failed at 13 years of age my Dr told my mother to give me a beer everyday with one meal. I will say that their obsessing and constantly trying to shove food into my mouth, telling me I was to thin, left me with a major inferiority complex. I still fight self image issues but not as often. I was a lot like your son and still am, I only eat to live, miss more meals than the average person, am seldom really hungry. I can manage completely on one decent meal a day with a couple of handfulls of peanuts or a piece of fruit along the way. So unless it is really affecting his health or there is some underlying medical condition, I don't think I would worry to terribly much.

 

[FarmerChick]

I agree with 2dream

as much as he might need a few pounds on him....if he is happy, healthy, not more hungry, etc and doing fine.....then it could easily be "just him"

some people are naturally thin

but increasing some good fats etc. should never hurt him.

 

[Bubblingbrooks]

I agree with 2dream

as much as he might need a few pounds on him....if he is happy, healthy, not more hungry, etc and doing fine.....then it could easily be "just him"

some people are naturally thin

but increasing some good fats etc. should never hurt him.

Thats why I mentioned todays charts versus the past when food was whole and real as well as nutrient dense.
Those charts are way off base.

 

[Woodland Woman]

People have told me my girls are too thin. Especially my mil. I feed my kids food made from scratch. It doesn't have all the garbage additives. My kids do get treats but not too much. Usually 1-2 cookies. Protein is very important. Make sure to have good protein for breakfast and not too many carbohydrates. We like dinner food for breakfast. Today we had a piece of chicken and vegetables.

I wouldn't worry about the weight charts. My girls gain a little weight every month.

You can track his weight yourself. I check my kids the first of every month and write it in a notebook. I also track their height. Most months they gain weight. As long as he is gaining I wouldn't worry about matching the charts.

Now that my girls have mostly reached their adult height they are slowly filling out. I think this is a much healthier way to grow.

 

[lalaland]

I would just second and third that idea to avoid ensure at all costs.

my brother was always underweight, also wasn't too interested in eating. when he wanted to be on a sports team, he ate a shake every day of whole milk, eggs, plus banana, fruits, etc. it helped.

protein, protein, protein,

and yup, don't stress! he might always just be a wiry guy! a lot healthier to be on the skinny side versus obese.

 

[abifae]

I went low carb to gain weight. It worked. From 20 pounds underweight to about as dead on a good weight for me as could be.

I avoid anything refined and keep my carbs 50-100 a day (depending on hormones). First time I gained weight in my life.

You can ask Auntie how nasty scrawny I used to be. I'd belly dance and you could count my ribs and vertebrae and my cheeks were hollow.

Lots of fat. Middlin' on protein. Lowish carb. Most of my carbs are in milk and veggies.

I'm against high protein because it damages the kidneys.

 

[lwheelr]

Ok, first of all, "gaining weight" is not really the goal.

Healthy GROWING is the goal.

Doctors will generally tell you to just stuff in empty calories, and tell you that if you do, the kid will gain. They might, but they won't grow healthy.

My son started slowing in growth between the ages of 2 and 6. He all but completely stopped growing between the ages of 6 and 7. This is not normal for my kids - I could SEE this kid getting skinnier, and the scary part was that I could see his muscles disappearing. He did not gain ONE POUND between the ages of 6 and 7, and at the age of 7, he did not have the strength in his legs to push the pedals on his bike fast enough to keep the trainer wheels off the ground (NOT normal!). He was the youngest of seven kids at the time, so I knew what was normal for a kid at that age.

Our doctors would not listen.

Turned out he had Crohn's (auto-immune digestive disorder). He was diagnosed with leukemia shortly after, and the treatment for the leukemia put the Crohn's into remission, but the nutritionists told me to just stuff calories into him. I kept saying, "empty calories are not going to help him, he needs good quality food!", and they said, "It doesn't matter. Give him fat and sugar!". I was shocked that people who were supposedly trained in nutrition would not understand that one elemental concept.

This time I didn't listen.

I made sure his bread was all whole wheat. He got very little sugar, and the fats were healthy fats - butter, coconut oil, olive oil, etc. He got a good variety of fruits and veggies, and lots of bread and servings of meat daily, with other sources of protein thrown in - nuts, eggs, milk, beans.

So basically, you want to make sure that everything he eats is nutrient dense. Not just calories, but packed with nutrients. Then his body has the elements it needs in order to grow. The less a food is processed, generally the more nutrient dense it is - lots of raw veggies, raw fruits, whole grain breads and low sugar cereals, fresh cooked foods with simple ingredients. Avoid pre-cooked foods, stay away from canned soups or meals (and fresh or frozen fruits and veggies are WAY more nutritious than canned). If you want soup, make it up fresh (toss the ingredients in the crock pot, and let it cook while you are at work or busy doing other things if you are pressed for time). Homemade bread is WAY better too, no preservatives (preservatives can irritate the bowel enough to stop proper absorption of critical nutrients).

Since there is a fairly high chance of some sort of digestive issue going on, I'd recommend two things:

1. Watch him for other symptoms. Complaints of belly aches, complaints of pain in his legs, arms, chest, (may be sharp "flash" pains) or frequent headaches - all of those types of pain can be associated with digestive disorders. Also check him over to see if he has the muscle strength that is normal for his age. If there is something else going on, chances are there will be other symptoms that will clue you in. Statistically, many children with digestive disorders ONLY manifest "failure to thrive" as a presenting symptom, and do not have ANY abdominal pain at all - they may not have intestinal pain for 5-10 YEARS after the initial growth delays start to show (it can be 10-20 years in adults).

2. Get him on daily probiotics. Easiest is to make your own yogurt and find a way for him to have it - The recommendations for shakes are great, just substitute yogurt for the milk. Probiotics can help to balance the digestive tract and will help in almost all digestive disorders, plus they are good to keep kids healthy anyway.

School food is generally pretty terrible stuff. It meets all the USDA nutritional guidelines on the surface, but is loaded with preservatives, highly processed (lacking micronutrients), and made up mostly of simple carbs and complex fats (harder to digest than medium chain fats). Easy stuff to get fat on, not good stuff to GROW on.

Kids can grow on a fairly low amount of food if it is high quality food, but what we think is high quality may not always BE high quality.