can i give a supplement to fatten LO up?

[CPinho]

Why is it that fat children are always praised upon by doctors and everyone? I also have a skinny one (my 22-old month is 10Kg) and I am sick of people telling me how little she is. On the other hand, DH has a friend who is a doctor and has a 9 month old girl who weighs about the same as our daughter. He (the doctor, not DH) was saying how well and healthy she was doing and showed some preocupation on our daughter's weight.
Does he not look at the charts that show that our daughter is more close to the "norm" than his? R is on the 20th centile, his is almost on the 95th. Both are normal of course, but ours is more average (in the sense of being closer to the 50th centile) than his. Still he worries for the littler one and is happy that he has an almost obese child.

I am with you, Felizefun - I am sick of people telling me how skinny my little girl looks, but don't give in to that. In a matter of years people will look at your girl and compliment you on how elegant she is

[hiann]

My dd isnt skinny but at nearly 3 years old she is only 28lbs. She is not tall either but nor am I. Her face is very fine featured so I know she is just petite. She also is a very fussy eater which I out down to her personality... Strong willed (like me...) rather than blw- fed as a baby!

[PerpetualMadness]

A 95 th centile 9 month old is not 'nearly obese' comments like that are no more helpful than people commenting on smaller/more slender children.

[hiann]

As my hubby pointed out to me, for anyone who remembers their stats in Gcse maths....

The graphs are based on normal distribution bell shaped curves. Therefore the line goes up into bell and down again. In order to make such a graph, they need to have low down data and high up data ie the 2nd centile and the 98 centile. If there wasnt this data and data for the next groups there wouldnt be a 50 percentile...

[PerpetualMadness]

Exactly...

[CPinho]

Sorry if I didn't make myself clear - I didn't mean to make it sound like it did. The story is: I have downloaded an application from the world health organization called WHO anthro where you put the weight and the age and it gives you the centile (I have it from when I was obsessed with centiles, when my DD's doctor was scaring me about her weight gain - or lack thereof).
It shows the z-scores (how many standard deviations a certain value is distant from the mean) in colours. Green is less than one SD from the norm, red is so distant that is a cause for concern (they call it "severity levels", go figure), yellow is in between. When DH came from his dinner with his friend and was telling me all about his conversation, and was clearly worried about our daughter's weight, I showed him how our daughter was green and his friend's was yellow. I know this is not at all like saying "almost obese", and I appologize for the exageration.

[Rosie_t_Riveter]

But weight is just one measure. TheBean is 9m and 91st centile for weight. I'm not worried about obesity because a) he's 9m, b) he is also 91st centile for height so is "in proportion" and c) his brother was exactly the same and is a healthy (albeit rather tall) 3 year old.

It is not necessarily unhealthy for a baby to be 6th centile, or 95th. You need to look at a variety of factors (their parents/family, the pattern of weight gain, are they meeting milestones) rather than just looking at weight and deciding whether they are "healthy" or not. After all a large rugby player and a tiny gymnast are both healthy but they will be at two ends of the centile chart (if we had one for adults)

[felizefun]

thanks for your replies.

it's not the percentile i'm bothered about though. nor her weight tbh. it's just that my DD 'looks' skinny. her legs are incredibly skinny compared to her body. now i know that this is coz she started walking really late (2.5yeras) and her calf muscles haven't built up, but still...you know...i'd like her to be a bit chubby i was a chubby toddler, DH wasn't skinny either so i'm wondering where those genes went..

i value your advice though. it's not the fatness but the healthiness that matters.

[Louisianablue2000]

If you are worried about healthiness and she was a really late walker then I'd be getting her doing lots of exercise to build up those muscles (unless of course there is a medical reason for her late walking that means she can't do lots of exercise).

When they start stretching out though they do look like their limbs are too skinny. My eldest looks like she's all legs and arms and yet she's actually quite short for her age.

[felizefun]

[CherryPop]

The same case is with my son, he also eats nutritious food but he is very skinny. The major problem is everyone questions me why he is so lean and this irritates me as a mother. He is healthy and of 2 yrs now, with a weight 11 kg. Is there any food that can be given to put some weight?




Thanks
Ellery

[Gizmo]

50th would be quite chubby here. DD is on the 9th and DS on the 25th, they have been since they were born and follow the percentile lines perfectly. I don't worry because were quite a small family, DH is 9.5 st and I'm 8.5 st. All my family are little so this is quite normal for us. Some of their friends are more chunky, but nothing to worry about. I quite like it actually as clothes seem to last them ages.

ETA, Oh balls just saw this was and old thread and it seems have been bumped to be an advert for snoring causes

[felizefun]

As the OP I can only do this

[fourweewonders]

Everyone comments on how skinny B is, & this has pretty much always been the case, on his school entry examination by the school nurse (2 years ago was the last time he got weighed) he was dead on the 50th centile line for both weight and height, I find its a nightmare to get clothes for him, everything in shops is too baggy, why when he should be exactly average

[StJuniper]