My little one is an active boy who will not sit or lie still for more than 5 minutes. He won’t even lie still on the bed to rest even though he’s tired and sleepy. Because of this, we found that he was hardly putting on any weight or growing any taller. The doctor also thought that his lack of physical growth was due to this reason and encouraged us to feed him more snacks in between meal times. And so we did.
We also tried to change his formula to Pediasure which we were told was effective in helping babies and toddlers gain weight quickly. A friend of mine confirmed this as it worked for her daughter. So we tried it on him. Unfortunately he didn’t like the taste and refused to drink it. Not knowing better, we mixed the formula with his regular one, and he would drink it. Luckily, when I mentioned this to my friend, she told me that I shouldn’t be mixing the two milk powders this way. Apparently this was told to her by the paediatrician. She didn’t ask the reason why, but I’m guessing that it’s because the two milk powders have different composition and therefore has different digestion periods. Mixing them together would probably be confusing to the body system and I suspect one would be compromised more than the other in terms of extracting the best nutrients from each of these formulas.
I was told that if at all we wish to mix the two formulas, we can do so by alternating the feeds. This doesn’t work for us because the boy just wouldn’t drink it “neat”. So we’re decided to do away with Pediasure and tried other ways to beef him up instead. What we found to be quite useful is also the Calciyum yogurt. It’s supposedly to be helpful in children’s growth and true enough, we have noticed that he’s grown faster since we began feeding him with Calciyum. Of course that’s not the one and only factor that helped with his growth, we’ve also been feeding him a lot more in between his meals and milk intake. He loves bread and rice and these may have helped to make him grow faster too.
Now we are rather happy with his rate of growth. Listening and learning from what other experienced parents have done with their kids to help with their growth have helped us a lot. At least it’s a lot less trial and error with products that we aren’t sure would work. We are also careful in not over-feeding the boy so that he won’t become obese and unhealthy. He is taking in some carbs and we’re making sure that they are healthy carbs. I definitely don’t want to go down the road in having to look for weight loss supplements for him next time should we go overboard with feeding him too much!
What are your methods and secrets to beefing up your kids healthily?
{ 3 comments… read them below or add one }
Hey, Gong Xi Fa Cai!
Hayley is lightweight too but she’s rather long/tall for her age. My FIL said I fed her too much and that resulted in her not digesting her food properly wor. Hayley takes milk 3 – 4 times a day and porridge twice a day. She takes 1 bowl of porridge at each feed. FIL said I should reduce her porridge but feed her more often. Dunno if that’s true and if that is why she is lightweight despite eating so much.
As for yogurt, a friend of mine who stays in the US told me to feed Hayley with yogurt too but sadly I couldn’t find anything for babies in Malaysia. They have so many options in the US. I went to the supermarket once and the salesgirl told me to give Calciyum too but she doesn’t look like she’s confident of her recommendation and simply told me that Calciyum is the only yogurt suitable for babies. I didnt give it to Hayley. Now that you’ve given it to your boy and proven that its good, I am not hesitant to let Hayley try it
. Do you chill it?
Gong xi fa cai, Amy! Hope you had a good celebration with your family. Hayley’s diet and eating patterns sounds just like my son’s! My boy takes more than 3-4 times milk a day (7oz each time), and also a bowl of porridge at lunch and dinner. In between he’ll snack also. I don’t think you should reduce the porridge. If Hayley is also very active and always moving about, it could be that she’s burning off all the energy and therefore may need more!
Calciyum seems to be fine on my boy, and we do keep it chilled in the fridge. But we take it out for a few minutes before feeding him coz we don’t want to feed him cold stuff too much.
Have fun giving Hayley Calciyum. I’m sure she’ll love it and you’ll enjoy seeing the look of love on her face when she’s enjoying that yogurt! Hehe.
Thanks for the tips on yogurt. I had a great but tiring CNY – looking after the monkey (haha). We call her a monkey now (of course not in front of her la) cause she behaved just like one. She just won’t stop or sit still for 1 min. I really think it’s the Enfalac A+ milk.. haha.
I kind of agree with you that she’s skinny probably because she is too active and burning off all the energy quickly.