Tips to Fatten Up Your Kid

So if you’re like the over-worried mom who was given the subtle label of a “failure” in how you’re feeding your child due to their weight gain (or in our case, lost) in the percentile chart, you’re not alone mama. So here are a few tricks and hacks that I’ve tried to help us mamas remove that dreaded feeling when placing our kid on the weighing scale.

1. Serve your child’s meals with at least a “default” food they’ll always want to eat. Having a safe and familiar food on their plates gives them more chances of eventually picking up that broccoli or carrot you’ve been wanting to feed them. There are times however where even their “default” A food is rejected. So definitely keep a menu of “default” plan B (to Z if possible) that you can rotate with. But don’t necessarily pull all of those backups in one go. Your kid might simply not be hungry or needs sleep instead.

2. If your kid is anything like mine that can’t sit still long enough to drink a full feeding from a bottle, hopefully, this tip helps. Set a routine for them to know that it is time for their feeding. For us, our routine is having to carry him in one arm for him to watch me prepare his milk bottle with the other arm (just like how most moms can do a lot of things with one arm). Then put him in his sarong together with his Lovey and feed him his milk. The more simple the routine is, the easier it is for him to understand that oh it’s actually feeding time.

3. If your kid loves their baby biscuits as much as mine does, slather some of those fattening foods such as avocado, full-fat yogurt, and even cereal on to his biscuits to sneak in some more extra calories during snack time.

4. When they’re eating well and then suddenly start to fuss, sometimes giving them water or a portion of food from your own dinner plate can help to reset their tongue and break the monotony of what they’re eating.

5. If they’re in one of those moods where they just simply refuse everything you offer them, that’s ok. Release that pressure and breathe in. Tomorrow is another day to try. Celebrate internally your wins for today. A few more mouths of rice. An extra biscuit. Five spoons of pureed carrots. What have you. Progress my dear mama, not perfection. We got this. You’re the best mama for your kid, and you got tomorrow again to try to figure things out.

Hope these tips helped! Anyone else having a few more tips of their own? Help a mama out and share them in the comments! Would greatly appreciate them! 🙏