I'm replying to a reply because I don't have the original post. I'm also
snipping cross posting.


But my third child is very, very small. 28 pounds at four years
old. He's gained 1.5 pounds in the past two years. There are reasons
why
he might be small - a critical illness last year where he lost a bunch
of
weight (that he's since regained), the fact that all his siblings were
unusually small at his age, the fact that my kids are unusually active
and
eat unusually healthy foods in comparison to their peers...

Here's what I do. I put peanutbutter on anything possible. I feed him
spoonfuls of cod liver oil. I mix flaxseed into his oatmeal. I give
him
Balance bars or Myoplex shakes for snacks. He has a snack cupboard with
a wide variety of choices available to him all the time (including
pudding
& those dreaded almonds.) He is fed five or six times a day. He
doesn't
have a huge appetite and is unpredictable in what he'll eat: tonight,
for
example, he ate cranberry relish and whole wheat bread but passed up the
mashed potatoes and turkey and broccoli (which he usually loves.)

My nearly 3 year old is also *very* tiny. He is all of 23 to 24 pounds
fully dressed. He has gained
weight since he was diagnosed with his metabolic disorder, but not as much
as they would
have liked to see. We talked to the dietician at Cincy Children's and she
recommended giving
Lucas more fat in his diet. We cook a lot of his food with butter -- his
breakfast, on his veggies, etc.
( 4 tsp of butter gives you an extra 200 calories) and we give him olives,
which he loves.
6 of those gives another 50 calories. The list we were given also
recommended putting chocolate chips
on pancakes or even as a snack. The trick as you've figured out is to make
everything more calorically dense.

I don't buy cookies or chips or pretty much any refined flour products -
even the crackers are whole wheat ones. I only buy skim milk for the
rest
of the family but I buy flavored 2% milk for him (because he won't drink
plain milk.) I'm thinking of mixing up infant formula for him again if
he'll drink it!

What about something like Pediasure? Do you think he'd like that? We can't
do that (it has
starch) but it might be an option for you. I think that they come in
several flavors.

Kate R.