Question: My youngest is one and starting to lose ground on the charts. All of my kids went through this when they started becoming very active and I night weaned. My ped wants me to stop breastfeeding and put him on whole milk. I want to continue to breastfeed. I’ve been giving him baby yogurt, ice cream (he hates it), avocado (he hates it) cookies and other junk food to get the calories in. Any other suggestions?
Ah. . .doctors and their lack of knowledge on breastfeeding coupled with their attachment to those charts = a dangerous combination. To put it plainly I have to disagree with your pediatrician and here are my reasons why:
The Nutritional Value of Breastmilk
Breastmilk does not replace nutritional calories thus depriving your child of precious weight gain. Yes, it’s true. . .if he nurses then his tummy is filled up on breast milk and he may not eat that other stuff later. But is that really so horrible?
In my house, I always start dinner at 4pm and the first thing I do is make a tray of fresh fruits and vegetables. And my hungry kids crowd around the tray and gobble everything up, leaving me free to be in the kitchen and get dinner together. On occasion, they’re not hungry for dinner. And I say so what? They’ve just filled up on fruits and vegetables and so they don’t have room for cheesy chicken casserole. The key is what they’re filling up on.
Likewise, if his tummy is really full of breast milk, that’s not awful. Breastmilk is as nutritionally beneficial food as they come. And it’s not really beneficial to replace a nutritionally dense food like breast milk with other junk. So let him fill up on breast milk.
(I haven’t even covered the thought that there are numerous benefits to both mother and baby for breastfeeding past the first year or that WHO recommends breastfeeding for at least two years.)
Whole Milk & Breastfeeding
Something that I think doctors misunderstand when you talk about breastfeeding an older baby is that you are not breastfeeding constantly like you do a newborn. It sounds like your pediatrician has the idea that it either has to be breast milk OR whole milk. But why can’t it be both? Put whole milk in his sippy cup for meals. Continue to nurse on demand. It really is not an either/or situation.
All That Junk Food and Making Your Baby Gain Weight
The pressure some doctors put on moms to make sure their babies gain weight is daunting. After all, they’re the doctor and they know what’s best right? My suggestion would be to not feed the baby high calorie junk food any more than you normally would. A scoop of ice cream (if he likes it) after a meal is fine (if you even want to do that) but I wouldn’t worry about purposely filling his diet with high calorie foods so that he can attain a spot on the elusive chart.
There are no known problems with slow weight gain at this age. What I mean by that is being slow to gain weight in and of itself is not a medical problem. If your child were to have a condition that prevented weight gain then there’s an issue, but the food he’s eating would be irrelevant.
So feed your child healthy foods–as much as he’ll eat. Keep breastfeeding him if you’re so inclined. Go ahead and give him whole milk at meals or other times when he doesn’t want to nurse. It could just be that he’s meant to be one of those skinny people we all envy when we grow up!
Related Articles:
Why You Should Breastfeed for a Few Years