My baby is 8 months old and weighs only 14 pounds. What types of food should I give him to improve his weight?
I get many questions from parents whose children are small for their age, are poor growers, or who lack a healthy appetite. For these children, what is very important in their diet is nutrient density’. In other words, each calorie they take in must have as concentrated an amount of nutrition as possible. Because they eat so little food, what they do eat must squeeze in all the vitamins, minerals, protein, and calories that they need each day. There is not room for empty calories’, or high bulk foods. While fruits and vegetables have lots of vitamins and minerals per calorie, they have so few calories, baby may fill up before getting the calories they need to grow properly. Therefore, you need to focus on both calorie dense and nutrient dense foods. Some examples are formula, breast milk, eggs, full fat dairy foods, meats, nuts, and seeds. For a baby that is small, meal times must be frequent since they can’t consume much at each feeding time. Six small meals are better than three larg
