Uh, how many calories are they supposed to eat?

epphd · March 2011

A toddler Sam's size is supposed to eat 1200 or so calories?????? I read somewhere that the recommendation is 40 calories per inch of height - and he's about 31 inches tall.

There is no. way. on. earth. that he is eating 1200 calories. Not even close, guaranteed - maybe 1/2 that? The kid does not eat. He (doesn't) eat a variety of things - so it's not just that he only eats crackers - he'll eat a few crackers, a little hummus, a few peas, some apples, etc. So it's not that he's super picky per se - just not a big eater. And between bottles and sippies he probably drinks 15-18 ounces of milk a day - maybe 20 on a good day.

Our biggest challenge is dinner. He often eats one or two bites then signals that he's all done. He'll then have a 5 ounce (tops) bottle of milk before bed. Some of it is that he's just really tired after day care, but it's also just his appetite. A few times we've really tried to get him to tank up - by presenting food multiple times throughout the night - and he's thrown up.

I'm not super worried - I mean, he's growing, he's happy, he's healthy (except for the never ending cold/cough!). He's always been in the 20th percentile for weight and as long as he's not losing I'm sure it's fine.

It just boggles my mind that he's supposed to eat as much as a person my size would (on a diet)!!!

jenber77 · March 2011

I know, crazy, right? But as long as the kid is eating a variety of foods and is gaining weight appropriately, I'm pretty sure that most doctors wouldn't fixate on caloric intake. We did have some weight concerns about DS and nobody ever suggested that I should guess or try to figure out how many calories he eats ? surely an impossible task!

dusk42 · March 2011

I have no clue how to get that many calories into her OR enough iron. Doing the math for how much of each kind of iron-rich food she should have made my head hurt.

epphd · March 2011

dusk42:

I have no clue how to get that many calories into her OR enough iron. Doing the math for how much of each kind of iron-rich food she should have made my head hurt.

I know!! I got some iron fortified vitamin drops for Sam because I did the same math. He ended up having a blood draw for allergies and they ran a hematocrit and his iron was ok... so I guess he's getting it...somewhere.

RoxBride · March 2011

I'd cut his milk down a LOT. When he's not filling up and getting his calories from milk, he'll probably chow down a lot more on food.

epphd · March 2011

Rox, but he's already getting less milk than is typical. We're also trying to transition to sippies, (I recently weaned), so the milk is the common thread between bottle and cup. When he's better with the cup perhaps I'll move away from milk. Like I said, I'm not overly concerned about it since he does eat a pretty wide variety of food... I'm just shocked the recommendation is such a high number of calories.

schmoodle · March 2011

Unless he's getting it all via milk Toodle eats nowhere NEAR that target. He's over 35 inches so that would mean 1400 calories - that's more than I eat when I'm dieting!!! And he barely eats dinner because he's been really picky lately (we're trying not to just keep offering till we find something he'll eat since I know that's not recommended). So again, I'd be shocked if he ate that much. Yet, he's actually consistently INCREASED both his height and weight percentiles at every appointment since he was a year old (he was super small in the weight percentile for his first year, usually around 10-15, but at his 18 month was around 50 percentile).

Temp848906437505510 · March 2011

Alana is an awesome eater - full, balanced meals, snacks, and 20-25 ounces of milk a day and I have a hard time believing even she's getting 1200 calories a say! That's.a lot of calories!

LucyPevensie · March 2011

Jack eats like a friggin' BIRD. We did the vitamin drops with iron until recently we switched to a chewable flintstones with iron because I thought - HOW is this child going to get ANY iron with how little he eats?!

I offer a variety of food (he eats way more fruit than veg so I have decided to lump all fruit and veg into a category I call "plant matter" and not worry about it) - he will eat meat, noodles, sweet potato is a fave, fish sticks (the good kind), etc. - but he just does not eat a lot of food in any one sitting, is not a huge snacker - he's bird boy. There are nights when he eats 2 bites of dinner and then announces "all done!" as he pushes himself back from the table - and I'll say "one more bite" and you can get down and he'll do one more bite - and we're done. After a total of 3 bites of dinner...

He is a slender child, but he feels very solid when you hold him, is growing beautifully - I really try to not worry and to let him control his own eating. I try to remember their tummies are so little - about the size of their clenched fist - so really, how much are they gonna eat, you know? 1200 calories sounds like a LOT to me. I doubt Jack eats that many every day.

GypsyEsq · March 2011

I'm just gonna say that that amount of calories sounds insane. Toddler 411 (which I don't always love but really like the part on toddler eating) says a 1 year old weighing 21# needs 1000 calories a day with a range of 700-1200. A 2 year old weighing 28 pounds needs 1044 calories per day, range of 1000-1500. So, clearly they are using a much smaller caloric "need" number.

emmyloustu · March 2011

I am super late to this post, but I JUST looked this up last night after dinner. I didn't dig too deep, but the American Heart Association website said 800-900 for a 1-2yr old. Eliza maybe gets close to that with her milk on a really good day, but lately her appetite is small. Yesterday for lunch she ate a string cheese & a few bites of banana and a couple sips of a smoothie pouch. Her bkfst was small, she wasn't into snacking and dinner was OK. I refuse to stress over it, she is growing and healthy.

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