The Search for Safe Weight Gain Foods for Toddlers with Allergies

The situation for finding safe weight gain foods for our toddler became more pressing when our pediatrician noted that her weight was trending below where they want to see it. With common high-calorie foods like whole milk, eggs, and nut butters off the table, we needed to find alternative ways to pack more calories and healthy fats into her diet (all while making sure she actually eats what we offer).

Throughout this journey, maintaining communication with our pediatrician and allergist has been crucial. They've helped us monitor progress, adjust strategies, and ensure we're meeting nutritional needs while keeping safety the top priority.

Safe Fats and Oils

Adding healthy fats to meals has been our most successful strategy. We've found that incorporating things like olive oil into her foods adds calories without changing the taste significantly. A drizzle of oil over her vegetables or mixed into her purées goes completely unnoticed. Salmon has also been a great source of healthy fats that she'll eat.

One amazing find here has been the Harmless Harvest unsweetened coconut yogurt offering 26g of fat for 170g of yogurt. For a comparative reference, Siggi's whole milk plain yogurt is 7g of fat for 170g of yogurt.

Items tried and worked:

• olive oil
• salmon
• Harmless Harvest Rich & Creamy coconut yogurt

Milk Alternative Products

We've found luck in various plant-based milks. These provide both an easy healthy drink snack and multi-purpose ingredient for things like oatmeal or smoothies.

Items tried and worked:

• unsweetened Edensoy
• unsweetend Oatly
• ripple kids plant-based milk

Alternative Spreads

While peanut butter is off-limits, we've had success with sunflower seed butter. This provides similar nutritional benefits and works well spread thinly on safe breads or mixed into oatmeal.

Items tried and worked:

• sunflower seed butter

Allergy-Safe Toddler Formulas

Formula was one of the first things we tried since it's supplemented and designed to replace breastmilk. Our daughter simply wouldn't drink it. We also found it to be quite expensive and would have had to modify our budget a bit if this became a regular part of the grocery list.

Items tried and failed:

• Similac hypoallergenic formula
• Nutramigen hypoallergenic formula

Other Recommended Fatty Foods

Hummus and avocados were two foods recommended by our healthcare team given our daughter's allergy composition. Unfortunately, each attempt resulted in her spitting it out or throwing it on the floor. Some milk yogurt alternatives like the So Delicious coconut also went over poorly.

Items tried and failed:

• hummus
• avocados
• So Delicious coconut milk yogurt

Here's yesterday's meals just to give you an idea of how we're incorporating what's been working so far into daily life:

• Breakfast: Gerber's grain and grow instant oatmeal mixed with oatmilk, followed-up with coconut yogurt
• Lunch: Whole grain bread with sunflower seed butter
• Snack: Smoothie made with frozen fruit, soy milk, and coconut yogurt
• Drink snack: toddler-sized cup filled with just soy milk
• Dinner: Pasta with olive oil, sweet potato chunks, and baked salmon