Children's Nutrition RD

The core role of finding a child nutrition RD (registered nutritionist) is never to get a "height-growing recipe" or "Minbao diet chart" that is common across the Internet, but to tailor a nutritional plan that you can really implement, that your child is really willing to eat, and that can actually catch up with your growth goals based on your child's genetic background, growth curve, dietary preferences, and even the eating habits of the whole family.

Don’t believe it, I just received the mother of a 3-year-old Minbao last week, and I have saved 5 Minbao recipes posted by different bloggers. All of them require the elimination of egg, milk and wheat. After two months of eating, the child lost 0.8kg in weight, and the growth curve dropped directly from the 50th percentile to the 25th percentile. I cried anxiously. When it comes to Minbao feeding, there are indeed two completely different ideas in the industry: one is the "strict avoidance school", which means that as long as the allergen test is positive, even if it is only weakly positive, all foods should be avoided to minimize the risk of allergic attacks; the other is the "gradual tolerance school", as long as it is not a severe immediate allergy that will cause laryngeal edema and shock, allergens will be gradually introduced starting from small doses to help children slowly build tolerance. In fact, there is no absolute right or wrong between the two ideas. The former is more suitable for the acute stage when a severe allergic reaction has just occurred, while the latter is more suitable for the stable stage that has passed the acute stage and needs to catch up with growth. If you just use the Internet celebrity recipe, it is easy to get into trouble.

Many people think that we who work as children’s nutrition RDs are no different from nutritionists who sell recipe courses online for 99 yuan. This is really not the case. RDs need to pass the national unified examination and complete thousands of hours of clinical practice to obtain the certificate. Especially those working in the field of children, most of them have worked in pediatrics or child care for two or three years, and have seen too many children with problems with rigid general recipes. Two months ago, a grandmother came to consult with her 6-month-old baby. She said that after reading the Internet, the baby should eat more red meat to supplement iron after supplementary food. She was forced to eat 20g of liver puree every day. The child was constipated to anal fissures and cried until his face turned purple every time he had diarrhea. I didn't directly ask her to stop liver puree. I just adjusted the amount to 10g, mixed it with sweet pumpkin puree, added two drops of flaxseed oil, and only ate it 3 times a week. The rest of the time, I changed it to lean beef puree that was easier to absorb. By the way, I taught my grandma two abdominal stroking techniques to relieve constipation. After a follow-up visit half a month later, the child's constipation was cured, and the hemoglobin in the re-examination also rose from 102g/L to 115g/L, which was just up to standard.

To be honest, after five years of working in this industry, my biggest headache has never been in formulating recipes that meet the nutritional density standards, but in coordinating the feeding conflicts of the whole family. Last month, a family came to visit. The mother insisted that the child eat independently. The grandmother was afraid that the child would be hungry and chased after her to feed her. The father felt that as long as the child did not cry, it did not matter how many snacks he ate. What's the use of giving you recipes at this time? I simply set three simple rules for the whole family: feedings last for 15 minutes at most, and taking them away if they are not finished; you can have a snack at 3pm every day, and you can only choose from the "low sodium and no added sugar" list I made; and the whole family goes out for a 20-minute walk after dinner every day. After implementing these three items for a month, the child's previous problems with supplementary feeding and picky eating have mostly improved, and his weight has increased by 1 pound.

As for the most controversial questions such as "should children take calcium supplements" and "should children take DHA supplements?", our RD will never give a one-size-fits-all answer. As for calcium supplementation, some people say that as long as you drink enough milk, you don’t need to supplement it. Some people say that you must supplement calcium in spring to grow taller. In fact, these are too absolute. We have only one criterion for judgment: looking at the child’s actual intake. If you can drink 500ml of milk every day and have 2 hours of outdoor activities, then you really don’t need to take extra supplements; but if your child naturally doesn’t like to drink milk, the amount of milk is only 200ml per day, and he always stays at home and doesn’t like to go out, then he must take an appropriate amount of supplements even in the dog days of summer. Don’t believe in the metaphysics that “calcium supplements are only needed in spring”. All supplements must be based on the actual situation of the child.

Parents often ask me for "universal child feeding guidelines", but to be honest, I really can't provide them. The shrimp noodles that the kid next door loves to eat might be the source of rashes on your Minbao. Your friend's kid grows taller by drinking pure milk, but your lactose-intolerant kid will only get diarrhea after drinking it. The meaning of finding a child nutrition RD is, to put it bluntly, to help you skip the "correct nonsense" floating around the Internet, get the feeding answers that are unique to your child and can be implemented, and avoid detours and unnecessary suffering for your child.