Child Nutrition & Diet Counselling in Gurgaon

We start with what your child actually ate over the last two or three ordinary days, which is more honest than a food chart filled in for the appointment. Then an examination, and height and weight plotted against any earlier readings you can bring. We look for the things that cause poor eating rather than follow from it, such as constipation, reflux, anaemia or enlarged tonsils. If something needs changing, it is written into the food your family already cooks, with a date to come back and check whether it worked.

This page covers children from about two years to eighteen. Under two, feeding is a different problem and belongs with our baby feeding page. Past that there is no ideal age to come. The useful moment is when something has changed: a food list that keeps getting shorter, weight that has stopped moving, or mealtimes that have turned into a daily fight.

Only where the history or the examination points at one. Iron deficiency, vitamin D and B12 are the shortfalls worth looking for in a child who eats a narrow range of food, and a child who is pale, tired or breathless on ordinary activity should be tested. What we avoid is guessing at a deficiency and treating it blind, which is how children end up on supplements they never needed.

Mostly by changing the structure around the meal rather than the food on it. Meals and snacks at set times, so your child arrives hungry. One meal cooked for the family rather than a separate plate on request. New foods offered alongside familiar ones and taken away without comment, because acceptance often takes eight or ten calm exposures. No bargaining, and no eating between meals to make up for what was refused. A short list is common and usually settles; a list that keeps shrinking is a different problem and worth an appointment.

Poor weight gain, weight climbing faster than height, iron deficiency anaemia, vitamin D and B12 shortfalls, and eating that has narrowed after an allergy or a bad illness. Suspected eating disorders such as anorexia or bulimia are referred promptly to a child and adolescent mental health specialist, because they need a multidisciplinary team and not a diet plan.

It depends on what we are watching. A child whose weight has stalled is seen again in four to six weeks, because a shorter gap tells us nothing and a longer one wastes months. Once the line is moving the right way, a review every three to six months is usually enough, and after that growth is checked at the annual visit.

Start with a paediatrician. Most eating concerns in children turn out to be normal variation, a feeding-pattern issue, or a treatable deficiency, and those are decided by examination and growth history rather than by a diet plan. KinderCure assesses feeding, plots growth and checks for deficiencies, then refers you to a registered dietitian, or to an occupational therapist or speech-language pathologist experienced in paediatric feeding, when your child needs one.