I Have An Underweight Baby?
At Ben’s last doctor’s appointment, when he was around six months old, he weighed roughly sixteen pounds. As usual, his height and weight was small for his age, but that’s just part of the deal when you’re cursed with two short parents. Last week, we went in for his nine month checkup. They weighed him and measured him, and he had gained… nothing. He was still sixteen pounds, maybe a few ounces heavier, but that was it. I was definitely surprised — he feels heavier to me!
The doctor, after seeing the results and examining Ben, was confused. After all, Ben doesn’t look skinny or underweight. He asked how much he eats (A LOT), and was still puzzled. He eats plenty, he looks healthy, but for whatever reason, he’s just didn’t gain any weight between appointments.
To be safe, he made an appointment for us to come back in a month to check his weight again, and he asked that I remember which specific scale that we used, so that we can rule out two different scales giving us an incorrect weight. That’s what he thinks may have happened. Ben was weighed in on two different scales, and one of them gave an incorrect weight.
My theory? In the three months between appointments, Ben got considerably more active and mobile, but wasn’t necessarily eating much more. He gets 8oz of formula three or four times a day (depending on how long he stays up), plus snacks and solid food occasionally. If I go out to eat somewhere, I give him bits of my table food. He’s now getting a meal of just baby food sometimes in place of his bottle, something I’m trying to slowly transition him towards. And while he’s eating plenty, the difference between now and three months ago is that he moves around a lot more. He can pull himself up to standing, he likes to cruise around (especially in his crib). His special Marine low crawl that he’s been doing since he was around two or three months old has now been perfected and he can get all over the house now. More activity = less weight gain.
In any case, we’ll see what the news is in a month or so. I’m hoping that as we increase the amount of solid foods he’s getting, he’ll start fattening up a little. A worried doctor is the last thing this mommy needs!
