Tag Archives: pediatrician

C is Underweight

A mother always knows…

I’ve been worried about C’s weight for a while, but after his latest growth spurt I was doubly concerned. The one roll of baby fat on his body – that little one on his inner thighs – disappeared last month after he grew even longer. His belly has always been completely flat and rock hard. (Maybe someday he’ll wish he had abs like he did when he was a baby…?)

C eats when he’s hungry. His personality is such that there is no way anyone will get him to eat when he doesn’t want to eat! He’s extremely adventurous, constantly moving and exploring. He must burn an exorbitant amount of calories in a day! C would rather play than eat, and he often has little to no interest in taking time away from exploring to eat.

At his 9-month checkup, C’s pediatrician said that he’s now in the 5th percentile for weight and has been steadily falling off of the weight chart since birth. He’s borderline-concerned about C’s weight and suggested we add butter and/or olive oil to his foods to help him gain weight. Hubster and I weren’t sold on the idea of giving C a bunch of butter. Instead, we’ve been giving him yogurt made with whole-milk as well as a lot of avocados.

C loves his yogurt and, as always, very much enjoys his avocados. We’re hoping that he bulks up a bit for his next weigh-in. Below, a picture from Operation Fatten My Child.

Have you had an underweight child? What steps did you take to help him/her gain weight?

Covered in Avocado

C’s 6-Month Checkup

Leave a reply

After napping for an hour and 45 minutes, C was full of smiles and laughter despite his four immunizations! He is now 15 lbs, 6 oz (15th percentile) and 26.25 inches long (55th percentile). The doctor said that he’s growing well and eased my fears about his development (not rolling over back to tummy yet) by reminding us that every baby meets those milestones at a different rate. We can introduce a second feeding of solids each day whenever we think C is ready.

We just need to go back in another month or so for his flu booster. Then we’re all set until his 9-month checkup!

C’s 4-Month Checkup

Leave a reply

C had his 4-month checkup with his pediatrician today. He showered his nurse and doctor with smiles until that first immunization needle poked his thigh. He’s 13 pounds, 12 ounces and 25 inches long. His weight percentile actually decreased from his last well-child appointment, but we pretty much saw that one coming!

After the shots were over, we cuddled him and fed him a bottle and he quickly recovered. He spent most of the day sleeping in my arms, but in his wakeful moments he was quite happy.

So glad another round of vaccines is over!

Being Grateful for a Shower

2 Replies

It is after 10:30pm and I just got done taking my shower for the day. Today was kind of crazy.

Between 8:10am and 8:25am, I woke up, made a pediatrician appointment for C, got myself ready and left for the doctor’s office for an 8:40 check-in time. (Thank you to my wonderful Hubster for getting C dressed, or I never would have made it out the door on time!) Naturally, after all that rushing we had to wait until 9:02 to get called in for the appointment. The good news is that C does not have an ear infection! His symptoms are just from his cold and other than that, he’s perfectly healthy. He’s also a svelt 12 pounds, 2 ounces now! ;)

C and I have been sick since we returned home from our vacation to visit family last Tuesday. It’s awful. C has a difficult time sleeping and wakes up a lot. He often screams and thrashes his body while we try to feed him, even though he’s hungry. It takes a while to feed him and he generally isn’t eating as much as usual. This screaming doesn’t help the splitting migraine that I’ve had since last Wednesday. I don’t feel like I’m getting any better, but I think it’s because I don’t get enough sleep. I’ve exiled myself to the couch since last Wednesday to avoid waking up C with my cough. Oh the perils of a 1-bedroom apartment. :-p Being on the couch, I wake up every time C needs to be fed at night, even if Hubster is doing the feeding. I also don’t have the advantage of the blackout curtain that we have in our bedroom, so the light wakes me up early in the morning.

Despite the good news that he received at the pediatrician’s office, C refused to nap for more than 30 minutes today unless he was lying in my arms. No naps for Mama. The screaming made my head want to explode. Then this afternoon, I felt like the air in our apartment was getting rather humid and warm. No joke – less than 2 minutes later, all the windows and glass in our apartment completely fogged over. Yep, the air conditioning went out. AGAIN. Only this time it was 96 degrees with a heat index of 112. It’s the kind of heat that suffocates you.

After notifying the appropriate staff and discovering this was a campus-wide issue (we currently reside on campus for Hubster’s live-in graduate assistantship), C and I returned to the apartment to discover that it was too sticky to be habitable. I called Hubster and the three of us headed to the mall to wait it out.

Two poopy diapers in two hours later (have I mentioned I hate changing diapers in public restrooms?!), we returned to mercifully find that the air conditioning had been restored. C was fed and went to bed rather easily. Hubster sweetly washed all of the bottles while I nursed my headache on the couch. Now I’m sharing this day with you fine people before I attempt to spend yet another night on the couch, while Hubster is simultaneously watching ESPN and playing XBox 360. Here’s to another day in the life…

C’s 2-Month Checkup

3 Replies

We had C’s 2-month appointment with his pediatrician this week. He’s doing great! He’s 23 inches and weighing in at 11 pounds, 1 ounce. I think he’s going to be a lanky kid, like Hubster was.

C was such a trooper during his shots (one oral, two in his left thigh, one in his right thigh)! We were so proud of him. I think I had a harder time than he did. ;)

He’s been sleeping a lot, but hasn’t had any adverse reactions yet. I love when things turn out better than I anticipated!

C Has Colic…

4 Replies

…but at least he’s healthy. The pediatrician did a head-to-toe check of C today and told us that we have a normal, healthy, fussy baby. It will only get worse before it improves. Apparently, research shows that babies peak in fussiness at about 2 months of age.

Until then, I find myself with a baby who often looks at me in desperation, tears streaming down his tiny face; an unending headache; and trying numerous methods to help him stop crying.

Do you have any tips for easing the screams and tears? For holding onto your own sanity?

Off to the Pediatrician Tomorrow…

1 Reply

My poor little C has been crying A LOT in the past two days. I don’t know if it’s a reaction to his Zantac, an ear infection, or something else. It’s strange to us that he’s having a difficult time calming down when we hold him. That’s usually what he wanted when he cried. He loves being held.

He used to cry, but not for hours on end throughout the day. Hopefully the doctor can give us some insight into what’s going on.

Otherwise…woe is me. If it gets worse from here on that bell curve our pediatrician drew, then I am in for some LONG days.

Crying It Out

Leave a reply

At C’s 2-week appointment, the pediatrician drew us a chart. It was a bell curve, warning that a baby will peak in fussiness at 2 months of age before improving. I can already see that we’re making our way up that curve.

The past two mornings, C woke up relatively early (around 6am) and wouldn’t go back to sleep. Instead, he cried. And cried. And cried.

Yesterday afternoon while Hubster was working, C cried for me – a LOT. I fed him, changed him, rocked him, went about my day with him wrapped in the Moby (that worked for a short time). We even went for a walk, and he cried the entire time we were out walking.

A friend of mine who, bless her heart, has a 15-month-old and twin two-month-olds, gave me permission to let him cry it out. This was a revelation to me. You mean, it’s okay to put him down while he’s screaming in order to go to the bathroom?!

It was that revelation that has allowed me to hold onto my sanity by a small thread. It is so difficult to listen to him cry. I feel like horrible and inadequate when he’s crying and there’s nothing I can do to make it stop.

C woke up crying this afternoon in his Pack N Play. He had just recently been fed and changed. I picked him up and rocked him, but he continued to cry. I put him in his swing and turned on some classical music. I let him cry for 30 minutes. Just when I was about to pick him up and try to rock him again, he settled himself down. He’s now sleeping peacefully.

I’m hoping to remember this moment when he starts to cry again (probably in an hour or two)…

Did you have a fussy baby? How did you deal?

C’s 2-Week Checkup

Leave a reply

C had his first checkup with his pediatrician this afternoon and he did great. At 8 pounds, 13 ounces, he successfully surpassed his birth weight! His doctor prescribed Zantac for his acid reflux. We will be able to start and stop that for him as we wish to experiment and see if it helps him. I’m relieved that we can have that to fall back on, since my own experimenting with avoiding certain foods for breastfeeding (spicy, citrus, chocolate, etc.) has yielded zero results.

I’m really excited that his pediatrician is very nice, thorough and didn’t make us feel rushed at all when we were asking questions. This doctor was recommended by Hubster’s supervisor, who has three boys, and I couldn’t be happier with his recommendation.

C is now in the 82nd percentile for weight. That just makes me laugh, because he looks so scrawny! His arms and legs are a bit too long for most of his newborn-size clothes, but all the 0-3 month clothes just hang on his little frame.

Hoping the Zantac will give our little man some relief!