Infant Baby Weight - Kasson, MN

Hi A., how much and how often is she eating? Are you breastfeeding or if not what formula do you use? My daughter is 4 months old and weighs 17lbs. Which is big for her age, so I never had problems with her being small but I know what she ate and shes big. If you want to know more get back to me with the answers. :) V.

Are you breastfeeding? If so, you need to let her nurse on one breast until it is empty so she can get the fatty hind milk, and nurse her often, every 2-3 hours as she wants. Let her nurse when she wants, and how long seh wants, and keep her at the same breast for one feeding, so she empties it and gets that hindmilk. That will help her gain weight.
But again, she was small at birth and gaining, so it doesn't seem like she is malnourished, she is jsut little.

Hi A.! If you take the normal measure, your baby should weigh 2 times her birth weight at 4 months, so that would be 11 lbs 8 oz. If she is only 2 months old, she could still gain the 4 lbs needed. She is probably a little underweight. If you are breastfeeding, give her some fomula after. The formula should help her gain more weight or add an extra feeding every day if you are bottle feeding her, even if it is 2 extra oz.

Good luck!

I think you should take a look at yourself and the father and the family. If she at least eats and is otherwise healthy I wouldn't worry at all. You want to know something, my daughter is going to be 4 years old on Sunday and only weights 26 pounds. She is considered under weight but me and my ex-husband are both thin people and we come from a long line of thin people. We both have high metabolism so our kids have that same problem too. My son however is 19 months old he already weights 22 pounds. He will most likely take after my father who is built. The doctors told me that being under weight isn't a concern as long as your healthy... weight problems can be genetic and sometimes it isn't easy to put on weight. I only gained 19 pounds while pregnant and I was put on bedrest because I couldn't gain any weight. Just look at all the factors. Gaining a couple pounds is actually good... if you have other smaller children too then I wouldn't worry about your baby. My daughter will probably always be underweight... the only time I wasn't underweight was pregnant. But, we are healthy. I wouldn't stress as long as your baby is eating and acting fine.

If the doctors are concerned, I guess I would be a bit as well, although she's gained 2 lbs. since birth so she is gaining. I would make sure to feed her at least once every 3 hours and wake her up to feed her at night if she's not waking on her own to eat. Other than that, I would ask the doctors what suggestions they would have.

Good luck!

We had similar 'problems' with our little girl - she was 6 pounds at birth, went down to 5 lbs 5 ounces - was 16 pounds at 1 - 23 pounds at 2, and now at 3.5 is 28 or 29 pounds. She was our first and we were so concerned - we woke her up at night to feed her - which wasn't very successful but we continued to do it every night. Now looking back on it, we know that she is just a petite little girl - she still isn't very interested in eating. Your little girl is almost 8 pounds and started at 6.5 or so - sounds like she is doing just fine. Good luck!

We had this problem as well. My now 7 mth old weighed 7lbs at bith and at her 2 month check was a little less than 9 lbs. We tried 3 different types of formula, zantac, giving a pacifier....much to no avail. We finally tried Similac allimentum and that seems to have done the trick. She is now up over 15 lbs and eating 3 jars of baby food a day, 3-4 bottles and just started eating cheerios yesterday. Good luck!!

Hi, A....

I can understand what you are going through. Our son is almost 7 months old, and was 12 lbs 15 oz when we went in to the doc this past week. He was 6 lbs 11 oz at birth but got down to 6 lbs in that first month. They have run a battery of tests to make sure he is okay. The latest test they ran was to see if he had had any urinary tract infections--apparently that can, rarely, cause there to be a lack of weight gain. All of the tests came back normal. At this point, they have said he is just petite/little. They continue to monitor his growth--he's following his own curve but off the charts small. As long as he continues to grow and follow a curve, he's proportional and making headway. When he was fairly little we started using bottles so we could monitor how much milk he was getting (I just pumped breastmilk at first, then we started to introduce formula). We started cereal at 4 months, then fruits and veggies at 5 months. We were doing that at lunch and dinner. Recently the doc suggested having cereal and a little fruit in the morning as well. He's incredibly active, but also seems to be gaining weight a little better now. I know how worrisome it can be when they are constantly having weight checks and don't seem to be gaining. We will say a prayer for you and your little one. Sometimes they're just small :)

I would not worry about it sice she started out so small. I have a 2 1/2 year old little girl who weighs 23 pounds and is 31 inches, we are in the doctor every few monthe with weight and height checks. As long as she gains they are not worried about it. It is good that they keep up with it though, there are a lot of problems that are associated with not growing, I would say as long as she is gaining and staying on an upward course on the growth charts, I would not worry yet.

Our oldest daughter was born at 5lbs 8oz when we brought her home she was 5lbs even. She was not gaining very fast either. They told me to make sure she ate every two hours. I did this during the day and made sure I woke her once in the night to feed. My thought was if she is hungry she will wake up. That was 10 years ago now. I don't think it is a problem unless she is a sick child meaning crying, like she is in pain, all the time not having wet or messy dipars like a newborn is to have things like that. As I said our oldest was born 10 years ago and she is now 4'5" and is around 75lbs. That is what I was like when I was younger before the three kids. Now our middle child is just the opposite she was a bigger baby and is 7 now but is 62lbs. I say this to tell you that everyone is different even in the same family. I would not worry too much about it unless she is sick. Good luck with her weight deal.

Some children are just smaller. Both my girls weighed only a bit over 7 lbs at birth. Weight wise my first born was a bit more chunky but she was breastfed for a few months too. My second is very petite. She's 16 mos old and only 21 lbs but eats like a horse. I would suggest supplementing some of the bottles with rice cereal to get more nutrition in or increase the feedings. Your doctor can also recommend or prescribe a different formula for you too. I also started fruits at 3 mos gradually with my second one and she was fine.

You didn't mention if you are breastfeeding. If so, I am a lactation consultant and would be willing to advise you about this issue but I have some questions. How often does she breastfeed, do you feed her on demand, does she take both sides, do you let her end the feedings, how is your milk supply?

My preemie was 4 lbs. went down to 3 and back up to 4 when she left the hospital. When she came home at 4 lbs I was to feed her every 4 hours and to set an alarm to do this in the night as well (otherwise she would just sleep right through the night) she wasn't gaining well at all on my pumped breastmilk so we added a special weight gainer formula to my breastmilk I think it was called Nutrimigen or something like that this was 5 years ago anyways your doctor will know what I'm talking about and she plumped up really fast. We used the special formula until she was maybe 4 mos. old then we went to straight normal formula. My daughter was gaining weight really really well and was 25lbs by her first birthday.