Mackenzie has always been fairly small. She was born full-term at 40 weeks 2 days, weighing 6 pounds 9 ounces, putting her in the 29th percentile for weight. For the next 10 months, she trended right along the 15th percentile for both height and weight. And then, she just sort of stopped growing. Between her 9.5 month appointment and her 15 month appointment, she only gained 10 ounces. Her official weight at her 15 month appointment was a mere 16 pounds 11 ounces, which is in the 2nd percentile. Anyway, that's a lot of numbers (even for an accountant), but the gist of it is, Mackenzie is teeny tiny. And her pediatrician is concerned.
Before her last appointment, I sort of knew she hadn't grown much. I sold our baby scale a while back and she's too small for our adult scale, so I hadn't weighed her. But I knew she was still fitting into her 9-12 month clothes. Developmentally though, she was doing great, so I really wasn't concerned about her size. And then her pediatrician showed me her chart...
Womp womp.
Mackenzie's doctor gave us a long list of high protein, high calorie foods to include in her diet, along with instructions to really focus our attention on making sure she's eating and drinking well. We set up a weight check appointment in 4 weeks. And I walked out of that office feeling really bummed.
Most of the time I feel like I'm a pretty good mom to my girls, but suddenly I felt like quite a failure. I mean, I read to them and nurture them and slather them in sunscreen and limit their screen time. And yet, somehow I failed to do that one super important thing, that whole, make sure they grow thing. My head was spinning on the drive home. How did I let this happen? How did I not notice that she hadn't grown at all in three months? Where was I going wrong? Did I wean too soon? Did I wean too late? Did that even matter at all? I did of course know that she went through a phase for a few weeks where the only thing she wanted to eat was raisins... but how did we get to this point of nearly falling off the charts?
When I got home and read through all the lists of foods... I was actually really stumped. We already regularly ate 95% of the foods on the list. I was already providing her all of these things... eggs, cheese, beans, yogurt, oils, peanut butter, whole milk, etc. So again, that feeling of, wait, how is this happening? We eat 3 family meals every day, plus a few snacks. I would say that relative to the general population, we eat pretty dang healthy. Also, she doesn't even have any allergies, and therefore isn't limited at all in her food choices, so we totally have that going for us too. So how is this happening??
Her pediatrician asked me while we were there if meal times were a battle. And my response was no, not at all. She is always excited to come to the table and usually tries everything on her plate. She just never really eats large quantities of anything. And I hadn't been force feeding her anything, just encouraging her. She had done a mix of purees and table foods starting just before 6 months, and by 15 months was eating everything our family ate, just cut into tiny pieces of course. It feels sort of bizarre and isolating to be dealing with "slow weight gain" when there's so much media focus on childhood obesity. It's strange to be on the opposite side of the spectrum, which is equally concerning.
So over the past 3 weeks, I have been wavering between two extremes of feeling like A) a lunatic as I add tablespoons of butter to Mackenzie's foods, make bizarre super food smoothies, measure the ounces of milk I pour, and count how many bites she eats of everything on her plate... and then B) telling myself to calm the f down crazy lady, she's perfectly fine as she is.
Everything just feels so confusing - like her milk intake for example - she LOVES milk, but if she drinks too much milk, she'll be too full to eat a meal. But then what if she doesn't eat her meal anyway, do I give her an extra cup of milk because I know she'll drink it? or do I withhold and try to get her to eat again in 20 mins? By then she'll likely be too busy playing to have either. And what about fruits and vegetables? She loves fruit. But it generally doesn't have much caloric value. So which is more important, calories or nutrients? And which is better, getting her to eat 3 bites of something super high protein/high calorie (like almond butter), or letting her eat a whole serving of something she actually enjoys (like grapes). And she doesn't have any molars yet, so that eliminates most crunchy foods from her diet. We're on the go a lot, and I'm struggling to come up with easy/clean snacks. Then sometimes my mind wanders to... what if I didn't focus on feeding her healthy foods and just let her eat the junky Standard American Diet. Sugary cereals + chips + Kraft macaroni + juice + cookies + everything I've tried hard to only have in moderation. [No judgement intended here at all, I don't want to offend any one - we definitely enjoy all of those things too, I just really do make an effort to focus on healthy foods.] I bet she would gain weight! So would that let us off the hook? If she jumped back to her curve because she ate only crap? So then which one is really more important - eating well and setting up healthy eating habits or just gaining weight? And is all of this really worth my worry and effort, or will she just hit a growth spurt on her own one day? But then again, what if I take it too lightly and she becomes really sick or something because I wasn't focused on her nutrition?
See what I mean? Total lunatic. Ugh. Three weeks in and I'm exhausted, physically and mentally. I'm pretty sure having a psycho mom begging her to for the love, just eat at least two bites of pasta is not really helping Mackenzie. And it's certainly not good for me either.
I've reached out for advice from several friends and online communities. I received some really really great feedback, perspectives, tips and tricks, and support. But unfortunately, no magic answers. So I'm going to keep on chugging along with the peanut butter snacks and the cheesy scrambled eggs and the encouragement to have one more bite, please! And I'm going to cross my fingers that we make enough progress before our appointment next week so that I don't have to put her through any blood work and testing. Because my mother's intuition and my gut tell me that there is nothing "wrong" with her, she's just little. I don't really know where I was going with this post or how to end it, so I suppose I'll just say thank you for listening, and I'll keep you posted.
