Thrive

We took Elliott back to the doctor the Tuesday before Thanksgiving for his 9 month checkup. We are perpetually behind by 2-3 weeks in his well-baby checkups because of the timing of his vaccines, which take precedence over actually being seen at his birthday times. Anyway, the nurse got him measured and no surprise to us he had grown a full two inches since the last appointment. We figured as much, as he is now in age appropriately sized clothing and seemed 'taller' to us. He is now 28 inches! Which means in a couple more, he will officially be done with the bucket car seat and into his convertible car seat (which also means mommy and daddy will be switching cars soon). He is in between the 25th and 50th percentiles which is up from where is has been in the past. His head circumference also measured in this range (although I forget the specific measurement at this point).

However, what we were not prepared for was his weight. At his six month check up, he weighed 16 lbs 2 oz. I put him on the scale and both Brad and I went 'huh', when it reported he now weighted only 17 lbs 6.2 oz three months later. The doctor explained that he was still okay because he had gained weight and that at this point kids are often settling into their growth rates. But this low weight put him in the 5th percentile for his age. At this range, he likes to monitor kids a little more closely to make sure they don't start declining. He wants to see Elliott back in a month to check on his weight, since a lot can happen in the three months before his next well-baby at the 1 year mark.

Elliott's vaccination band aid. "Thrive" is the tag line for Kaiser Permanente (his health care provider), but also very appropriate given the topics of this post.

While I was initially surprise at the low weight (I had been expecting more like 18.5 lbs), it makes sense. We've been so cautious about what he is eating because of his constipation issues, that he has basically been eating as much as he was when he was six months old. With the exception of more night feedings in recent weeks...again, which now make a lot of sense...he needed more calories and was trying to make up for those he wasn't getting during the day. Fortunately, we were able to talk to the doctor and he explained (something the nurses for some reason could never confirm for me over the phone) that constipation generally stems from two issues: fluids and fiber bulk. We were starting to get things under control because of the addition of more fluids, but now we needed to work on bulk.

Fortunately, Elliott loves food, so in the last week and a half, he has thoroughly enjoyed his larger meal times. We've also decided to start giving Elliott some formula. My milk supply has slowly started to decrease over the last few months and I am now only pumping an average of about 8 ounces a day at work, which puts him about a bottle behind. So now, first thing in the morning Elliott's getting a bottle of formula. He is also getting cereal two times a day, at least 2 servings of fruits and vegetables, and a meat (so far just turkey). Once he gets the finger food thing down, he will start eating more snacks as well. We were also given the green light to start giving him more variety of foods. I just can't tell you how happy this makes me.

One other thing I thought I would mention about the food issue with Elliott, is that his low consumption makes since for an entirely different reason as well. For so many things, we have been relying on 'listening to the baby' for him to tell us what he needs. This has worked so well in other aspects of his life that we hadn't questioned it as it relates to food, yet in retrospect all the signs were there. Elliott doesn't tell us when he's hungry. He did when he was a new baby, so we assumed he still would, but not so much any more. If you let him, Elliott will just play all day. Its not until you put him in his highchair that he's like: 'oh yeah! I'm hungry! Give me food NOW!!' So we are realizing that we need to have Elliott on a true mealtime schedule or it is really easy for him to miss meals. And now that we've seen a potentially tangible reflection of that, its become something we have to put as a priority over other things during our day.

The other thing that we did while at the doctor's office is get Elliott vaccinated against the flu and H1N1. Part of me still doesn't understand what the big deal is about H1N1, but after a local story a couple weeks ago about an otherwise healthy 4 month old that died and was later found to have H1N1, we decided it was worth it. Plus, with Brad going to school and the number of people he is exposed to on campus, we didn't want to put Elliott at a higher risk for getting the flu anyway.