failure to thrive?

[Michele]

Re: failure to thrive?

I was thinking about you the other day when a friend mentioned that her little one was labeled failure to thrive just because of the growth curve....all of her milestones were met on time or early, she nursed frequently and had the normal amount of wet/dirty diapers....she just barely gained.....and even at 4 she is still small, but totally normal in every other way. This mom was a LLL leader and had experience nursing other children before too, so she didn't stress too much about the label and she didn't add formula or anything else since her daughter's development other than size was spot on. Glad to hear she gained!

[peggyfromwastate]

Re: failure to thrive?

The thing that's driving me nuts about the formula is that it's like overload for her little system. I know from pumping that she gets about 4 oz milk from me, then she adds 1 - 2 oz of formula, and she is just so *stressed* during the supplement. Then she burps and passes really nasty gas for about 1 hour, and never quite settles down to sleep, and by that time it's pretty much time to start feeding her again... The supplement just seems to throw her off, so if the powers that be think she's for some reason not getting the calories from me, then I'd almost rather just do the supplement, even tho when we tried that a couple of weeks ago she lost 2 oz in 24 hours...

Anyway... Thanks for the story, Michelle. That's pretty encouraging and it makes a lot of sense to me. I just don't feel like she's a "failure to thrive" kid b/c she's so active. And I think that she's getting enough food from me alone because she never seemed hungry, and when she gets the supplement she seems like she just overdid it at an all you can eat buffet...

Poor little thing!!! Gah!

And DH is really scaring me now... He's so sleep deprived and I just freak out when he's "burping" her or anything because he falls asleep literally when he sits down. So he's "burping her", totally asleep, and she's sitting there totally helpless! I woke up the other night because I heard DH snoring, and I thought he was burping her and that he'd brought her into bed to get some sleep. I totally thought he'd fallen asleep on her. (he had put her in the bassinet thank God...)

Anyway, newborns and the drama that goes along with it...

[DCJenn]

Re: failure to thrive?

Peggy

One of my colleagues has a kiddo who just couldn't keep any weight on him- they played around w/ the formulas and finally found one that worked- it was a particular brand of allergen free formula- I'll ask her tomorrow.

J.

[SuzySunshine]

Re: failure to thrive?

Peggy, also remember if you're getting 4 oz while pumping she's getting more then that herself, they're more efficient then breast pumps.

[PrincessFiona]

Re: failure to thrive?

I'm glad she gained a little, Peggy. I went through some very similar frustrations with Zoe and at some point I began to feel like the constant medical measuring was part of the problem! When Andrew was born, we rented as scale and I actually weighed him before and after feedings to make sure he was getting enough breastmilk. It was totally overkill because I also started weighing him every day and then began worrying that he wasn't gaining enough too. We had to take the scale back so I didn't lose my mind!

With Zoe, such a hoopla was made about the not eating....all kinds of scary or ridiculous explanations were held out and it was very stressful...I just knew if we could get her home and quit monitoring her that she would be fine...and she was... I made sure that she ate and was thriving in the sense of behavior/development.

I seriously wonder what would happen if every newborn was subject to the daily weighing stuff....I would guess that we would have a lot of freaked out moms and a lot of "failure to thrive" comments ....

I hope little Josie gains by leaps and bounds this next week and that you can put this stress behind you.

Hugs,

Kris