today was bella's 9 month checkup, though she's not technically 9 months until the 31st. dr. jayraj checked her out again, and again asked if she was in daycare. swallowing my rage, I answered "just 2 days a week, as always" and he noted it, again, on her chart.
here's the gist: at first, she was in the 90th percentile for height and weight. meaning she was heavier and taller than 90% of her tiny baby peers. she's steadily decreased to 50% during her 6 month checkup. or 7th. whichever. now, though, she's at 25%. I don't really care about her being at the average, but it's just so crazy how she started off like a mammoth and is now a petite little lima bean. seeing her next to noah, who started off like a petite little lima bean, really drove the point home, though. noah looks like he could begin walking any time he wants. which is so cute, because his little babble sounds like a boy, he looks like a boy (whereas some babies can totally pass for asexual), and so his size just fits along with the rest of his personality. and I guess bella is the stereotypical girl baby at this point - little and dainty.
she got her hepatitis shot, which she was NOT happy about, and we learned that the patches of rough skin on her back and belly are, in fact, baby eczema. poor thing. it doesn't really seem to bother her - it more bothers me because I have a version of it and hate it and I am afraid hers will get worse.
the other interesting thing is that dr. jayraj told us to basically start giving her table food. which, okay, really? and of course last night we went grocery shopping and bought 80 kinds of baby food jars for her. I guess though that I can stop feeling guilty for letting her taste my food all the time. (I can still feel guilty for letting her have some of my crybaby sour cherry water ice, since it made her forcefully vomit. the face she made eating it was just too cute not to keep feeding it to her until then, though.) and he said she should be eating solid food 3 times a day and nursing about 4 times a day. I guess we can expect her to rise up from the 25th percentile then.
he did say that we should continue giving her her vitamin drops as we have been since they were prescribed at 3 months old. as in 2/3 of her lifetime ago. and sean and I looked at each other and said "okay, will do." uh - we kinda forgot about those. we gave them to her at first, but that was in her not-wanting-anything-in-her-mouth phase. and then, I guess we just stopped. and never...quite...started again. oops.
so all in all it went well. and tonight, we are giving bella a steak and a baked potato for dinner. I hope she can use the knife okay.
7.27.2005
check in, check up
whipped up at 8:59 AM
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8 validations:
Oh My God. Doctors know nothing about infant nutrition. Dermot didn't get baby food until 6 months and didn't get finger foods until about 9 months and then didn't get table foods until about 12-13 months. I know that some people do things faster than that, but you don't have to. It's also strange to "restrict" nursing sessions. Dermot is almost 18 months old and I nurse him at a minimum 3 times during the week and between 5-8 times during the weekends. If he wants to nurse, he gets to nurse. Also regarding the vitamins, breastmilk is perfectly designed so that babies don't need vitamins. They get them all through the breastmilk. Dermot has never had any vitamins and he and I are both vegan. He gets calcium from me and soymilk and he gets iron from me and beans. I thought that he might be anemic since we're vegan, but he was perfectly fine at his 12 month check up. Finally (I'll get off the soap box soon:), I have read that a baby's birth weight is due to the mother's diet, not the baby's makeup. A lot of babies are born big (percentile-wise) and then decrease because they're getting to their own body size. Also, the charts were designed for formula fed babies. The WHO is designing new charts for breastfed babies. Go to http://www.kellymom.com/babyconcerns/growth/chart3.html
to see where Bella is on that chart. Dermot was small on the doctor's charts, but exactly 50% on the breastfed chart for his entire first year.
Sorry this is so long, but this is my area of expertise and it's very close to my heart.
Yea lonna! I hate how doctors are always trying to pigeon hole babies.
Also--I never gave Sophie those nasty vitamin drops. She hated them, and they stained everything, so I just quit. I give her a multiviatmin now--but only because some days I can't get her to eat anything.
lonna - that is excellent. according to that chart, bella is actually above the 50% mark. thank you so much.
as I told you in email, the doctor's exact words were "if it's okay for you, it's okay for baby." she's freakin 9 months old! what is this, 1962? I asked if there was anything I shouldn't give her and he said "nothing hard." well thanks, doc. appreciate it.
It kind of scares me how much of the medical practice is opinion. One doctor says you're dying another doctor says you have a cold and to get over yourself. ok maybe a bit extreme but still! There should be no such thing as getting a second opinion. It should be text book. "Yes this is what you have, everybody thinks so." One doctor may say Bella is small and another may say she's just right for her age and circumstance.
I say to hell with it all, cavemen raised babies and they didn't have doctors telling them when to start table foods they had instincts. OK, I'll go find something else to rant about now.
The list of arbitrary baby measuring sticks, while helpful at times, puts all of us in a whirlwind at some point. I'm glad our doctors are not big on giving us percentile info unless we ask about it. Tell me if something's seriously wrong, otherwise let the baby do his or her thang.
Noah has never gotten the vitamin drops either. When he was having reflux problems, Nicole didn't want to give him anything that might make him sick. To my surprise, the doctor agreed. And he's never gotten them since, even though his stomach has gotten better.
I was stunned at how much bigger Noah seemed than Bella all of a sudden. But it shouldn't be surprising. That boy inhales solid food. He eats two full jars three times a day. And he nurses about six times a day. I follow what he seems to want and need - and Bella wants and needs different things. She's her own woman.
People are vastly different in everything - even when they are babies. What the doctors and books tell us should be nothing more than general advice or a very loose model of typical behaviors. We love our kids and want to do the best we can do for them - and we know them and what they want and need better than anyone. Listen to what the Doc has to say and then toss out the bit you disagree with.
Ooohhh eczema, yuck. I had that as a baby and then it reappeared a few years ago. Now I seem to get it every summer. My husband calls it "nasty patches."
I wish I had something insightful to add here. But all I can say is that Bella looks like a cute little bundle of healthy to me!
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