So I got out a scale at my inlaws and weighed Lucy.
It's not an officially calibrated doctor scale, but my weight seemed normal on it.
Lucy weighs seventeen pounds.
That is four more pounds than she did at 6 months (a little less than three months ago), when the doctor got all concerned about how small she was.
And according to the WHO breastfeeding charts, she's now firmly average.
Whoo hoo! My child is mediocre!
So it's official: I didn't need to worry about Lucy wasting away from not being fed enough. I also didn't need to feed her three times a day or wake up in the middle of the night to pump. I didn't need to worry about the fact that her growth had slowed and was falling off of the curve on my ped's laptop screen.
Imagine! My child might not match the curve on a laptop screen! She might grow in spurts!
Wait. Don't they call them "growth spurts" for a reason?
And just a note: I would still be okay if Lucy weighed less; I was pretty firmly convinced she was fine all this time. But I will admit it's nice to have the little number that sort of backs me up. Just in case other people don't trust my motherly intuition.
2 comments:
Hi,
I wandered to your blog from the lactivist.
What is it about in laws? Mine visited a couple of weeks ago and now they're in my husbands ear that I feed her too much. She thinks my daughter's cheeks are too big.
A baby whose cheeks are too chubby? Mad Mad Mad.
Hi, Judy, thanks for coming over.
Actually, my inlaws were super-supportive when Lucy was lower weight. My mom-in-law told me not to worry, and not to pay attention to the doctors. But I hear you--the advice/worries we get can be crazy-making :) I think grandparents are required to worry.
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