Failure to Thrive

IMG_8622Since her four month appointment, Lulu’s head circumference has been a bit smaller than her weight and height would suggest – apparently, she’s a pinhead.  Good thing she has those big chubby cheeks to balance her face out!

Anyway, Dr. Andy has never been *really* concerned since it has been growing, and she is hitting all of her developmental milestones, but we go in every 6 weeks to have her microencephaly checked: they measure her head.

Since we can’t just walk in and have the nurse throw a tape measure around her noggin, usually they measure her height and weight while we are there – which is how I know that Lulu grew almost 2″ in a little over a month. Poor Cole – it’s only a matter of time before his baby sister is bigger than him.  Her head size jumped from the 7th percentile to the 30th, so that’s pretty good, and we were happily playing while waiting to see Dr. Andy.

He noticed that while Lulu had stretched vertically, she had not gained any weight.  He claimed she had LOST weight, but I quickly corrected him on that – she may have dropped in percentile points (from 25th to 15th), but her weight had stayed the same.

“Should I put her down as Failure to Thrive?”

o_O

WHAT?! This child is in the 85th percentile for height.  Failure to Thrive? I. Don’t. Think. So.

Sigh. We had this issue with Cole, who was (and is) *active* and strong and bright, but also very small, so I could kind of understand the concern there.  But Lulu? She is my meatball – she actually grows out of her clothes regularly (and is wearing the same size now as Cole was wearing less than a year ago – crazypants.).

So I told Dr. Andy No. No, I do not think we should put her down as Failure to Thrive.  First of all, RIDICULOUS. And secondly? As a swimmer in my genetic pool, she is unlikely to grow up to be a super model, so she might as well enjoy this period of being tall and thin while it lasts!

We will be back in for a well care visit in 6 weeks.  I will be sewing rocks into her diaper.

IMG_8275This picture is reposted from last week’s iPhone pic post, but seriously? How cute is she? Failure to Thrive? NO.

 
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7 Comments

  1. 🙁

    I remember being sent to the dietician with my daughter when she was a year old. She had been a very chunky baby, in the 75th percentile and then she started slowing down when she hit a year. They were concerned but – hello – I thought that was normal since she was more active and burning more calories. Most of the time momma knows best.

    • I’m not worried about it – she’s active and crazy running all over the place; if I exercised 10 hours a day I’d be thin, too!

  2. Oh my gosh, this drives me mad!!! As you know, Mason JUST grew out of 18 month clothes a few months ago! No one here has every mentioned ANYTHING about Mason growing too slowly or had any concerns (well, doctor wise anyway, we get plenty of wise cracks about it otherwise)

    AARGGGHHHH!!!

    • I think with Cole the main problem was that he fell off his own growth curve – and then just didn’t catch up for the longest time. I’m pretty sure he’s just teasing me about Lulu – I am not concerned at ALL.

  3. She is the CUTEST!!!! No failure to thrive at all!! (the only one long and thin at my house is the dog, so I’d cherish that status while I had it, too!)
    I do think it’s nice that your doctor at least discusses these things with you before marking off a sheet. So many of them do not. But still…yeah, no…not failure to thrive at all. Good grief!!

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