Weight Gain

We saw our holistic pediatrician today and I’m happy to report that he is in excellent health and has gained weight!! He is “on the chart” for his height for his actual age (10th percentile) - yeah! His weight is still pretty far under the bar, but he is still following the appropriate curve (his own curve). I wish he would gain more, he's just under 22 lbs and can wear a lot of the same clothes he had last year at this time (I guess that is a good thing, right?)... but the important thing is we can see from the chart that he is gaining at the right rate.

So, I’m starting to relax a little with the weight gain stuff (this is an area of HUGE stress for me)… after all, Bran has always been tall and thin, and I was a tiny kid--I was not on the chart for height or weight until I was almost in middle school. Even if Lucas wasn’t a preemie, he is genetically bound to be a wiry fellow. I think his weight gain would have been a little better had he not lost some in the last few weeks. I noticed he was starting to decline in his eating and didn’t want to drink much water. I decided to put him back on Prevacid suspecting he’s still struggling with reflux. Since starting back, he appears to have increased his intake again. Dr. Razi agreed that we did the right thing, although her goal is as a doctor practicing natural medicine is to get him off any prescriptions where we can. She asked me to stop giving him Duocal (a powder we add to his food to add calories) because it is chemically based. I feel proud that he is gaining while eating very healthy. I think its been about six months now of his new diet eliminating dairy, and eating healthy whole grains, beans, vegetables, and fruits. We're doing it! This was all unchartered territory for me and very foreigh, and we've also made changes in how we eat as a result of having to do this for Lucas. I still have a lot to learn, but I have to admit I'm kind of proud of myself.

Now that the weather is changing, I’m getting nervous heading into cold and flu season. We got through the last two winters without any major sickness (excluding the three shunt revisions, of course). I hope this year doesn’t bring any surprises, especially since he doesn’t qualify for the Synagis shot this year that protects against RSV (the expensive $1200/shot times five months). Insurance only approves high risk infants for two years, and only will approve a 3rd year for babies that have had respiratory incidents in the past year. So we're on our own this year and he's much stronger, I'm glad we still have him at home during the day instead of in day care, that helps. I guess we'll see what all this flu and H1N1 has in store for all of us.