#319 Scrawny

I took the baby to the doctor yesterday. I was concerned that he wasn’t gaining enough weight. Born at 7 pounds and 3 ounces, he is the smallest of my kids. Before we left the hospital he had lost about 10 percent of his body weight which is borderline for needing supplemental formula in addition to breast milk. I thought this was pretty ironic as he took to breast feeding better than the other boys did. My oldest also lost a lot of weight in the hospital, so I wasn’t too worried.




We took him to the pediatrician the day after we brought him home and 4 days after that for weigh-ins and he was gaining appropriately so we didn’t have to supplement and I stopped worrying about it. But I did continue to notice his scrawny little chicken arms and legs.



We have a friend who happens to be our former nanny and a professional photographer; and she came and took pictures for us last weekend. She kept commenting on how little the baby was, and she shoots newborns fairly frequently. At one point I pulled out a picture of my oldest son from before he left the hospital and he had arm rolls. I started to get concerned.



The next day my husband and I decided to weigh the peanut on the food scale. We put a platter on the scale, a blanket over it so it wouldn’t be so cold and put the baby on that. I wish I had a picture but it was too precarious and he wasn’t wearing a diaper which meant we were all on pee alert, so photography didn’t happen. The food scale said he was almost 7 pounds. Not even back to birth weight and 3 weeks old!!



So yesterday I called the pediatrician and brought him in to be weighed. It turns out you shouldn’t weigh a newborn on a food scale. On the doctor’s scale he was 7 pounds, 5 ounces and they were happy with that. I was relieved.



Later I talked to my mom and told her about all of this. She told me that Eric had scrawny chicken legs as a baby; she used to notice it every time she changed his diaper.



I should have known.