Day at the Doctor's

We went in this morning for a follow-up on little Bird's 12-month well-baby.  Appointment time?  9am.  Final departure from the hospital? 1:45 pm.  Why?  Well, apparently our baby is shrinking.  On her birthday she clocked in at 19 lbs 6 oz.  Today she was 19 lbs 2 oz.  Down 4 oz.  The point of the follow-up was to show she was actually growing.  Dang.  Sortof.

The doctor is concerned enough that he ordered a blood workup and urinalysis just to rule out unhealthy reasons for her weight loss.  Fine, I don't have a problem with that.  He's not suggesting we make any dietary changes, just that we monitor her until she "picks her own growth curve."  Blood workup on a 1-year-old means me holding her on my lap, pinning one hand, hugging her around her chest so she can't squirm away, and having a tech hold down little Bird's free arm while another tech ties off the turniquette and draws the blood.  Oh yeah, it was just as much fun as it sounds.  Bird started squalling before they even got the needle close.  The tech holding her arm commented, "She's strong!"  Yeah, coulda' told you that.  She doesn't like being pinned down and poked either.  At least it was fast.  I sang to little Bird and fought back tears.

Nursing break.  Not sure who needed it more - little Bird or me.  Did I mention we were already an hour past her nap time?

Next was the Immunization Office.  5 pokes were on the schedule for today.  I got it down to 3.  Bird's not a drug user, and I'm pretty sure we'd notice if she was having sex with multiple partners, so no thanks on the Hep A.  Flu shots are a bit of a crap shoot in my opinion, so we forgo them unless required for work.  Down to 4 sticks.  Last one I declined was the Chicken Pox vaccine.  Given the statistics and data I've researched I'd rather she just get the Chicken Pox and be done with it.  3 pokes.  She was as happy about those ones as the blood draw.  This was turning into quite the day.

Two hours past her naptime.  Lunch break - I'm starving and she's exhausted.  We left long enough to get lunch and nap then came back so see if we'd collected enough pee.

Oh yeah, I forgot to mention the bag.  Have you ever tried to collect pee from a baby?  Well apparently they've thought this one through at least a little.  I won't go into the details, but suffice it to say it was a pain.  And we had to do it twice since the first time we missed and the pee hit the diaper instead.  Fun stuff.

So all of this is because she's been losing weight.  Not an insane amount, but enough that we've had plenty of people comment on it and the doctor wants to watch her.  I will point out that the last time we had her weighed was at her roly-polyest right before she started walking.  She started walking early - at 9 months.  She's getting around pretty well these days.  All the time in fact.  So I'm not surprised she's thinning out.  It just might not be good if she continues to thin out.

Today's appointment spurred me on to do some more research and this is what I found:
http://www.kellymom.com/nutrition/vitamins/babyfoodcalories.html


I had assumed little Bird was losing weight due to increased activity, which is very much a part of it I think.  However, she's actually started losing weight FASTER since she increased the amount of solid foods she was eating.  Based on the chart, that makes sense.  Her belly can only handle so much food at a time, be it milk or solid foods.  If she is eating solid foods INSTEAD of breastmilk, then she is actually getting fewer calories (and fats and nutrients, etc.).

So, I think we're going to work on INCREASING the number of nursing sessions per day and see how that goes.  I'm not so much concerned about her size or her health, but I am mildly concerned about the prospect of her weaning earlier than I think is healthy.  At the rate she's inhaling table foods this could be a possibility.  I see no point in having her wean, then having to give her cow's milk to replace the lost fat, calories, and nutrients.  That's ridiculous.  Hopefully she'll slow down the weight loss a little bit and start growing out as well as up so we can just go on our merrily-nursing way.