Weight

AS I have harped on before... Tiddler's weight has always been an issue. She wasn't born the biggest baby but many aren't. She lost quite a bit straightaway, again- nothing special.

The problems became evident very swiftly though and it took her some weeks to get back to her birth weight and then quite a few months to cross the magical 0.4 centile. These early problems were down to illness and her inability to co-ordinate breathing and swallowing meaning she tired very quickly when breastfeeding.

Ever since then, Tiddler's weight gain has been slow, patchy and at times tortuous! Apart from just after birth, she has not lost weight but a 20g (less than one ounce) gain in a month is one of her lowlights!

I could probably write a thesis on the causes of her poor weight gain, we may never know what they or it is conclusively. The combined forces of her Paediatrician, ENT Consultant, Dietician, Speech and Language Therapist, Health Visitors etc etc aren't confident of the cause but have suggested reflux, sensory under-responsiveness (meaning she can't feel hunger) breathing difficulties and her poor tone.

Whatever the cause is, I am going to have to chase the Dietician for advice I think, to check she has enough nutrients etc going in at the very least. The whole weight thing though I find very frustrating. We are all bound by the rules of the "Red Book". Your child must weigh X kg and follow that little red line hence they are overweight "What do you feed them?" or underweight "what do you feed them?"- actually, that makes me think the whole process could be automated like the self service tills at Asda as you are asked the same questions and then invariably told that its fine (even when you know its not and have a team of specialists trying to find answers). As an aside, I was told that the weights used in the red book are taken from American data, so why they are treated by some as the be all and end all I do not know.

What is it about weight of people's children though that makes them turn into strange inverted competitive mums? There was a conversation at toddler group this morning about how awful their offspring's weight gain was - incidentally it wasn't- 4 oz in 1 mth, I would love that to be a bad month for Tiddler. Mum no.2, not to be outdone by this announced that her baby had only put on ... wait for it... 500g in 2 months. 2 Months! Shock horror. What do these people think? Why announce to a room full of people in this way? I don't get it... but anyway it wasn't the best conversation for me to walk into this morning.