Two Month Well Baby Visit

It has been two months since Nicole was born. I have yet to capture a good picture of her wonderful smile, so this photo will have to do. She cracks me up!

Yesterday I took her to our family practitioner for her two month well baby visit. She’s doing great, nursing well, and meeting all of her developmental milestones (in spite of my inability to capture them on film!) She weighed 12 pounds 9 ounces, and measured 23 inches in length and 15.5 inches in head circumference. When the doctor told me that that put Nicole in the 25th, 10th and 10th percentiles on the CDC growth charts, I was a little surprised! My second daughter was petite like that, but does this look like a child who is on the low end of the charts?

Ignore my belly! Look! Cute buddha baby! Cute Imse Vimse organic cotton velour diaper cover! (Yup, I am still using cloth diapers. I got hooked on the Imse Vimse covers when someone generously passed this one on to me, and I just ordered two each of the organic cotton jungle print and organic cotton farm animal print! I absolutely love how soft and stretchy the fabric is, and how the edges have gussets but they don’t make marks on my baby’s legs).

For the record, I am not afraid to state my weight on the internet. My real weight! Be kind, internets. I weighed myself yesterday at the doctor’s office. I have lost 30 pounds of pregnancy weight and at 146.6 pounds with clothes on, I have about five more to go. No rush, I just like to note those things. And it does seem to show that for some women, breastfeeding does help with normal weight loss!

I wondered how my instincts could be so wrong about Nicole’s weight! She’s my beautiful buddha baby, and she’s already in 3-6 month clothes, so how could she be in the 10-25th percentiles? I did some quick math in my head. She has gained five pounds seven ounces from her original seven pounds two ounces. That’s 87 ounces in 9 weeks, or nearly 10 ounces per week. As a breastfeeding counselor I know that the average weight gain for a breastfed baby at this age is five to seven ounces per week. It’s no wonder with my oversupply that Nicole gained more than average. If she gained more than average, though, something was fishy about those percentiles. I looked up the CDC growth charts online, and discovered she’s actually in the 90th percentile for weight, 75th percentile for height, and 75th percentile for head circumference. Just for good measure (no pun intended), I checked the WHO growth charts too, because those are more accurate for breastfed babies. She is in the 80-85th percentiles for height and weight on those charts.

Don’t get me wrong. I don’t care much about the numbers. I can look at my baby and see that she is thriving and wonderful, and as long as she stays on the same growth curve, it doesn’t matter whether she’s in the 10th percentile or the 95th. But I was a little concerned when I thought she’d dropped from the 50th to the 10th, especially when I had been marveling at those rolls of baby fat! It made me question my instincts, which is never a good thing as a mother. Bottom line, everything is fine! Nicole is a good-natured, happy — and healthy — baby.