Despite all of my children being near or above average size at birth, I’ve yet to have a truly “big” baby, toddler or child. Doodle had his one month well check this morning (even though he’s almost 6 weeks…our Doctor is an extremely busy guy and apparently having a baby just before summer camps start and everyone needs physicals and forms causes scheduling complications). Our little guy grew 2 inches and gained nearly 3 pounds since his 1 day check. He’s now 24 inches and a bit over 11 pounds (98% for height and about 75% for weight). Sugarplum had a similar weight gain the first month (2 ½ pounds) and then slowed WAY down. Despite being 75% at a month, she is now only about 25 pounds at almost 3 years (about 3% but still about 25% for height) and wears 12 month size pants (which as you can imagine are capri length which luckily works for Florida in June!)
Here’s the strange thing, though: Doodle is still wearing newborn clothes (usually sized for up to 8 pounds) and still wearing newborn size diapers (up to 10 pounds). We’ve tried the size 1 diapers a few times over the past few week but they are huge on him! The crotch area is twice as wide as him and I can’t get them to not gap in the back.
I often tell people I have very dense children and I often get strange looks at first. I then have to go into a long explanation about how I mean they’re dense in the physics sense of the word: They’re heavy but compact. (I definitely don’t mean in the mental sense of the word!)
Both of my girls stayed little (Honeybun at the 6% and Sugarplum under 3%) until I got them drinking cow’s milk regularly at which time their weight started coming up more rapidly. I’ve assumed I just had lean breastmilk which kept my children lean. Luckily our pediatrician is very laid back about my children’s weight, assuming they will be taller and thin since hubby and I both are and since they have never had developmental concerns due to their low weight. I’m curious to see if Doodle takes after his sisters or if he will pave his own path.
I keep a growth chart for each of my children which will go in their scrapbooks, this is Sugarplum’s:
