Growth Curves- Ugh!

“I just don’t get it” - I can’t tell you how many times that statement is uttered in our house as we talk about Matthew’s eating. Some feedings are great, others are awful. The good news is that he has more good feeds than bad.

We’ve been trying to find the ‘cause’ but so far haven’t identified a 100% correlation between a bad feed and a host of different variables. I feel like I need to get out my statistics text book and run a multivariate analysis. A few of the variables tracked and reviewed: time of day, medication, medication time, sleep, bottle type, formula vs breastmilk, type of diaper and on and on. The bad feeds just don’t seem to have a rhyme or reason. I’m sure there is a reason, we just haven’t figured out what it is yet. We are not beyond suggestions….if you have a thought or suggestion, please drop us a line. We really want to get this figured out!

The feedings have been made more stressful because we are worried about Matthew’s slow weight gain. I HATE the growth charts. These are the charts that tell you of 100 babies born at the same time, what percentile weight, height and head measurement your baby falls. If you haven’t had the privilege of using (or stressing) about these charts, here is an example.

These charts have been driving me insane since February of 2006. That is when Alyssa started falling down the curve…from 50th percentile for weight to 25th to 20th. She was admitted to Austin’s Children’s Hospital March 2006 for failure to thrive (thanks to these fantastic charts). We came home w/a prescription for reflux meds and even more reason to stress about her feedings. Thankfully I gave up caring about the charts sometime around her first birthday and since that point, she has slowly crept back up the curve and is now about 50/50 for weight and height.

Then came Jackson and the second opportunity for these charts to drive me insane. Jackson started out in the 25th percentile for weight and, like Alyssa, slid down the chart. Jackson’s slide was even more dramatic, bottoming out somewhere in the 3rd percentile. He’s slowly making up ground, but was 20th percentile for weight and 50th for height at his last appointment. Thankfully we didn’t stress as much as we did with Alyssa, but it was still a stressor until probably his first birthday.

Now here’s Matthew. I had expected my third baby to slide down the chart and promised myself I wouldn’t stress about it. But then Matthew arrived as unique as unique can be. Not only is he a Hoy baby (which will probably make him a light weight baby) but he’s on his own curve…nobody knows what is typical for him. He struggles with feedings, so now we stress about the curve all over again. Is the slide just a typical Hoy slide or is it because of his poor feedings? I keep telling myself to relax—that even though he’s approaching the single digit percentiles, Matthew is gaining weight, just slower than ‘typical’. And he has adequate fat stores, as the gastroenterologist said, just looking at his double chin and chubby legs tells you that. But, the pediatrician appointment is around the next corner and she wanted a 3 pound weight gain since his two month and he’ll be lucky to have more than 2lbs gained by his four month visit. Ugh! I’m hopeful that our pediatrician will just relax and take a look at him instead of the charts. That’s what I’m trying to do! (Well, that AND trying to fix his eating issues.)

Stupid charts….they have been interfering with me enjoying my infants since 2006!