Had our second pediatrician visit with Abby yesterday within a week. Last week, her new pediatrician declared we were overfeeding her and gave me the draconian advice to let her cry it out and cease to feed her at all at night. This advice was based on her off the chart weight of 18 pounds 10 ounces and height of 26.7 inches at 3.5 months. She said Abby was consuming too many ounces and that I had to limit her. She sent me into a tailspin of worry and research and many lost nights of sleep as I tried to keep Abby to a set number of ounces per day, by keeping her from eating at night unless she was REALLY hungry. (I rejected the cry it out advice as even Ferber says don't try this until they are 6 months old. And I simply will not let my very hungry child cry for 12 hours straight.) Delaying her with pacifiers and bottles of water did nothing but piss her off and exhaust me, and I have been a zombie for a week as a result. Now when she wakes she informs me in no uncertain terms of exactly how starving she is, and then she scarfs down whatever I give her. She's not playing around - she's hungry!
So, we went back to see her old pediatrician yesterday. He changed practices last month, but Abby and I drove to town to see him again and it was so worth the trip. He's the one who helped me through all of her early feeding issues and knows how hard it was for her to be satisfied with breastfeeding. He charted her growth from birth on his computer and said despite his former colleague's thoughts, there is NO WAY Abby is growing too fast. Her growth is above the normal curve, but is happening at the exact same slope as normal growth. She started out big and she continues to be big. And he calculated and charted the ratio between weight and height (which the other dr didn't do) and noted that ratio is in the 50-75 percentile range, totally average. In other words, her weight is matching her height as it should. He also asked to hold her, remarked on her trunk control and urge to stand, said how beautiful she is and told me to keep doing everything I told him I had been doing, including starting her on solid foods, which she seems to love!
Needless to say, we are switching both Jake and Abby to his new practice forthwith. A good pediatrician is worth a little driving. And my sleep and sanity for a week is payment enough for the poor advice we got from the other dr.
Abby and I walked out very happy indeed.
it is all a blur, but Lindell was off-the-charts huge --I think she hit 20 pounds sometime around the 4-month mark, (which sadly meant an end to the bjorn) -- so yeah, I totally agree with your new/old ped. I don't think you can overfeed a baby, and from personal experience, the growth does slow down eventually. Trying to limit feedings sounds like hell! Glad you got better advice and I agree, totally worth the trip for it.
ReplyDelete