slow to gain questions

[ElliesMomma]

first off, my son is not a preemie, but he was born a couple weeks early, and he is fairly small. i hope it's OK that i'm posting here.

he was six pounds even at birth, 19 inches long. at discharge from the hospital he was 5 pounds 8 ounces (his lowest) and the next day was up to 5 pounds 9 ounces. at nine days old, he was 5 pounds 12 ounces. today, one month old, he is 6 pounds 5 ounces. this is below the 5th percentile for weight. his head is growing, it is 10th percentile. length has grown to 20 and 3/4 inches -- this is 25th percentile.

he is exclusively breastfed. my diet has been as good as i can stand it. i'm just not all that hungry. i eat oatmeal every day and i eat as well as i can, salads, soups, some meats. i'm not particularly hungry, so it's not like i'm getting a ton of great food. but it's not a god awful diet either. i don't drink a lot of milk.

DS spits up quite a bit (in frequency). in quantity, it's not that much.

the ped. today said the reflux/spitting up could be affecting weight gain.

also it's been hard for him to stay asleep as our 3 yo DD has been fairly loud around the house, and DS is a bit of a "light sleeper" at least until he is deeply asleep.

do you think that:

1) my diet is affecting the quality of his breastmilk and this is impacting his low weight gain?

2) getting more sleep during the day would help him gain?

do you have any suggestions on how to help him gain more weight? thanks for any help or advice.

[sbrinton]

I would try including more healthy fats in your diet to see if it makes a difference. Nuts, avocados, coconut, olive oil, flax seed. Try to include lots of healthy unsaturated fats. Some saturated fats are fine too (our brains and our babies need some!). So have some whole milk or cheese. Or ice cream.

Are you loosing weight quickly? Trying to diet or exercise a lot? Both of those can affect milk supply significantly. If you are loosing more than 1/2 to 1 pound a week, I would try to eat more. If you are not that hungry, make everything you do eat count. In other words, eat calorie and nutrient dense foods.

Our whole family tends to be too thin. One of our boys is at about the 10th percentile for weight, the other two are off the charts little. My husband and I are also both very lean and athletic. So we work very hard to eat - both healthy food and enough calories. So we bake a lot of homemade bread that we serve with butter and homemade jam. We make oatmeal cookies packed with chocolate, nuts and coconut. We add cheese and bacon to eggs. I eat ice cream almost every night. We eat lots of fruits and vegetables and beans and other healthy stuff too, but I know that if I just eat salad and soup, I will not make enough milk for our little one.

Getting more sleep might help too. Does he sleep well in a carrier? Our little ones slept great in a beco or a moby. Maybe you can pick one nap time to do something quiet with the 3 year old so that she doesn't wake the baby. Or turn on the TV or radio or music for background noise, so the play sounds aren't too loud. We don't watch much TV, but I've found that keeping NPR on the radio in the room next to the nursery makes enough white/background noise that the baby can sleep through this brothers playing.