Baby lost weight between 6 and 9 months? Any advice?

[Ash4Jaidon]

My baby weighed 7lbs 2oz at birth. He weighed 14lbs 7oz at his 6 month appt. and now he currently weights 14 lbs at nine months and 1 week. He his below the growth chart. He is also 27 and a half inches long. He is meeting all other milestones. He can crawl, pull self up to a standing position, has two teeth, claps hands, waves hello and good bye, says yayaya, dada dade, babababa, hi.....

He was exclusively breast fed utill about a week a ago after his nine month appt. However, after age 6 months I did offer him a jar of baby food every week to get him use to solids. He currently nurses 7 times a day. This comes out to be roughly every 2 hours during his awake hours. He may go 2-3 before he nurses at bedtime. I am now trying to give him solids twice a day after he nurses. These solid feeds occur after his naps. He sleep a total of 11- 11 1/2 hours a night. He wakes to eat once after about 9 1/2 hours but goes right back to sleep. Including this feed he nurses 7 times.


Is he totally abnormal in weight? How do I get his weight up without decreasing the amount of breastmilk he gets by feeding too many solids..

[PatioGardener]

First, if I were you, I would recheck his weight to make sure that the scale was right.

If he has lost/not gained, then the next thing is to see a good lactation consultant to find out if there is an issue with his milk transfer, or with your supply. There are LOTS of things you can do to improve both!

Things to check for:
-tongue-tie (posterior is difficult to see unless you know whwat you are looking for)
-low milk supply (did you start hormonal birth control? are you taking any cold medications that can affect supply?)
-milk transfer (is baby swallowing lots of milk during feeds?)

Things that may help:
-breast compressions
-nursing more often
-nursing before feeding any solids
-nursing lots at night
-pumping to bump up your supply, and feeding baby that extra milk by cup, as well as nursing
-herbs, foods or medications to increase milk supply. See the 'low supply' sticky in the breastfeeding challenges forum.

Babies do slow down in weight gain after 6 months (see the WHO chart: http://www.who.int/childgrowth/stand...boys_p_0_2.pdf) but it is NOT normal for them to stop gaining altogether or to lose weight at this age. Fortunately there are lots of things that can be done to increase milk intake, if that is the reason that baby isn't growing.

Good luck, Mama!