18 months and not gaining weight

[EmilyG]

I took my daughter in for her 18 month check up today and found that she hasn't gained any weight at all since her 12 month check.  She went from the >95% down to 60% for weight.  Height remained at >95%.  Her pedi said her %'s are still good, but she's worried about the fact that she hasn't even put on an ounce in the past 6 months.  DD isn't big on food yet, she'll eat a couple bites here and there, but really just wants to nurse.  She sits in her booster at mealtimes, but within a few minutes and a few bites wants to get out to nurse.  She nurses probably every 2-4 hours day and night, although if we're busy enough and she's distracted she can go longer but makes up for it by waking more often at night.

Pedi wants me to start restricting nursing time until after she's eaten to try and encourage her to eat more table food.

Any ideas or experience with this sort of thing?

[thaihotmama]

Hopefully someone with more similar experience will chime in. Our experience was a weight gain of about 3.5 lbs. between 12-18 months, which seemed not a lot to us, after all the fast 1st-year growth. I tend to agree it may be time to try some things to encourage more solids... Glad your ped didn't suggest something extreme... Like don't offer milk until she eats a bowl of food, etc. It took a long time for my son to really start eating a lot of solids.. I would say he still seems to eat a lot less than many kids I meet - but then they aren't still breast-feeding. I assume that's really the difference. I doubt this is any help, but wanted to wish you luck in the journey!

Edit:

He was at 25th% on weight at both 12 and 18 month appts.... down from 50th% most of the time, but probably 90th% or so at birth.... all from the breastfed baby charts - not "all" kids. Ped has never been concerned about his slimming down trend.

[thedenverduo]

I wouldn't worry.  We were in the same boat, ds didn't gain anything between 12 and 15 months.  He had just started walking and being more active, but he was still loving nursing and not really into solids.  I think that is pretty normal.  We did try to encourage more solid food during the day, but didn't push it or cut back on nursing.  I just started offering solids more often.

My ped really set me at ease about this by reminding me that not a whole lot of people nurse past a year, so these percentiles are based on kids who aren't nursing anymore and are getting all of their calories from food.  His percentages look great, and I think you need to just trust your instincts.  Does he seem like a healthy, happy kid?  Has he recently started walking or being more active (burning more calories)?  If he just isn't interested in solids, he will be soon!  I felt like ds was doing great, learning a lot every day, and nursing plenty so I just didn't worry about it.  Now he is 18 mo gaining weight again, and eating solids like a horse.

[EmilyG]

Thanks ladies, that makes me feel better. 

She is still nursing a lot, but she's also very active, running and jumping and dancing all the time.  I don't feel like cutting back on her nursing is the answer, and honestly I don't know how I'd do it anyway because she gets so upset if I even make her wait a few minutes to nurse, much less not do it at all.  I'll just keep trying to offer food and I'm sure she'll start when she's ready.  She's still in the 60th% for weight, she just started out so huge, but she can't and maybe wasn't meant to keep up that >95th% forever. 

I've decided not to stress about it as long as she doesn't loose any weight.

[namistenicole]

I wouldn't worry about percentiles; take your cues from you kid. Both of my kids were in the 5th percentile (!) and the doctors definitely freaked me out with the first one. But with the second they just shrug and say that's how my kids are... so I take it with a grain of salt.

As an aside I will say that as soon as I night weaned (just a few weeks ago) my DD went through a growth spurt in weight and height - which was great to see. I don't think anyone should wean to help a baby put on weight, but it did seem to encourage her to eat a lot of oatmeal!

[EmilyG]

How did you go about night weaning?  I'm ready for more than 2 hours of sleep in a row!