Our baby girl, Lulu, has always been small. She's a little bit of a thing--never strayed higher than the 15th percentile on her weight chart, or the 25th on the height charts. Today, though, when we went for a checkup, she didn't even register in a percentile for weight.
The doctor--our new pediatrician--wasn't overly worried, but she said we needed to encourage Miss Lulu to eat more. Whole milk. Cheese. Peanut butter. Extra calories where we can fit them.
Now in my mind I know that this child is little because that's the way God made her. But it doesn't help that lately she's on an anti-weaning food strike. Pretty much everything I offer her aside from the "real" goods she rejects. She knows that if she gives in and eats, nursing is done. Slowly, slowly we're cutting back the nursing, and as she relaxes and comes to trust that I will still love her and fawn all over her even when we're not nursing, I'm sure her appetite will pick up.
For now, I'm going to ply her with irresistible foods. Cheese pizza. Cubes of cheese. Spoonfuls of peanut butter, and endless hummus. She's also recently taken to chocolate milk (a weaning device), and I'm just going to keep a cup of that at the ready at all times.
At the same time, I'm tamping down the Bad Mama guilt feelings. After all, what good mama doesn't nourish her child properly? Those are wicked, unhelpful thoughts, and they're just not welcome here. If I look at the WHO growth charts for breastfed babies, I'm reassured that my 21-lb pumpkin is squarely in the 12th percentile for 2-year-olds. Little, but not malnourished. Besides, anyone who knows this little feisty thing can see that she's perfectly healthy, energetic and developing well. She's articulate enough to tell me, when I asked her what she wanted to eat at the store, "Pie!" Hmmm. I think she's smart, too.
If you have suggestions for fattening up a little thing, please send them along. I'd love to have many good choices to offer her.
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