Underweight 6 Month Old

E., He is not underweight. My son weighed only 14 at 6 months, 19lbs at a year and 24 at 2 1/2 and he is completely healthy. The beauty of babies and small children is they will not starve themselves. Your son will eat when he's hungry, stop when he's full, and I'm sure your doctor is correct, he is just fine. Will he be the fattest kid in his preschool? Probably not. You will create food/eating issues for him if you don't relax and let him be. I think you are having some infair expectations for your son. Lots of babies don't sleep for more than a few hours until they are almost 2. It may be frusturating, but he will grow at his pace.

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I would think that drinking more at a feeding would only cause him to regurgitate more. Their little tummies can only hold so much, then they spew the rest. Adding cereal to the bottle would probably be fine; otherwise, if the doctors say he is ok then he probably is.

My son was also quite thin as a baby and his doctor told me that as long as he was growing in height, don't worry about the weight. Over the years, my son fell off the bottom of the weight chart a couple of times but was quite healthy. He is now almost 17, 6'2" and only 140 lbs. He is an active baseball player, muscular and almost no body fat (I hate him for that). He eats when he's hungry. It's one way I can tell he's on a growth spurt. It's much better for a person to eat several small meals a day than three large ones. As long as he is healthy, don't push food. Better that he be thin than overweight. Good luck.

If the doctors say he is healthy, why worry yourself so much? My son didn't weigh too much more than that at that age, with no GERD or anything, just a little guy. My husband and I are small, he is just the same way. I can't comment to the formula in bottles or not as a treatment for GERD, but if he is doing better now and hasnt always had cereal in them, I wouldn't start that. Just another thing you will have to take away later. Giving him things high in good fats is a better way to go than the empty calories of cereal. Avocados are great, and so is whole milk yogurt. I was feeding my son both of those at about 7 mos, so check with your doc about which foods would be good. But seriously, I think they doctor would be all over his weight if they thought he was truly underweight.

both of my boys had/have GERD. my 2 1/2 yr old had it worse. we tried every formula out there and found that enfamil gentlease seemed to work best. i can tell a big difference with my 6 mo. since we switched to this formula a couple of months ago. we also supplement bottles with rice cereal - we've done this for quite awhile and it works great. it does seem to hold things down a bit more. i use the same scoop from the formula and add about 1 1/2 - 2 scoops of rice cereal to 7-8 oz. of formula. when my 2 1/2 yr old turned 1, the GERD went away pretty fast. good luck!!

I just came across neocate. It's a protein powder for babies, toddlers, and children to 10 yrs old who needs help gaining weight. It's similar to pediasure but without the milk base. I hope that you are able to help your little one! :0)

E.

My daughter had GERD and adding the cereal to the bottle was the best thing we did. You need to make the nipple larger and that is tricky...snipping with a sizzor can make it too big and not good for the baby. What worked for us was a the prong of a larger fork (something round) that could just make it a little bigger. Also, we added yogurt that had fat in it. It is hard to find because most is fat free or low in fat. There is 1 brand La Creme that is soft and has some fat and that definately helped. Good luck! It is really hard but it does get better.

my 6 month old just weighs 14.3 pounds and he is 25 inches long. So to me he just long and skinny which is how my baby is. My baby's doctor wasn't consider at all about his weight; but you might want to double check with your baby's doctor.

I agree, add the cereal. If you can get him to take it from the spoon, great. There are feeder bottles out there (Wal-mart or Babies R Us) that have a large hole in the nipple. My mom used these when we were kids. I used them only at dinnertime. Sometimes mom wants a hot meal too... :) Adding the cereal at night should help with getting him to sleep a bit longer at night. He may not be ready to sleep the whole night, but it may add more time.

I know the weight issue is scary. If the doctor says he is healthy, breathe. My girls are extremely petite. Both were 7 1/2 lbs at birth. My 3 yr old just hit 26 lbs. My 13 month old only weighs 16.3 lbs! She is still wearing 3-6 month clothing. Her pediatrician says everything is fine. Growth rates for them have followed the same curve.

Good luck and keep us posted!

My doctor gave me some good advice on this. as long as the child is following the growth curve no matter where they fall percantage wise there isn't cause for concern. only worry when they deviate drastically from the curve. Not sure where your son is now on that chart, but my son was is 5 1/2 years old and only weighs 33 pounds. at each check up his weight and height have followed the curve. Go with your mom instincts though if you think there is a problem. good luck

I agree with Jill. I've got a "bad sleeper", real skinny son, too. Colicky as a baby up to 5-6 months, always off the charts low with weight, but he's growing and is healthy as can be.

Add the rice cereal. My pediatrician told me to do that 18 years ago when my son was not gaining weight and we were monitoring him very closely. My pediatrician was an old time doc who believed in the old ways of doing things and not the new thinking that is out there. Go with what your gut says and try the cereal. At 6 months he should be having more than just milk anyway so cereal will be fine to add.

The cereal in the bottles will work great. My daughter was only about 15 lbs at 6 months. She is 7 years old now. She is only 38 lbs. She took Zantac in the bottles as well as cereal. She never slept through the night until she was 3.

I have a tall and skinny one myself. Your little guy sounds just fine. But we started rice cereal at this age. Then added bananas and peas, carrots and apples over the course of the next month. And when he started teething and didn't want to eat food that is when we added the rice cereal to his bottles. And, just so you know, rice cereal in the bottle didn't work to get him to sleep through the night. Our lo still woke up twice to eat. Usually around 1130 and 430. And he wouldn't nap longer than 40 minutes at a time. So much fun. We have a new lo and thankfully she sleeps through the night and naps like a champ. Just seems like luck of the draw!!! Seems like his eating is very normal. I wouldn't worry. Good luck!

Hi E.,

If you do decide to give him cereal in his bottles, use a nipple with a larger hole in it, like maybe an orange juice nipple. I would prefer to actually feed cereal rather than putting it in a bottle, but you'll figure out what's best for you.

If you can stand waking in the middle of the night for a bottle, I think it would be best to get that extra 4 ounces in him. If he's still eating well at a year, but still underweight, I'd extend giving him the bottle, making sure that when you switch to cow's milk, that you give him 4% milk, not 2%. You could give him juice in a sippy cup while he's still drinking milk in a bottle (he does need to learn to drink from a cup regardless of whether or not you're going to continue to give him a bottle). Most of the time, when we stop giving babies' bottles, they end up drinking less milk, and your baby might need more, so keeping the bottle might be your best bet for maybe a year and half or so.

Hope this might help some.
D.