Declining Percentiles on 1 Year Old

I would push to wait 6 months. I would bet she will hold to her 20th percentile. My youngest son did this in height an weight. He was born at 85th percentile and yet by 18 months he had dropped to the 15th. He is growing but not what they thought was enough. They wanted to do all sorts of tests, but at 2 years he had jumped back to 25th percentile. I declined the tests. Not all children are going to grow at the same rate. Try not to stress over this. Give it time then if it is still necessarry let them do the test if it will make you feel better.

They dont have to do a cath to collect urine. I would refuse it. They make these bags with a slightly adhesive part that sticks to the body and it can be worn under a diaper. Yeah it takes a little while longer to collect but its not traumatic. I would also not let my child be strapped down. I had to be at 2 to get my stomach pumped I ate a bottle of baby aspirin. Anyhow its all I remember is being strapped down. I cant have anything on top of me to this day. Like my husbands are or legs flung over me at night sends me into panic mode. Even when I am awake. I would ask for them to try it with her unstrapped first she very well might just sit there and watch it. I know all my kids had blood drawn at a young age and never once was it suggested they be strapped down.

My oldest daughter was the same way. The docs wanted to make sure her thyroid was ok. I didn't do the test, trusted my instincts, and my gut feeling ended up being right. My daughter was just going to be small. I am 5 '9 and my daughter at 29 is only 5"2. She is perfectly healthy She is raising her sons vegan, and they are also very healthy

Sorry I didnt have time to read other responses...might be repeating. My guess would be that your daughter is now either crawling or walking or both. It is normal for them to thin out once they start moving around. I would let them due the tests just to be sure, but I bet that is the reason.

Hi J.,
My little one was a premie only weighing 2lbs 4oz. She didn't have a very good curve either although not muCh of a decline but one thing that we found helped with her weight was I bought pedia sure and mixed it with icecream. She loved that and would eat it several times a day it helped with the weight although at 3 she still only weigHs 28lbs. As far as the tests go we have had both done it is more traumatic for you than for them. I think mostly they don't lik being helddown an not able to move. Just make sure you are there with plenty of hugs and kisses when they are done. Good luck

My grandson has had blood drawn, and had to wear a stick-on urine collection bag twice in one week, and peeling that off was quite a horrendous experience. He was under 1.5 years and had no apparent long-term trauma, and in fact, by the next well-baby visit to the same office, had no fear. There's no way to know whether these experiences mark our children in more subtle ways, but for the most part, kids survive some pretty amazing accidents, surgeries, and other childhood events with great resilience. Parents (and grandparents, in my case), probably do a great deal more suffering than the kids do.

That said, your docs have two concerns: a trend that MIGHT indicate some metabolic disease, some of which are pretty serious (like diabetes), and they are also protecting themselves against a possible charge of medical negligence. You can address this several ways: go ahead with the tests; acknowledge their concerns and ask for another few weeks to see whether your daughter's curve flattens out; or take her to another pediatrician for a second opinion.

Good luck. I hope you all end up being okay, whatever happens next.

My oldest had blood and urine taken at a young age for the same reason (though he was low for height too). He was born mid-chart and was 3% by age 1.

I frustrated the docs because I REFUSED the catheter (I have had several done and if I didn't have anesthesia, it hurt like CRAZY). We took a "bag sample". You may tell the docs you prefer the bag sample and see what happens.

All of his test came back as normal at 1 and the docs actually dismissed our concerns as he got older since he'd been determined to be "fine" and was developmentally on track. However, at age 3, his growth leveled out and he had more extensive bloodwork done. He was found to have a growth hormone deficiency (it is treatable). And...a better urine sample at age 1 would NOT have helped diagnose that.

Honestly, if she is fine for height and otherwise seems fine to you, and YOU are not worried, it's worthwhile to ask the doctor what OTHER symptoms might occur if there is a problem. And remember that YOU can refuse tests if it feels wrong to you.

I don't know about the declining percentiles... but my daughter once had to get blood drawn... and a catheter for a urinary infection.
She did fine.
It was done in the hospital.
For the blood draw though.. they did not have to strap her to a board... I just held her in my arms....
but for the catheter, they did have to have her lie down on the exam table... and her hands/arms were strapped down.
This is because, in a very young child... they cannot stay still. And the insertion of the catheter, has to be done carefully....

all the best,
Susan

oh hunny- sorry to be so scary! my brothers and I all had declining percentiles as tots then just held at the 7% for height and 5% for weight from about 3 yrs on up to jr. high or high school. My first son is doing the same thing on the up and up until he turned one then dropped to about 10th% and hasn't grown tons- he'll be 4 in december and he's around 29 or 30 lbs and still in 2t-3t clothing. Where we have a history of this in our family I haven't worried about his growth- maybe look into your history and your husbands to see if this is common?? Hope all goes well. If they do end up doing the tests maybe get her a bear that you can show her what they're going to do then put a band aid on it so it's all better- so she'll know that she'll be all better afterwards too...??

I am actually going through the same thing, but with the opposite frustration. I would like the drs to be more proactive. We did have a skin test for some allergies, but I was pushing for a blood test and was refused. For me, it is important to know exactly what is causing the lack of weight gain, so the few minutes your daughter will be uncomfortable could translate into a wealth of information that will be helpful in the long run. It could be caused by food allergies, malabsorption, and I have even heard that babies with large adenoids and tonsils have trouble eating. I know the testing does sound painful to your baby, but entertain her, hug her and tell her she's ok and she will likely not have any consequences from the actual procedure. As S.H. says, the baby will have to be very still to avoid any injuries during the process, but it will only be a few minutes. I hope you get some helpful answers!

I find this very interesting. While my son was on the same trajectory as your daughter in terms of the weight percentiles (or perhaps lower) - he started out really great, like your daughter, but continued to decline through 1 year. The doctors never told me they wanted to do any tests. Now there are more factors involved like he drank plenty of fluids, and I felt like I was getting the right amont of milk in him, but I was breastfeeding, so it's hard to say.

Soon as he started drinking cow milk and eating more food, he put on weight. Now, at his 18 month appointment he was at 100% for weight. I think at one point he bottomed out at 14%. I was extremely diligent about feeding him - anything he would eat. I make everything from scratch, and if he didn't eat one thing, I put something else in front of him until he ate a good meal. (Which was painful and frustrating for me at times because I work full time too.) It's only now that he is at 100% I let him go without eating much at a meal, and he makes up for it at the next.
Anyway everything turned out fine, but like I say, we thought he was getting the recommended amount of fluids. Also his head growth and height continued to steadily stay above average, even when his weight was down. So I am not sure - are ALL her measurements going down in percentiles?

On the one hand, you want to make sure she is nutritionally sound - there can be devistating consequences to not having the nutrition she needs. I believe that if you give them food they like, they will eat it. Maybe she isn't getting the choices she wants? I am not sure. Or she may have some stomach issues and it would be good to knwo that early on rather than letting her suffer from a lack of nutrition. No matter what one person or another have experienced with THEIR child, it doesn't mean the same for yours. If you are not comfortable with your doctor, then go to another. I changed my pediatrician, and while it was hard to do, I don't regret it for a second.
Good luck.

I just went through all of this with my 18 month old daughter. We had to get blood work, poop samples, and she had to take a sweat test.

Everything is normal.
The way her doctor explained it to me is that he see's a bunch of kids just like my daughter and they just need to make sure that she's not one of out of like a thousand or so that actually do have something wrong them.

I felt the same way with the blood work. Didn't think it was necessary and found it out it wasn't. She's just a small girl.

I went thru declining weights with all 3 of mine, my oldest went from the 70th percentile to the 5th by 1 yr, my middle from 95th to 20th and my third from the 90th to about the 25th. They were all breast fed babies, and my oldest 2had no other health or developmental issues (my youngest has food allergies - but we didn't test until he was 3, we were able to eliminate the offending foods from his diet and therefore eliminate his symptoms). They all gained back to "normal ranges by age 3 - all of them now run 70th-80th for height, and 40-50th for weight (ages 11,8, and 5).

As for blood draws, ask if you can hold your baby while it is being done, thats what I did with my oldest when she was about 10 months old and had to have blood drawn for an illness.

Been there, done that. My son was labeled "failure to thrive". That name in and of itself made me feel like such a failure. When he was born he was at the 95th percentile and by his nine month check up he fell to the 4th percentile (I think he was 18 lbs at his first year check up). They ran a few tests in the office...checked his iron levels. When those came back normal they sent me to a clinic for more extensive tests on his blood. Taking his blood wasn't too horrible. They did strap him down, but I was allowed to be there and they let him have his security blanket and it was over quickly. I absolutely refused to allow a catheter. This procedure really got to me. My child was underweight, but not lethargic. Not moody or weak and didn't have any other negative symptoms...he was simply underweight, despite a modified diet. And it wasn't medically urgent. Whether they got the urine in 10 minutes or 10 hours, it wouldn't adversely affect his health to wait. They argued a bit with me, but finally conceited to tape a bag to him and collect the urine this way. After these tests came back negative, we went to the hospital for a sweat test. This one was inconvenient, but absolutely not painful at all. When my son wouldn't offer up a urine sample fast enough for the nurse, they threatened to catheter him yet again. I refused. We spent 45 minutes drinking water and juice in the cafeteria to get them the urine they wanted. After that test was negative, we just refused any more testing. The doctor agreed to just monitor him. He wasn't "happy" with my son's weight until he was 3 1/2, but now he is almost 5 and more on track. My daughter will be two next month and she fell off the charts as well. This time our pedi decided that my son had established a "history". So he checked a few things in the office and agreed to seeing her more often for weight checks. I know it's stressful. And I hope all of your test results come back negative. GL!

Vitamin A: Children cannot make the conversion from beta carotenes (found in fruits and vegetables) to retinol. They must have animals fat to make the conversion.
Vitamin A deficiency is a cause of anorexia in some people.
For your doctor to say that children don't need meat (im assuming you mean all types of beef/chicken/pork.etc) shows that she is not knowledgeable about how vitamins work in the body. Your child wont DIE without meat but she wont thrive or be as healthy as she would if she ate meats.
Humans were designed to eat meat. That is why we have incisors.
What we weren't designed to do is eat alot of grains- the amount of grains we consume is abnormal compared to original man. Heavy grain ingestion helps to cause disease and grow gut fungus and contribute to celiacs and gluten intolerance.

My little one had to have all this done, but I only had wished my docotor was more proactive like yours and required it a lot sooner. My little boy has always been small, he has been at 1% but he stayed there until he was 6 months. Then from there he started falling off the curve. At 11 months he actually started loosing weight. At one year old he weight only 13 lbs. Finally he was looking so bad, they had to hospitalize him. When they finally ran test on him, they found out he was anemic. Also, on the first set of test he had nothing wrong with his liver. On the second round of test, they found somehting wrong with it. He had Gas in his colon which the doctor belives caused the liver problems. If they had found this sooner he would probably not had to been hospitilized. For almost one month, my little boy was so sick, all he could do was lay there. WE had to put him on a feeding tube just to get nutrioun in him. I felt like a failure as a mother, We had been bringing him in to see the doctor regularly, but no one seemed concerened. So yes, I think you should get the test done. It was easy for them to do the test on my son because he was so lethergic he did not even move. I am not saying this will happen, but there is a chance, so please please just get the test done. If nothing comes of it, then at least you will have a peace of mind and if they do find something wrong, then you can start the treatment early so it won't lead to other problems.

I don't know where your doc plans on sending you for blood work, but I had to take my son it at about 12 months for the same reason (he went from 14lbs at 7months to only 16 lbs at 12 months) We went to childrens for his blood work, and he sat on my lap and they drew blood from his foot no problem. He didn't even fuss about it. and I repeat what others said about the urine, they can collect it in the diaper.

My son had to do blood and urine at 1 year for another reason. They did not have to strap him down or do a catheter. I just held him while they took the blood and they put a potty bag on him under his diaper. It was quite painless actually. I would check further with the doc and see why they need to use such harsh measures. If they feel it is necessary then just remember that these little guys do not remember things like this so it is short lived but I would still try to not use these tactics. Maybe check with a different doc? Second opinion?

As far as the curve, you will just have to trust your doc on that one. I would much rather err on the side of over-testing than to just let it go. You may also want to check with a nutritionist. Even though your doc doesn't seem to think that is the prob he/she may not have evaluated thoroughly which is what you will get from a nutritionist. As a vegetarian family you can easily miss something silly that you didn't even realize (been there did that for myself). In short, I am sure your daughter is fine, just don't hesitate to check it further.

Good luck!

Good plan, but in 4 weeks if your little girl needs to have blood and urine collected, it doesn't need to be as bad as the doc said. I work at the Children's hospital in the lab and helping to collect blood samples from kiddos of all ages. The urine should be able to be obtained from a bag sample (unless the dr. is concerned about a UTI.) You should be able to hold you little girl sitting in your lap for the blood draw. We just ask that the parent gives the child a big, tight bear hug while we control the arm we are using for the draw. In many cases, all we need to do is a finger poke and then squeeze the finger for drops of blood. They still hate it, but it isn't traumatizing for them. Hope everything goes well and you won't need this advice.

I can't help but think that your doctor may be going over board a little and seeing $$$$ for the blood and urine work , no baby willcontinue to gain weight at the rate they did when first born , if they did then they would be obese and unable to move , once they start crawling/walking then yes they do slow down and slim out , my second child was 18 months before she weighed 20lb , and now at almost 5 yrs old she is still very long and lean and weighs 35lb. You said yourself she eats little amounts , so just feed her the little amounts and more often , to get some milk into her offer cheese and yogurts instead , my kids also went off of milk around the 12-18 month age range. Also look at yours and your husbands build and height , also immediate family members , your child will be taking after someone and she may be small built all her life.

Listen to your gut instinct , you are her mom and if you feel nothing is wrong then decline the tests.

Good luck

My son started dropping like yours at the same age, by 1yr he was no longer on the growth chart. He was breastfed for the 1st yr and was never really a great eater. At 1yr we switched him to whole milk which helped a little but then he developed an intolerance to it and had to go on soy miik and some pediasure for that first year. It wasn't until he was almost 2yr (23mo) that one of the docs decided to order blood work for Failure to Thrive. He is 3 now and is finally back on the growth chart for wt (3rd percentile). As long as he was following his own curve and gaining each time, they weren't overly concerned. The only reason for the blood work for FTT was because he also has impetigo and at that time he had a sore that wasn't healing.
So, about the bloodwork - when he was 1yr they did some blood work mainly just to make sure he wasn't anemic or anything (it's a routine thing they do at that age). It had to be repeated about a month later because his white blood cell counts were off (apparently he had a viral thing around the same time of the initial bld work). Then he also had the labs for FTT. I held him each time and he did fine. If you don't feel like you can hold him down, maybe they can for you. I've never seen a child strapped down for anything other than a circumcision and I'm a pediatric nurse.
Anyway, my son turned out just fine and I'm sure your daughter will too. Just make sure she is following atleast her own growth curve and steadily gaining something. My son was about 17 lb at 1yr and 22lb at 2yr, now he's about 26lb at 3yr. Try not to worry about it (I know easier said than done). All you can do is get the labs done (I would) and just wait and see what they say then. If everything looks good, you should have nothing other than a petite little girl to worry about! They've decided my son is just petite and not always the best eater, but I'm sure will grow up to eat us out of house and home :) Good luck!

Do you breast feed?

My friend breast fed her daughters, and they were tiny, tiny girls. Doctors said that they were worried, did tests, and every thing turned out fine. Natures way of making children normal. Today we are eating more and more preservatives and making the normal big.

You are a good mama to be concerned, and good luck to you and your daughter.

Updated

Do you breast feed?

My friend breast fed her daughters, and they were tiny, tiny girls. Doctors said that they were worried, did tests, and every thing turned out fine. Natures way of making children normal. Today we are eating more and more preservatives and making the normal big.

You are a good mama to be concerned, and good luck to you and your daughter.

I have seen one of my boys strapped down twice for blood work and well as seeing him with a 2 1/2 inch split in his forehead clear down to the bone. I have watched respiratory therapist beat his back when he was admitted with pneumonia. I watched them suction huge amounts of mucus out of him. Insert IV's. I understand. He had pneumonia at 15 months and split his head open in our church nursery at 18 months. I was pregnant with my third child in both instances. Just add pregnancy to your emotion about your little one and imagine how all that would have made you feel. It is never easy to see your little one suffer. But if there is a medical reason why she is not eating properly and why she is loosing weight you will be so glad that you buckled down and endured the testing and blood work. I hope they find out quickly without too many test.