DD4 (21MO) failing to thrive, very worried.

[4andnotout]

DD4 was weighed at 14months and found to have lost weight since her last weigh in, she had started walking in that period so i wasn't unduly worried but was referred to hospital to check her weight.

At the hopital she had put on a little weight and was asked to come back in 6 months, yesterday we took her back again she had put on a little weight but dropped a centile.

Now she has been booked in for blood tests and im so worried that something is wrong with her.

She is tiny (9-12 month clothes) but dd2 was exactly the same and is still by far the smallest in the year, my whole family are small people so she hasnt seemed odd to us.

Now im worried that i have missed something She eats everything put infront of her and is full of energy, she literally is on the go all day and rarely naps, this is why i wasnt so concerned. I weaned her from BF a couple of months ago so this may be a factor?

Everyone tells me not to worry but i feel responsible and seeing the "failure to thrive" on the blood test papers has made me feel so guilty.

You say that she eats everything you put in front of her - can you increase her portions and see if she will eat more? It sounds like she is using up loads of energy so it could just be that she needs a few more calories. BM is very calorific - have you replaced it with cow's milk and more food or do you think her overall intake may have dropped a bit?

Try and be positive that they are investigating - hopefully it will rule out all sorts of things and just show that she is a healthy but tiny little girl

my son was also breastfed embaraasingly til 2.6 months at which point he stopped growing in height -he dropped from plus 75th centile to 9th centile!! he saw a rubbish paedatrician and has been measured every month by us- thank fully he has started to grow again and is now just below average- i really think it is the lack of breast milk that did it and he didnt like cows milk either- i started to add butter to everything!!

She was drinking a lot of bm, feeding all through the night and several feeds a day but wont touch cows milk as a drink so i have been making her porridge with full fat cows milk and she will eat all that. Will try offering her bigger portions, last night she ate all of her rice and sweet and sour chicken before starting on my curry!

This is a recent picture of her, she isnt bony at all which is why i wasn't too worried.

I think the fact that your DD2 was the same, and your family are generally small is a very good indicator that this is how she is meant to be - but the hospital will have guidelines about when they should investigate, and I don't suppose that includes looking at other family members.

She's obviously using up huge amounts of energy, and it can't be anything too bad if she can run round all the time.

FWIW, my friend has twin girls, aged 4, and one is whizzing round all day, eats for Britain, and the other is much more laid back. Guess which one is drowned in her age 2 school dress ?

4andnotout she is gorgeous! , and definately not bony she looks perfectly healthy to me. they used to say this about my DS all the time and constantly wanted to weigh him and used to worry the life out of me, he is now a healthy but still skinny 11 year old. You know your own child and as you say she eats well and has plenty of energy so STOP worrying and listening to this people and their bloody charts, (sorry they make me so ). You would be the first person to know if something was wrong.
Lovely things come in small packages

Thank you everyone, i just worry if she doesnt start to put on weight what will they do then?

I dont know why im worrying really she is now sitting eating her second breakfast of nutella on toast before she has to have a bath

these people I mean

She is lovely.

My brother has b/g twins, one is tiny and underweight, one is solid.

They had to see a paed for the tiny one (and my SIL - kept taking her) but my brother is fully grown, healthy, weighs 8 stone wet through and has a 27" waist. Once the docs saw him they discharged them.

I stopped taking DS to be weighed in the end cos they pissed me off so much. I would just ignore them tbh.

Try not to worry. Really. The main thing they will want to find out is whether there is an underlying cause for her losing weight. They will want to look at a full blood count to exclude things such as anaemia and obvious reasons.

DS paediatrician (one of them, as he has a couple!) worked out his projected height/weight based on parental height/weight, and based on this, it gave a better indication.

Oh, and we had dreadful problems with DD's weight initially. Going back and forth to weekly weigh ins, at the HV's insistence because she scraping along the 9th or some low percentile. She's now on the 25th percentile for weight and 75th for height, so it's just her body size.

I hate those bloody charts. All they do is make parents even more anxious and paranoid than they were before! As long as your DC looks healthy, is in proportion, meeting her milestones, eating well, doesn't have any symptoms of illness etc then common sense says she's fine. My last charges are BG twins. She is a wee bulldozer and he is the delicate little flower ... they eat like sparrows one day then stuff themselves silly the next. They eat plenty of fresh fruit and veg, carbs and protein, and they are otherwise healthy, so I tell the mum and dad don't worry.

I don't understand why they don't look at the parents before they refer. My niece was sent to the paed because she had a big head - measured big but didn't look out of proportion. Sister went to the paed and was told to bring her husband's head measurement. She was told your daughter has a big head because her parents have big heads!

My dd {my third dc) is now 21 months and tiny compared to my other two. I am 5'9, dh is 6', ds predicted final height is 6'3", dd1 is predicted to be 5'10", dd2 is currently on the percentile predicting a glorious 5'0". She was my biggest when born at 57cm and 9 1/2 lbs, and basically didn't grow much after that. They had her in hospital looking for lots of things, some other issues going on as well but all innocent as it turns out. She was discharged at about a year old, the paed said she is perfectly formed, gorgeous and just tiny compared to my others.

My message would be, don't feel guilty, you haven't missed anything, she looks perfect, ignore red books and percentile lines and comparing heights and weights. Go to the appointment to ease your mind and make sure all is fine, and then just enjoy her, she won't be that little for long.

Thank you everyone I'm feeling much more reassured, I had a chat to my dad today when we stayed their for tea and he has reassured me about the amount she eats so feeling much more positive