Nine month old not gaining weight

[lisarath]

Hello,

I have a 9 month old son who is not putting on weight (the doctors are calling it failure to thrive). He was born at 8 pounds 3 ounces, 75th centile and now is 16 pounds and between the 2nd and 9th centiles. The issue started around 4 months old and he just continually drops on the centile scale. All of his blood work results (for liver, kidney functions and food allergies) have come back normal. He eats 3 meals a day, has snack once or twice and formula. I am just wondering if anyone else has had a similiar issue as I am quite concerned about his growth. Developmentally, he is doing great--hitting all his milestones and is also a very happy baby. Any help/advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks!

It could be that he has some sort of growth hormone deficiency? Maybe ask your GP and see what they think. HTH

how active is he?

Hi I had a similar problem with my first born when he was about 7/8 mths old. He just failed to put weight on even tho he was eating and drinking really well. I read of an expression 'museli babies' where babies who have passed the weaning stage and are eating normal healthy diets are failing to put weight on beCause their diets don't contain enough fat to feed their little brains. Once I read that I introduced a small amount of fatty foods into his diet and he started to put weight on again.

Some people will prob think its crackers but it worked for us, they do after all need a balanced diet just as we do.

Forgot to say he is now 4 and is a very healthy 3stone, very active alert and clever - sometimes a bit too clever for us own good!

Keep a food diary for a week of everything he eats and quantities and see community dietitician.
And increase calories like butter whole milk etc

yes, my daughter was diagnosed with FTT at about 8 months, started when she went onto solids about 4 months.

sorry this is goingt o sound a bit blunt and I dont want to panic you as this is rare but unfortuntly general paediatricians know littlw about it!

She was eventually diagnosed with eosinophilic eosophagitis, bascically an intolerance of foods, which cause ulcers in the eosopgagus and despite her consuming teice the amount of cals needed she lost weight.

The treatment is a formula mad eup of amino acids and eradication of the foods which cause the problems. She wasnt diagnosed till she was 2!

she is now almost 4 and for the first time is on a centile!!

I hope and It would be unlikely to be the case that your child has this but it is so unheard of I didnt want to not mention it.

Thanks everyone. Now that I know he doesn't have a food allergy (we thought he might because of a very large spread rash he developed for a week each time after his formula) I am going to try him on yogurts, cheese and more fatty foods. He is very active--crawling tons, pulling him self up and trying to stand. We are also scheduled to see a dietician in a couple of weeks so I hope we get him on the right track. @submarine--thanks. will certainly keep it in mind in case we need to go for further testing. Appreciate all the help!

Hi we have been going through the same with my ten month old ds, he was 6lb7 at birth and gained along the 9th centile for his first 4 1/2 months then he only gained 5 oz in the next 4 months and we were very anxious as he had dropped off the scale. he has also been seen by paediatricians who were reluctant to do many tests as he looks so healthy meeting milestones the tests they did came back as normal which sounds similar to your ds bar mine being smaller at first, our pead said they wanted him to ideally gain a minimum of 10oz a fortnight so off we went on holiday and due to jubilee etc it was a month before weigh in and he only gained 3oz which caused concern again so I was advised to feed him as much dairy as possible cheese, petit filous, red meats anything fatty and see how his weight gain was otherwise it may have been time to try other tests, well I had him weighed nearly two weeks ago and he had gained 15oz I nearly fell over he has finally scraped into 16lb. Sorry long post but my advice is cheese, homemade pizza on tortilla wraps so I feel like he gets veg, and at least a petit filous a day. Hope your ds has ab good gain soon too we are off to weigh again Tuesday and hoping for more as we a re just back on scale at 0.4.

Thanks Bella. I have just this past weekend started him on yogurts and cheese (now that I know he's not allergic) and see how it goes. Great news that your little one finally put on some weight!