Help! 11 month IUGR baby losing weight not eating

[ditchess]

Hi there - we are in need of some empathy/help! Our daughter was born early, 11 months ago, weighing just 4lb. She was an IUGR baby becasue my placenta and umbilical cord had not formed properly and so bloodflow had been poor. So we feel so very lucky that generally she has come out of it all really well and seems to be developing normally. The only problem is is that she is very small and lately she has started to lose weight. She has dropped below the lowest line on the graph, having previously followed the 0.4 percentile. I struggle to get her to eat anything of any quantity. The Health Visitor doesn't have much else to suggest and we are finally on a waiting list to see the peadeatric dietician. Does anyone have any direct experience of the same thing and how have you dealt with it? Thanks

Ditchess
Sure somebody else will have some practical advice for you.
My own (rather irrelevent) experience is of strapping ds2 who has put on 2kg since last xmas (now aged 15 months). My hv been very relaxed about it since he's happy, alert, healthy etc until he started to lose weight. I have appt with paed next week but hv 'warned' me that two most likely options are testing his poo to make sure he's digesting everything properly and just continue to sit it out until he takes more interest in his food. My only strategy has been to offer ds every high fat food I can possibly think of. Current favourites include avocado and sausages.
Good luck, hope you get appt soon. If you don't get much response tonight, bump away tomorrow for the workers.

Only other advice is to be strong. I can cry my eyes out when ds2 gets in a strop at mealtimes and refuses to eat anything. Can never remember until afterwards that his refusal to eat the food I've prepared is not personal. You are doing your best for your daughter and she will get there.

Presumably dietician will look at diet (durr) and supplements. We saw one a few years ago and they gave us something called paediatric Seravit whcih is a multi-vitamin powder. I know a couple of kids who are small for their ages and it does seem to be an absorption thing.

My dd2 (global dev delay) has always been a poor eater and is off the bottom of the chart. She has a dietary supplement drink called Enlive, but there is a more suitable high calorie paediatric milk called Fortini (dd wouldn't drink it). You might be prescribed this if your dd continues to lose weight. Otherwise we try to give her high calorie foods, but it is very difficult as you can't force them to eat. I really sympathise as it is so worrying.

(By coincidence, my dd1 was an IUGR baby and weighed 4lbs too. She was a fussy eater too, but is now an average weight.)

Thanks very much for responses so far So reassuring to know there are others facing the same problems. Have realised today that she doesn't like mushy foods and prefers to hold her own food so everything will have to be finger foods from now on! Thanks