Underweight Baby Emmeline

Oh dear me.

So we went to the paediatrician today for Emmeline’s 6 month visit. I thought that everything was fine except for the fact that she has had gastro/diarhea or about 12 days (she is slowly recovering and is having fewer poo’s). She was supposed to have her 6 month vaccinations but since she was still sick, the paediatrician said that she couldn’t get her vaccinations. I am not surprised at all! Not because Emmeline is sick if not for the fact that we have had one problem or the other every single time that we have had to get vaccinations! It has been a nightmare and also quiet funny looking back on the whole experience! So no vaccinations, no surprise!

I explained to the paediatrician that as Emmeline had been sick and pooing so much, I could feel that she had lost weight. I told her that I did not know exactly how much, but I could feel and I could see that she had lost weight. The paediatrician put Emmeline on the scale and was a bit shocked. Emmeline now weighs less than she did at 4 months! She weighed 6.250 kg’s (13.8 pounds) at four months and today she weighs 6.150 kg’s (13.6 pounds)!! And she has only grown 1 cm in 2 months! I asked if that was because she had 12 days of pooing so much. The doctor explained that that would account for some of the weight loss, but not for all of it. She asked if I still have milk. Yes, I do. She said that it could be that I either don’t have too much milk, or that I have the quantity but not the quality, or maybe Emmeline has a very high metabolism (her daddy does, so maybe?), but she did appear to be a bit concerned about it. It would also explain why she has only grown 1 cm on 2 months (and perhaps why she is still wearing 0-3 month’s shoes and clothing)! We are about to start on solids, so she has given me the little menu of what to introduce and when and has schedule a control of her weight for 1 months time to see if Emmeline has put on weight and grown a little more. I do hope so because that is a little worrying! The ironic thing in that when we went for her 4 month visit, I asked the paediatrician about maybe giving Emmeline a bottle with cereal in the evenings to fill her up and help her sleep longer. She said no as Emmeline was a little ‘gordita’ (a little fatty in an affectionate way!)

The thing is that now I am filled with all this self doubt! Did I have enough milk? When I thought that it was cute when Emmeline would launch herself at my boobs like a little puppy was it actually because the little thing was starving? When I put her in her crib to sleep and she would cry, was it because she was starving? But then I think no, she has always been a happy baby, and if she was starving, she would have let me know about it, she would have screamed blue murder at me! Even now when I am feeding her, I keep asking myself ‘is she getting enough? Is there milk there for her?’ This is not helped by the fact that I am trying to express milk to mix with her baby cereals so that I don’t have to give her formula milk, and to be honest, I am not getting too much milk out at the moment. It is making me quite paranoid actually. I feel a little bit like a failure to be honest! I feel like maybe I have not been looking after my little girl properly and yet I feel that have been doing everything that I can!

All that I can hope is that Emmeline doesn’t give us too much of a problem when we start with the baby cereals and solids and that she starts to put on weight and become a chubby monkey. If she has a fast metabolism like her daddy, no problem and perhaps better for her than mommy’s slow metabolism (I simply think about chocolate and I gain weight), but she needs to start to put on weight now!