9 Month Old Not Eating or Drinking Normal Amounts; Already Small for Her Age

Friends of mine are dealing with the same thing with their daughter. She will be 1yr old next month and is only in the 5th% for weight. She has always been very small from day one and has hit every milestone pretty much on track. She is also very flexable!! The only thing she has and still is slow on is getting her teeth in, 4 in her mouth now with a few more trying to break through. They have done blood test and stool sample test and everything comes out fine. Her mom used to stress and worry about it too but has just accepted the fact that her daughter is small. Just remember, kids (even at this young age) won't starve themselves. If she won't take a bottle, try a sippy cup instead!! Keep offering her babyfoods too and she'll come around on her own.

When my daughter was younger, I was worried about how small she was. I did not think she was eating enough. I always had food out for her so she could eat if she was hungry. She only would eat a little at a time. I discussed this with my doctor. His advice- Feed her on schedule. Do not let her "graze" When she is hungry she will eat. I followed his advise and he was right. She started eating better during meal times because I was not always trying to get her to eat cereal, fruit etc all day long. Now you should see her eat. I am not sure where she puts it all. She has some weeks she eats everything in sight and some weeks she does not eat as much as I want, but her body is dictating her needs. She is still small but she just right for her. Not all kids need the same amount of food all the time. As she prepares for a growth spurt, she will eat more. If your doctor is not worried and she is continuing to gain, relax and she will too. They can tell when we are upset and behave in responce to that. Good luck. My daughter is now 4 and growing every day.

I think you are overreacting and making a big deal out of it Is the baby weight is going up on her visits I will not worry to much because like you said when she is hungry she is eating Feed her everything but especially what she loves most so she will eat more Secondly you do not want an overweight baby in your hands I am sure once you become calmer you will realize she will eat as much as she needs

You didn't say how you are feeding her, but I suspect that you spoon-feeding her. Even very young children want to feed themselves - some even more than others. Try giving her some control over her feeding. Give her foods she can practice her pincer grasp with like cheerios, peas, and diced fruits. It's contrary to what we think we know - that we should control feeding our children - but even with infants and toddlers it leads to power struggles. Someone suggested Touchpoints which is a good book and reinforces this concept. Good luck! (Keep in mind too though that some kids are just small and your child will not starve herself.)
C. at Loving Hands Family Child Care

C.,
Sounds like she is too tired to eat! Maybe she is sitting up all night ! Just joking. I went through this at a younger age with my son and was so exasperiated one night that I called national late night talk show and the guest ped doctor said to go to the doctor in the morning and say "MY CHILD HAS FAILURE TO THRIVE! failure to Thrive is a medical contition in which a child is not growing or thriving for some reason and is is a catch phrase that was taught in medical school to doctors to alert them to a more serious underlying condition. Just wait for the doctor to HEAR YOU! I did and we immediately were sent to the hospital to have test run and we first were told he had CF. I cried and told the doctor FIND SOMETHING ELSE! (there was no history of CF in our families) We continued with test and it was determined that his pancreas was not functioning. After being given some chemicals to mimic the enzyme he was not getting - he grew. Basically we were starving him because his body was not processing the food he was being given and then he got so weak that he could not muster up the energy to eat at all. He was born weighing 10lbs and 7.5 ounces and had lost down to 8lbs 5 ounces. This was over 20% of his weight. He was not in the percentile of 5 or 10 % but had dropped too far to ignore me any longer. Becasue the doctor me well he knew that the child was not being neglected and we had a serious issue to address.

Your doctor should be allarmed! We were told that whenshildren slip below the 15% range hey have a issue but when they slip into the 0-10% they have a serious medical condition. Fi you don't feel like you are being heard THEN CHANGE DOCTORS NOW!!!!

UPdate on my son. He continued to have major medical issues by just graduated fromcollege last night and he is 6'5'' tall and his body seems to have outgrown all his childhood issues. Get serious about this 5percentile issue now and keep faith with what ever you hear fromt he medical peofession.

Keep Mothering,
Ms C.

I have a 11 month old daughter, and both your questions I think are related to her new milestone. Leading medical information today says that unless there is something severely wrong with a child (all their food severely upsets their stomach, newborns physically unable to nurse, etc), babies and young children simply do not starve themselves. Also, you say you feel like you are always offering her food. I would recommend that you create a reasonable schedule, and stick to it. Offer food 6 times a day, and if she doesn't eat it then, *it's okay!!!*. Put the food away, and offer that same food, or a different one if you want, the next time a meal/snack time comes around. Eventually she will realize that if she is at all hungry, when food is put in front of her is the time to eat, not a half hour later (I expect this standard will come in handy during our toddler years!!) :D

When she was eating so well a month ago, she was probably going through a physical growth spurt. Now she's sharpening her mental and mobility skills and maybe that doesn't require as much energy as growing.

Overall, it sounds like your beautiful daughter is doing just fine, and I'm sure within a week she'll be back to sleeping, and in a few weeks she'll start eating more again. From what I understand from my friends with older children, there are always weeks where you wonder how they're still alive, and then there are weeks where you wonder if they're storing the food in their hollow leg! ;)

Best of luck!!!

C..

You sound like me when my son was an infant. He was always around 3% on the chart. He wanted to snack all the time, or I should say, he couldnt eat much or enough at meal time, so he ate more meals during the day than normal. That was ok, though, every baby is different. However, in time we learned that he still was not growing. He was always small for his age. We have been watching his growth for years along with our doctor. Four years ago, we finally took him to an Endocrinologist and had tests ran on his pituitary gland. They did what was called a stim test(this is a long 8 hour test with a needle in the childs arm the whole time). They inject throughout the day to see how the pituitary responds. Not fun, This measures the amount of hormones its putting out to the body, he failed all of them. Then ran an MRI to determine if he had a lession or tumor on the pituatary. That came back normal. So to make a long story short, we knew that he wasnt producing enough hormone throughout his body to grow but didnt and still dont know why. We started him on Growth Hormone therapy just over four years ago and now he is 11. He went from 3% to 25% in that time frame. It may be just a little too early to start, but you can inquire with your doctor about seeing an endocrinologist. If you need a fantastic one, Dr. Rappaport. He has a couple of offices, one over by scottish right, the other over by kennesaw hospital. He is wonderful.

Before you even consider GHD, talk to your doctor. We had been watching my sons growth for some time before we actually took him. She may just be a late bloomer.

Go with your instincts as a parent. We knew that my sons growth was not normal. He always had a huge head, large feet, and huge hands, only his body didnt fit it. We dont know why his pituitary isnt functioning, we assume the stress from delivery caused it, I had placenta previa and didnt know it until delivery, then when he came out, he wasnt breathing for five minutes. He was also 6 weeks early, so premie. This alone could have been reason? It could be heriditary, or we may never know. to date we dont know.

I would not get to concerned about it, If you notice other symptons call your doctor. Keep in mind that if she isnt growing enough for her age, her organs too are most likely underdeveloped. So she will or may be a little challenged physically compared to other children, My son has asthma on top of it. Although he doesnt get the Presidential physical education award, He is BMX Racing with his age group and doing very well. Things you need to consider are when she is school aged, having the school accomodate her, whether its in the bathroom in reaching soap dispensers, to back packs, always being put in front of the class so she can see and not have to struggle with seeing over kids heads, But you have a ways for all of this. My Son is GHD. He is doing great. I have put him on MonaVie active (it is good for his joint pain) which has helped him considerably. Side affects from the GHT are headaches, joint pain, and mood swings. The MonaVie has helped with all of this, He is like a new person. He also understands better with knowing his mood swings are from the GHT.

C., feel free to call me directly ###-###-####) if you want to talk. I know what you are going thru and as a parent I know of your concerns. I can tell you, if there are no other apparent symptons, I would not worry too much. Your daughter is young yet, she may surprise you and take off with growing soon.

No need to worry! There is a solution! Once again, call me if you need to talk. More importantly, talk to your childs pediatrician. If you dont like their answers, get a different one. As a parent of two, one 19 and the other 11, I go with my gut feeling. I know my kids better than their doctor.

It will be ok! Dont worry! Your daughter is young yet!

C.,
There is a book that I read and still read called Touchpoints by Dr. T Barry Brazelton. It talks a lot about these little phases and to not worry. Sometimes children sense that you are freaked out and they just rebel against your efforts because they are entering into a phase of independence.
I hope this reading will ease your mind!

My daughter did the same thing around 10 months. she was a good eater and then suddenly stopped eating most of her favorites. She then fell to the 7th percentile and finally right after her 18 month apt. she started to pig out again. She is still little and went up to the 25th by her 2 year apt. I am not worried b/c she is small but doesn't look sick and eats like a horse. It's probably a phase. I got tired of feeding her the same thing over and over again but that was all she would eat. Now she will try most foods.

first mom RELAX she will not starve. it is a phase, when my kids were that age I had a bowl of gold fish crackers or cherios out where they could get to it when they were playing so they could just eat when they wanted to. I also fed um those little gerber fruit and veggie puffs, or something called fruity booty or veggie booty, youllhave to look that up online I got it from trader joes I think. I never liked but my kids both loved it. exept for the pirates booty thats caramel and I'm s sucker for caramel,ok back on subject. She could actually be teething or she's getting ready for another milestone and wants to concentrate on it.

C.,

I have an 8 month old daughter who is also little compared to all of her simialarly aged friends. Right before Memorial Day she stopped eating all solids and I was also worried. I read several articles on-line and talked to several friends that said babies often stop eating solid foods when they are teething. Sure enough a couple weeks later, we started to see four top teeth coming in all at once. Last night was the first night that she ate the same amount of solids that she had been eating before Memorial Day. It has been almost 4 weeks. If your daughter has teeth that could be coming in then I bet that is it--especially if she was eating solid foods fine before. I am sure everything will be okay! Just give her a couple more weeks.