HELP! My Baby Won’t Gain Weight

I have heard time and time again, “your baby isn’t gaining fast enough,” “your baby lost too much weight,” but I didn’t really understand what these statements even meant. Although most babies will likely lose weight in the first week, in an ideal world, a baby won’t lose more than 10% of their birth weight, and will be gaining 5-7 ounces a week by the first month. Llama and Lucy both struggled to gain weight in the beginning. They started out decent sized, but just wouldn’t gain according to the “requirements”. I spent hours researching what I needed to know to be their best advocate. Here’s what I learned and realized when the girls weren’t following the typical guidelines.

Llama started out at 8 pounds 6 ounces of love, but by the first week she lost nearly a full pound. This was roughly 9.5% of her birth weight. I kept insisting that we were fine, I don’t need to do anything different, but the pain in my nipples was saying otherwise. We had her check up and discovered that the latch was shallow. Once the latch was corrected she started gaining about 3 ounces per week. I remember speaking with a CLC and an IBCLC both telling me “at least she is gaining” and “don’t stress about it”. No one was telling me why I shouldn’t stress though.

It wasn’t until I had Lucy that I really learned why I shouldn’t stress about weight gain in particular. Since she had a lip tie that was never corrected we needed to learn more about diaper counts, temperament, and the growth curves. 

Lucy (Left), Llama (Top), and Baby (Bottom) between 7-14 days old after a nursing session

Lucy (Left), Llama (Top), and Baby (Bottom) between 7-14 days old after a nursing session

For Lucy, counting diapers meant that she  had 1-2 poops per day, and as many wet as days old (1 pee on day 1, 2 on day 2, 3…you get the idea). This was through the first week, after 7 days we started to see 7-10 wet diapers per 24 hours. Lucy would soak through a diaper in one pee so we never really worried about counting pee diapers. When first born, babies have meconium, a super thick tar like poop. Fortunately for Lucy, not myself, she exploded meconium on the way out, all over me. After roughly 5-6 days of breastfeeding, her poop changed to the color of mustard and sometimes had seedy looking bits in it. This was just some of the fat that she didn’t process. Lucy then only pooped roughly once a day for the first month, then she stopped pooping for 4-6 days at a time. Let me tell you, I would freak out the first few times thinking she was constipated. However, this is very normal and some babies can go up to 10 days without pooping when exclusively breastfed. 

Lucy would sleep well, but she also had plenty of times where she was awake and willing to sit with you. She would be so happy to nurse, then when she was done she would pop right off and give the biggest smiles. A hungry baby may be sleepy, cranky, and inconsolable. However, Lucy was happy to be awake and alert. Babies who have enough in their bellies will be willing to hang out with family and friends. They will have open hands, relaxed behaviors, and push away the breast or bottle, in most cases (some babies love to suckle, Lucy needed a pacifier to help her with this).

Finally, I learned to monitor the kiddos’ own growth curve over time. For Llama and Lucy it meant them staying on their 3-5 percentile and 5-10 percentile curves. When we get weight and height checks on infants, we plug them into a growth chart. For about four months with Llama, and two with Lucy, we went in for bi-weekly to weekly weight checks. We were checking for weight gain, but also to get an idea of their natural curves. Keep in mind, the average child at that age will be at the 50th percentile on the growth curve. However, someone has to be on the high and low ends of the chart. We need to worry about babies being small or big when more than just being small or big are at play.