Failure to Thrive

Sweet Mason was labeled as a 'failure to thrive' baby about a month ago. My pediatrician has been worried about his lack of weight gain since he was about 2 months old but we were wanting to give it a little more time to see if he started following his own growth curve or not. At his 6 month appointment, he was only 11 lbs 8 oz and his growth chart showed no improvement, only a continued flat line. Doctors don't typically worry about skinny babies as long as they are following their own little curve. When they flat line, then they start to be concerned. 

Just for the record, Mason is and always has been a great eater. At the time he was nursing from me 4 times a day and eating 4-6 oz of baby food 3 times a day. He is a real good eater so it was a bit concerning as to why he wasn't gaining the weight he needed. 

So my pediatrician ordered Mason some blood tests and an appointment with the G.I. specialist to see what the problem was. When Mason's blood tests came back, something showed up abnormal with his liver so they sent me to Phoenix Children's to a liver specialist within the G.I department. By the time we got in he was  8 months old at 12 pounds. Long story short, they did more blood test and everything came back fine with his liver but they labeled him as 'failure to thrive' and had me talk with a nutritionist there about how we can get him to gain some chub. She  strongly recommended only nursing him 2x's a day and power packing his bottles with formula (3 scoops for every 5oz) and giving him 1.5 tsp of straight up olive oil in his baby food. So... that's what I've been doing for the past month! I was really sad to cut down the nursings but the nutritionist said that they cant control how many calories he is getting from my breastmilk but they can control it via formula and honestly I felt like it was the right thing to do. And you know what... Mason is chunking up quite nicely! I don't know how much he weighs now but his cheeks are filled out, he's starting to get a little double chin, and his hair is starting to really come in! I think that boy just needed some good nutrition in him... I must be producing fat free milk I suppose :)

Here are 2 pictures of Mason at the beginning of January, before we started the olive oil diet....

I didn't even realize just how skinny he looked!

And here is Mason a month later, last Sunday..... can you see the difference??

Turns out pouring olive oil into your meals causes weight gain :) Isn't he a cute kid?

So we go back at the end of February for his well check and we'll see how much he weighs but I think he's doing pretty good!

Oh and how could I forget! Along with Mason's blood tests they checked him for any allergies and the dairy allergy test came up negative- WHAT?! How long has that been negative?! Apparently he grew out of his allergy! Woohoo! So we've been slowly adding a little dairy back into our diets and he is chugging down milk-based formula just fine. I always thought that once I could have dairy again that I would go crazy and buy tons of ice cream and chocolate but honestly, I don't even crave it or want it. Sad huh. I'm sure ill eventually get used to it again and go back to my nightly bowl fo ice cream. :)