15 month checkup stats

Weight: 22 lbs 9 oz (26th percentile*)
Height: 31 inches (41st percentile*)
Head circ: 47 cm (41st percentile*)
Hemoglobin levels: 11 (lowest possible acceptable level – meaning he needs more iron)

If you were keeping track (which, considering even *I* didn’t realize anything until after the doctor brought it up, I would be very impressed if you were) Baby Evan actually lost a little weight between his 12 month checkup and today. 1 pound 3 oz to be exact, which sounds like nothing until you consider he’s been gaining at LEAST that much every checkup for the past year, and then it sounds like an enormous amount. The doctor (not actual the doctor, just one of the nurse practitioners) was fairly concerned and made lots of frowny faces as I tried to explain Baby Evan has just weaned himself from nursing 5+ times a day to not at all and learned to climb and run and doesn’t like cows milk and and and but but but.

Frowny face. We need to see you again in a month to check his weight. And keep an eye on his diapers for blood.

When I got home, I ask Dr. Google Twitter about it and everyone assured me it was fine. Kids grow in weird patterns. As long as he’s not fussy or lethargic it’s nothing to worry about. It happened to my kid too. The doctor’s scale could be off. And the biggest “duh” – Baby Evan took both a huge poop and peed through a diaper just a few minutes before the appointment so if he’s been weighed an hour earlier he would have been AT LEAST a pound heavier. I felt much better. It’s just sort of ironic, you know? What with the giant childhood obesity epidemic in our country and my ped is telling me to add chocolate to my kid’s whole milk.

He also got three shots, two Heps (A & B) and his first MMR. We skipped tetanus this time because it was combined with a polio shot and he gets a polio vac at his NEXT appointment so it would mean a double dose. Um, no thank you? I mean, my belief and trust in vaccines is well documented but I’m not really interested in letting people just stick my kid with stuff unnecessarily. That just seems foolish.

The other super fun diagnosis is that once again there’s something slightly wrong with his circumcision. Since this is the internet and I don’t want him to die of embarrassment someday if his girlfriend reads this I’ll just say it’s nothing serious but that the solution involves either something really really unpleasant sounding or just hoping it goes away mostly on it’s own. Unlike the vaccines, I am not 100% behind our decision to do the circ and wish I had tried to talk E out of it. But again, I have no penis so I only get like, one percent of the decision making power on that one and I doubt I could have anyways.

SO. My goal for the next month is to fatten my kid up enough that the doctor at our weight check scoffs at the previous doc’s concerns. (Bonus points if he actually makes the “scoff” sound.) Any tips for fattening up a kid?

Oh man, I bet I get some weird Google searches off of THAT one.

*I used an internet calculator for the percentiles which I’ve found to calculate slightly lower numbers than the one my pediatrician uses. I forgot to ask for the numbers when we were there.

2 Responses to “15 month checkup stats”

  1. Jennifer says:

    I’m genuinely curious… will E only get 1% of the decision making power for anything regarding a daughter since he doesn’t have a vagina?

    I told my husband that I would not have our son circumcised. Period. I don’t care that he has the penis, if he had wanted to cut part of my child’s penis off for absolutely no reason I’d never consent to it. It is my job as a mother to protect my son from harm.

    Luckily my husband agreed with me, as he still has issues with his circumcision and holds much resentment towards his parents because of it.

    I hope that baby E will be ok. And I’m terribly sorry for him that he has to deal with this problem he shouldn’t have had to face.

  2. […] of the weight-loss between his 12 and 15 month check-ups, our pediatrician scheduled a quick weigh-in on Friday for Baby Evan. I knew he’d been eating […]

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