Seth has always been tall and skinny. He was born 6 pounds 2.5 ounces and almost 20 inches long—I think that was 50th percentile for length and 10th percentile for weight. While most babies would end up—even in the next few weeks—somewhere in the middle on both, Seth just kept gravitating to both ends of the spectrum. Pretty soon he was 75th percentile in length and less than 5th percentile for weight. We might have been more concerned if not for the facts that he ate really well, that I produced an insane amount of milk, and that he leveled out very nicely at 75th and 3rd-5th indicating that, well, that's just how he was gonna be! His calories appeared to go into height more than fat, I guess.
Still.... We were watching it! Careful to notice if his weight was going to suddenly drop off the chart entirely. (It did once: he had been going strong at a whopping 3rd percentile for several months, but a nasty virus wiped him off the chart. A couple weeks later he was back....)
And because we've been watching it, we know that in the first two-plus years he never exceeded 5th percentile. Usually he's at 3rd. His height has always been 75th or 80th.
A couple months ago, we had to
take him to the hospital for what turned out to be an intestinal emergency (his intestine telescoped onto itself...) and when he stepped onto the scale—three years and two months old—he weighed 28 pounds. Uh-oh!! Alarm bells went off in my head for how stinking
pitiful that sounded! 28 pounds? I braced myself for some scolding or something.
Guess what? That's actually 10th percentile! Seriously? His measly 28 pounds (actually, a month later for his well-child visit, he'd regained what he lost when his intestines were destroyed, and weighed 29 pounds) is actually an improvement on his growth chart?! Break out the bubbly! Hehe. 10th percentile! Woo hoo!!!
Also at his well-child visit, we discovered he's graduated to 85th percentile in height. So I guess his weight-to-height ratio is probably just as skinny as ever. But that's Seth.... :)
