Birth weight more than doubled at 2 and half months?

Susanne - posted on 09/29/2010

My oldest son was 6 lb when he was born by the time he was 6 weeks old he had doubled his birth weight. He was always a very chubby baby but as soon as he started walking he thinned right out. He is now 11 years old and im more concerned about how skinny he is than about obesity. Hes still wearing clothes that would fit an 8 year old! I wouldnt worry about obesity until hes a good few years older, some babies are just naturally chubby.

Jodi - posted on 09/08/2010

While i don't think this would contribute to your child's weight in too great a manner, I was always told that hiccups to bother infants and nothing "needs" to be done. I would be worried that using sugar water would give my baby sweet tooth and be starting poor eating habits. Perhaps something to ask your pediatrician? Anyways, if you're only breastfeeding bub and not feeding him rice cereal or forcing him to nurse when he's not hungry or interested I wouldn't be too concerned. I had the opposite problem, my daughter nursed nearly non-stop and now at 18 months, she just broke the 20 lb mark, but my pediatrician told me not to worry, some children gain weight, some children don't. Definately do not restrict your child's diet!!!! Wait and address your concern with your pediatrician when your appointment rolls around and I'm sure he/she will tell you not to worry and that you have a perfectly healthy baby!!!!Best of luck!!!!

Hannah - posted on 06/17/2010

I have literally just google this to check before I posted anything, as I was going to say as long as you are just breastfeeding and not doing anything 'unnatural' to contribute towards the weight gain, then I don't suppose there is anything to worry about, you are giving him the best food possible! But I am wondering about the advice you were given about the sugar, does your son get upset from his hicupping? I just ask as my experience was that hiccups just happened and never needed any treatment, they just outgrew them in the end.

Rather than anything I could try to say, I have cheated and copied and pasted the advice given to another mom asking a similar question - (from a healthcare proffessional), hope it helps!

'It is probably never too early to think about childhood obesity, but in a younger infant or toddler, you should concentrate more on what she is eating and drinking and not so much on what her weight is.

Even if she was gaining too much weight, if she had a healthy diet and wasn't drinking too much juice or formula, then I wouldn't worry about it too much at this age. Many bigger infants and younger toddlers 'thin out' as they begin to walk and run around and become more active. So I would continue to concentrate on encouraging healthy eating habits, such as:

continuing to breastfeed or feed an iron fortified infant formula (with an average of 24-32 ounces a day)
limiting juice to only 4-6 ounces of 100% fruit juice and avoid fruit drinks and soda
offering a variety of foods, including a lot of different fruits and vegetables to encourage good eating habits later
limiting the 'tasty treats' that have a lot of added sugar or that are high in fat and instead concentrate on healthy treats that also taste good

And if you look at the growth charts, you can see that most infants who are following a growth curve actually double their birth weight closer to five or six months. If they gained weight much more than that, it would be a good idea to review your infant's feeding patterns with your Pediatrician to make sure that you weren't overfeeding her. But with a normal diet and a healthy infant, gaining weight a little more quickly than average is probably normal for a younger infant. You would probably do more harm than good by putting a baby on a 'diet' and trying to limit their intake of breastmilk or formula at this age.

Still, if a baby doubled her birth weight at three or four months because you were already feeding them a lot of cereal, giving them more than 32 to 40 ounces of formula, or already giving juice, then that might not be healthy and you might need to discuss more healthy eating habits with your doctor'.