Are You Worried About Your Child’s Growth?

My husband measures and weighs the children each year down in the basement and marks it on the concrete wall so they can see how they’ve changed. At first, I’m really curious about the numbers, but it inevitably leads to worry, and I know I’m not alone. It’s very natural for us to be concerned when our children grow slowly or lag far behind their peers.

Four of my younger children are small for their age. They always have been. We’re talking kids that are lucky to reach the 5th percentile. Benjamin is 8 and can still wear size 6 pants. He’s also the baby I exclusively breastfed the longest, which leads to worries that there might be something wrong with my milk.

I’ve been on this merry-go-round before. Multiple times, in fact. I even asked my family doctor about it. He looked at those lines just barely inching up the growth charts, knitted his brows together and said if those were his boys, he would be concerned. Besides suggesting that I load them up with ice cream and peanut butter, he offered a battery of tests at a children’s hospital in another state. Oh boy………..

But then my circle of friends reassured me that doctors tend to go overboard with the growth charts. “Lots of children hit their growth spurts later in life,” they said. Or, “Babies who nurse follow different patterns.” My own mother told me “If they are happy and healthy, why worry?” Even my mother-in-law was skeptical. “Did you tell the doctor there are some short people in our family?”

So I felt better…..for a while. And we didn’t make any appointments with specialists. But these old fears come back to haunt me from time to time. Worry is a part of being a mother. I know that. But I get really tired of it, especially when I thought I had finally moved past something only to have the wound opened up again. I have so many gray hairs and I’m only 38!

Here are some things about growth that have helped reassure me:

• Every child is different and they don’t all follow the same growth patterns.
• Growth charts are different for breastfed vs. formula fed children.
• Some children (and teens and adults) hit growth spurts late. This is not a disease or a disorder; such people are often called “late bloomers.”
• Genetics play a powerful role in a child’s growth profile.
• Size at birth is not a reliable indicator of your child’s overall growth potential.
• Don’t waste time worrying about things you can’t change, such as your baby being premature, previous milk supply problems or a food allergy that went undetected.
• Many growth “problems” can be fixed with nutritional changes.
• Consistency can be more important than numbers. If your child has always tracked around the 10th percentile, but shows steady growth, then there’s no cause for concern.
• It is normal for a baby’s weight gain to drop off as he/she starts crawling, walking and running.
• You will do your child a huge favor by being extremely careful while talking about his/her size and weight; they are well aware of how they stack up to their peers (and may also get teased), and don’t need any extra pressure coming from home.

What do YOU worry about most as a mother? And how do you move past it?