15mo Pedi Appointment

Today we saw our new pediatrician. Our insurance decided to stop allowing us to see anyone outside of their own medical centers. I cannot tell you how irate that makes me. That is neither here nor there, though, as we have to do what we have to do.

We actually had a very good experience. I think we were the first appointment of the day. We showed up 15 minutes early, got called back right away and got him weighed/measured by the nurse, who took care to be funny and make Joseph smile. Then we saw the Doc, who came in immediately and spent a LOT of time with us. He had a great bedside manner and was great at listening to me. He seemed relatively on board with our decisions regarding Joseph's care, and was only marginally annoying with his parenting advice (i.e. warning me about having a 4 year old who won't sleep unless we let him cry-it-out).

The good: Joseph grew 2 inches! He's now 31.5" tall (50-75%) and his head is 18.27" (25-50%). The doctor says he's on track for mental development, in that he is pointing at things and has a few words. Joseph was cruising around the room and the Doc said that he looked great and agreed that he would walk soon. He also was impressed with Joseph's personality - he was really good, smiling for everyone and not even crying during the exams.

That bad: He lost weight. He is down to 18lb 2oz from 19lb 8oz. It can be normal for kids to lose weight at this age as they become more mobile, but he doesn't really have any to lose. He was not on the charts at 12mo when he was 19.5lbs, so he's obviously quite underweight now.

The doctor thinks we should night wean him to encourage him to eat more solids during the day. We had night weaned, but then molars happened. I'd been planning to do it again, though I have to admit that when a doctor tries talking to me about sleep training, it makes me want to do the opposite. Ha!

At the very least, I'm going to start doctoring his food a bit again - adding butter/olive oil to veggies and preparing higher cal meals. Don't get me wrong, he eats eggs with cheese and spinach, whole milk yogurt with banana, pizza, grilled cheese, hummus, meatballs, bread with butter and jam, etc... so it's not like I'm only feeding him fruits and veggies. But maybe I can start doing more "casserole" type foods so he can get some pie crust/cream/cheese/meat mixed in with his veggies.

Mostly, I'm not going to let it bother me too much. He is meeting his milestones, looks healthy, and eats a wide variety of foods. I'd hate to sabotage that by making him nurse less and start pushing treats on him so that he rejects the good stuff. I try to remind myself that T.J. and I are not exactly heavyweights, either, and that Joseph may just be taking after his Daddy (who, incidentally, is not on the BMI charts as an adult).