Baby dropping in height percentile only?

[adrie]

Hey everyone,

Just a bit of background info: Our son was born at 41weeks and was 75% for weight and 90th% for height. He was EBF for nearly 3 weeks but was still 3oz shy of birth weight, and long story short, I decided to switch to formula. He is exclusively formula fed. In the first full week of formula feeding, he gained a whole pound!

Anyways, his weight, head growth, milestones are all on track; in fact, he is even ahead in certain milestones. However, at his 2mo vaccination appt., his height dropped to 50% and yesterday at his 4mo vaccination appt., he is now down to 30% for height! This kid is literally 90th percentile for weight right now! He is so strong it's unreal.

Any sort of insight here? Could it just be taking his body time for his height to catch up? I wouldn't be concerned about 1 percentile line drop, but he is below 2 or even 3 lines, correct? That seems drastic. He has gained 4-5cm in 7 weeks (between shots) and 11cm since birth. He is 4mo and 1 week old. I'm going to make an appointment with our GP for 5mo and address it then.

 

[SummerMother]

Hello,

My DS had very similar percentiles per age as yours.

I eBF for around 3 weeks when I decided to combination fees due to supply issues/latching issues.

He was born around 90% height and about 78% weight. He lost almost his whole 15% body weight by his 1 week appointment. By his 2 month appoinmemt (combo fed) he was in the 95% for weight and down to 40% height. 4 month appointment (exclusively formulA) he stayed in the 90% weight and his height went up slightly but not more than 5%. The same happened for his 6 month appointment.

We just had his 1 year appointment and he is still in the 90% weight and his height is at 70% now.

A lot of the height depends on you and the fathers height. It's genetics. I'm 5ft 5" and my DH is 5ft 10". My son is built exactly like my DH. Shorter, stocky, long torso, shorter legs and wide shoulders.

I believe the important thing is if he is following his own curve without dirastic changes. If there were any huge concerning changes in his curve I believe they would refer you to a doctor to address it.

If you are concerned than talking to a doctor would be best. He could better address the situation.

 

[noon_child]

They don't even bother with height centimes where I live unless a baby has other issues with growth or looks very disproportionate. They are just thought to be very unreliable. So there is a whole host of women out there who have no idea whether their child is on the same height centile as weight centile. If you didn't know what his centile was, would you look at him and be concerned?

 

[minties]

Length is notoriously hard to measure correctly. When Sophie was an infant, she was plotted on the 75th centile one week, and the 5th a month later. Emma also apparently lost a whole centimetre somewhere in between 9 and 11 months!

 

[adrie]

Thanks for the replies everyone

One other thing I have noticed is that he really likes to pull his legs to his body, and also that 1cm at this age is the difference between 30th and 50th percentiles. But my instincts are not concerned honestly. At 4mo he is already starting to scoot around the room, and I've never had to do "tummy time" because he could lift his head from birth, easily turn side to side. He coos and talks; he has been bearing weight on his arms for weeks doing "girl" push ups while on his tummy , and I can tell he has a really strong core! He is just a really different baby. He's going longer stretches at night for food which is great for me; in fact last night he only woke 1x to eat rather than 2 which was awesome

I spent so much time worrying about our daughter as she was TINY, but she was supposed to be. I remember trying to feed her more and she would spit the nipple out of her mouth. Now I have a healthy, 10th% first born, and a chubby, healthy 90th% second born. I joke that I got my skinny and my fat baby.