Friday 14 October 2011

A weighty subject

I don't know what's in the milk Giovanna's feeding little LHG, but it's clearly gold top.

Every week since he was born he's been putting on nine ounces, on average. His mummy now feels confident enough to miss the odd week's weigh in. 'Look at him,' she said when I questioned this wisdom. 'He's clearly not wasting away.'

She has a point. In fact, we're starting to worry that he might have the opposite problem. They say you can't overfeed breastfed babies, and I'm sure they're right, but even so. Babies are meant to double their birth weight by six months and triple it by a year. The way he's going, he will have slightly more than tripled it by six months.

Warming to this theme, Uncle Peter, a bit of a maths nerd, decided to calculate how much he'll weigh by the time he's forty if he keeps putting the same amount of weight on. He apparently calculated the answer as 133 stone! However, having re-calculated this sum, and realising he was putting LHG's original birth weight into the equation, I estimate it to be 83 stone. Not so bad then!

Of course we're just being silly. Babies don't continue to put the same amount of weight on, especially when they start moving.

And even if LHG is three times his birth weight by six months, I'm not going to worry about it. If the health visitor shakes her head and tuts, Giovanna will be ready with two little cards, both over 50 years old, to prove a point. They're the baby weighing cards of the OH and his twin brother, LHG's Great Uncle M. They were 7 pounds a piece when they were born. Seven pound twins, I hear you exclaim! Oh yes - and there lies a tale for another nonna blog. But by six months, they were 21 pounds each. Triple their birth weight. Right chubby little soldiers they were.

And what did they grow up to be? Six foot and skinny. So I'm not going to stress about all those pounds LHG is piling on, and neither is Giovanna. Especially as LHG's daddy, JW, is 6 foot 3 and skinny...

...and eats for England and never puts weight on. Sigh. there's no justice in the world!