No, I’m not talking about the guy in the checkered pants holding aloft his victory burger with the weird eyes (how can he see with a wedge-shaped chunk out of them?), although he does share some similarities with ten-month old Jack. They both have rather round bellies. And like ground beef.
I have always had a problem managing my weight, from the time I was on Nutri-system as a sophomore in highschool, to the Atkins diet (it worked!), to now (the “all organic eat whatever” diet, which isn’t so much a diet as it is a food choice). I remember being told as a freshmen in college by a junior “you would be so hot if you just lost 20 punds.” Gee, thanks. Needless to say, weight is kind of a flash point for me.
At Jack’s 9 month appointment, he was in the 75th percentile for height and 90th for weight. As near as I can tell, this is the same a month later (although I haven’t checked his height recently). Our doc said to limit his formula intake to 16-20 ozs a day*, and as near as I can tell, that about 4-12 ozs a day less than any other guidelines I can find, and while she didn’t explicitly say it was for his weight, after we left I wondered. I don’t want my kid on a diet when he’s less than a year old, but I also don’t want him to grow up to be overweight. He eats a fair bit in addition to his bottles, but all the things I have read say that kids at this age eat because they’re hungry, not because of any other motivation.
I don’t want to get in the way of his being able to figure out the signals he gets when he’s still hungry or if he’s full. Child of Mine has been a great read for all of these issues (how to feed your baby), but I guess I still worry about it. It’s hard not to, when people comment on it all the time:
He doesn’t miss many meals, does he?
What a big boy he is!
You’re a chunky one, aren’t you? [except, he isn't.]
it makes me feel defensive, for both of us. And I don’t want him to have the same feelings I had (and have) about weight and body image. I want him to have a healthy relationship with food. And exercise. I want him to feel at ease in his skin, and I am not sure how to supprt him in that, since I don’t have it myself.







