An Update on Courtland's Weight

So, we went in today for Courtland’s weight check, and he hasn’t gained any weight since his appointment a week ago. He will be 4 weeks old in a couple of days, (and babies are supposed to be back up to their birth weight by 2 weeks old), and he still weighs 7 pounds 8 ounces, almost a whole pound under his birth weight. So, the doctor seemed pretty concerned about his weight. She had hoped that when Courtland gained 2 ounces last week that he had hit a turning point and would keep going up from there. But now with his weight staying the same since a week ago, she said we needed to take some action. She wants us to aggressively supplement his feedings with formula. She said that babies this age normally get about 20 calories per feeding, and we are going to mix the formula so that he gets 24 calories, and then if he tolerates that well she will want us to try and see if he will tolerate a 27 calorie mixture. She wants us to give him 6 supplemented formula feedings and 2 normal breastfeedings each 24 hours. She said that she thinks there is about a 99% chance that for some reason he hasn’t been getting enough calories (even though I have a good milk supply and he seems to be nursing well), and her hope is that he will have started to gain some weight by the time we go for another weight check on Friday morning. She said that if he hasn’t started to gain weight by then, he will need to be admitted to the hospital. If that is the case, she says that there is a small possibility that he could have some kind of metabolic problem that we haven’t been able to detect yet with his newborn screenings or all the lab work that he had done a couple weeks ago. So, hopefully the supplementing will work and he won’t have any more problems. We’ll let you know how things turn out after his appointment on Friday.