Rachel Gains Weight

DSC_8519.jpg, originally uploaded by Brian Bjork.

Brian here,

When Rachel was first born the doctor was worried about her weight because she wasn't gaining enough weight per day and she was in the 3rd percentile for baby weight which was way too low according to the doctor. After a couple of weeks of doctor visits and finding out that she still wasn't gaining enough Rebekah and I decided to stop listening to the doctor about allowing 3 hours in between feedings if she wasn't asking to be fed. We decided that during the day we would force her to eat every two hours if she didn't ask for it sooner. This plan worked wonderfully and she started to gain over an ounce a day which made the doctor happy.

At Rachel's 1 month appointment the doctor said, "Keep doing what you are doing." We weren't a big fan of that because feeding her every two hours and waking up twice during the night for feeding is really tough so we bought a baby scale to keep track of Rachel's weight so we could start experimenting with feeding times. Wednesday night we decided to let Rachel go 4 hours between feedings at night and she gained 2 ounces! So Thursday night we didn't even set the alarm. We let her crying wake us up for feeding and she only woke up once! This is great news because Rebekah only has to feed Rachel once and I don't have to feed her at all. Then Rebekah can keep sleeping after I wake up to get ready for work. We weighed her again Thursday afternoon and she had only gained .5 ounces. Hopefully she will gain a little more by Friday afternoon.