Breastfeeding a tiny baby.

Mia is small for her age. Mia is 6.5months old, and weighs just under 10lbs. She was 6lbs 8oz at birth, and 18" long- a tiny little thing. She's petite, her structure is small, everything about her is tiny and fragile looking. She's the sweetest little thing you'll ever lay eyes on- I swear. Maybe I'm biased...but, she's pretty freaking cute.

I have been breastfeeding Mia since she was 10minutes old , and we've got a very strong, very successful nursing relationship. She's a champion nurser, with a great latch, I've got a ton of milk [small boobs- but tons of milk, it happens!!] but she's tiny. I started supplimenting her with Neocate formula about a month ago, because my gp was concerned about her "numbers", while the feeding specialist at Sick Kids was not. But- we're doing everything possible, to make sure our itty bitty girl is the healthiest princess she can be.

Remember that post a few days ago about judgement? Well, Mia's size is cause for even more judgement than I receieved that day at the checkout in our wholistic food market. I get advice from family, I get tips on what to do from strangers, I get the questions "was she a preemie?", " how old is she?" , " why isn't she bigger?" from family and strangers alike. People have no shame. While at the Lodge this weekend, I had blatant stares, as I wore my 6month old in a water sling, and had her in the pool with me the entire weekend, while I was chasing the other guys around. Everyone assumed I had my newborn baby, in a chlorine filled public pool. I had people ask me how old she was, about ever 20mins. A dad, actually, was staring at me so obviously, I assumed my bottoms had gone transparent and I rushed out of the pool with Mia in sling, Madison holding my hand- to do a bathingsuit check in the changerooms before returning back to the pool . He later came up to me, and just asked " is your baby getting wet?" and I simply said, yes, smiled and walked away.  Is my baby getting wet?? I'm in a freaking pool buddy...I should have asked him " is your baby getting wet?" I wanted to scream. If my kids weren't having such a wonderful time, I would have started a scene.

So...why is Mia so tiny ? She's breastfed , formula fed, and eating solids. I pump my milk and feed her from bottles on occasion , she eats every 3hrs or so. I don't know why she's so tiny...she just is.

As Thumper's mama told him many years ago.... "if you don't got nuthin' nice to say, don't say nuthin' at all" .