Trust Lactation Consultant or Pediatrician? (long)

sarasansh

At our two month well baby visit, LO weighed 10lbs 2oz (up from 8lbs 1oz as his lowest weight.) The pediatrician was concerned and asked us to come back for a weight check in two weeks. We did, and he'd gone up to 10lbs 10oz. The doctor said he looked great and would see us at 4 months. For my own piece of mind, I contacted a LC. A friend recommended her LC to me and we set up a meeting.

 Well, at the meeting she pulled out the calculator and told me how he was only gaining .4 ounces a day and he needed to be gaining at least half an ounce, how he looked underfed, she was concerned that he had rigid muscle tone in his legs and maybe in his jaw, she wanted his tongue checked for tongue tie...basically this whole laundry list of issues that I didn't think existed until I met with her. She advised me to set up a meeting with a pedi she recommended to have his tongue looked at (as well as his muscle tone), to up my pumping and to have my husband feed him a bottle of expressed milk in the evenings.

I did all of that, and at our next meeting, he had gaining .6 ounces/a day. I thought, yay! A few days later, LO came down with a cold. We took him to our pedi, who weighed him with his clothes on (and a wet diaper) so the scale wasn't accurate, but they said other than his sniffles he looked great.

 Now today at our third meeting, he's back down to only gaining .4 ounces/a day for the past two weeks. She wants us to put him on a 2 hour feeding schedule around the clock, have me pump after every other feeding, increase his supplemental BM bottles to 2 or 3, depending on how much I can pump...and all of this is coming 2 weeks before I go back to work full time.

We called our pediatrician and explained how the meetings have been going, and they told us there's nothing to worry about. He's not on WHO growth charts (just below 3% last time I checked) but the pedi says he's growing on his own curve and that's fine. He's also grown almost 5 inches in length since birth, which I sometimes wonder if that's a factor in his slow weight gain.

 But now I'm not sure what to do. Our LC is ringing the alarms and our pediatrician says everything is great. I want to trust our pediatrician--we've been really happy with them so far--but I also want to make sure my son is growing well. (We haven't had the meeting with the other pediatrician yet for his tongue, so I don't know where she'll weigh in.)

For background: he's alert, meeting all milestones, has at least 8 wet cloth diapers a day, sleeps well and is all-around a very happy (but skinny!) baby.

Any thoughts or advice would much appreciated!!