You have been waiting for the baby for so long. In your dreams, you saw what it is, how it grows and develops. When the baby is finally born, young mothers are faced with issues that relate to the development of the baby. One of them is the norm of weight in children up to a year. The table and average indicators established by experts will help you figure this out.
Birth weight
A newborn must be examined by a pediatrician. At the first examination, your baby is weighed. After the required number of days spent in the hospital , the child is again weighed. It is these numerical data - birth weight and weight on the day of discharge - that affect further weight gain.
All children have their own individual birth indicators. The normal weight of a healthy baby is from 2700 to 3700 g. It is worth noting that the initial weight of your child depends on factors such as:
- The health of the baby.
- Heredity. In larger mothers, babies with more weight are most often born than in thin and short women.
- Paul. Basically, boys are born larger than girls.
- Mom's nutrition. If a woman consumed high-calorie foods during pregnancy, the baby is gaining a lot of weight.
- The psychological and physical condition of the mother during pregnancy. Frequent stressful conditions during the period of bearing a child are reflected both in the health of the baby and in his weight.
- Bad habits of the mother. For drinkers, drug users, and smokers, women are most often born with underweight.
These factors will also depend on the further weight gain of the child up to a year.
Weight at discharge
In the early days, babies lose weight slightly. There are several reasons for this:
- The kid begins to breathe on his own. This leads to the loss of a certain amount of fluid.
- In its first days after birth, the baby eats colostrum, and in small portions. This lasts until milk begins to arrive at Mummy.
- Adaptation to the environment.
For these reasons, the weight of the child upon discharge from the hospital differs from the birth weight by about 5-10 percent. And the countdown rate of weight gain in your baby comes from this figure.
The norm of weight in children up to a year
Finally you were discharged, and you and the baby are at home. Your child has learned to eat, gradually digestion is established, as well as heat and air exchange, and the baby begins to grow rapidly.
Weight gain depends on a number of reasons:
- Health. If the baby is sick, he does not eat very well.
- Type of feeding. With artificial feeding, the baby's weight increases faster than with breastfeeding.
- The quantity and quality of food.
- Mobility of the baby.
- Meal schedule. When feeding on demand, the baby gains weight better than when feeding on the clock.
- The age of the baby. In the first months, the child grows faster, closer to a year, growth slows down.
In any case, experts have established the norm of the weight of the child up to a year. This is an average indicator, but it is on this basis that patronage nurses and pediatricians of a children's clinic are guided.
The norm of weight in children up to a year: table
The average weight gain for the first year of life is as follows:
- In the first month, the norm is considered if the baby adds from 90 to 150 grams per week.
- In the second, third and fourth months, your baby should add from 140 to 200 grams per week.
- In the fifth and sixth month, the mass of the baby should grow per week by 100-160 grams. At six months, what is the norm of weight in children? Up to a year (the table is shown below), babies increase their own weight very intensively. The norm is considered when, by six months, the weight of the child doubles from the moment of discharge.
- From the seventh month of life, mass gain slows down. By the year the child should weigh three times more than at discharge.
Should I worry about a deviation from the norm?
A fairly common phenomenon when the norm of the weight of the child up to a year is not respected. Kids have either a small, or, conversely, a large increase in mass in comparison with the table. With what it can be connected?
- Physiological features. All children grow differently. Someone is slower, someone is faster, and this is normal.
- Baby growth at birth. A child with a large growth gains mass faster than with a small one. For example, if your baby’s height at birth was 52 cm, for him a normal weight gain per week is 170 g, and if 58 cm is 210 g.
- The gender of the child. Boys usually gain more weight than girls.
- Type of feeding. With artificial nutrition, children weigh more than babies who are breastfed.
So, you find out what the weight rate is in children under one year old. The table of average indicators should be taken into account, but it should be remembered that there are a number of reasons that affect the baby's weight gain, and in each individual case they can be different. Therefore, deviations up or down should not be perceived as a pathological condition. Norms of weight gain are averaged and do not take them for the ideal.