These days, I’m convinced my 1-year-old has some extra storage space in her stomach she’s hiding from me.
She’s not a big kid. She was huge at 6 months of age, then completely thinned out. In fact, I’m pretty sure her weight has stayed the same from 6 months until now.
You’d think that a little peanut like her would have the appetite of a bird. No siree. That girl can pack food in like nobody’s business.
A month ago, we’d eat breakfast together, and she’d consume a small amount of my daily bowl of oatmeal. Now, I have to make almost twice as much oatmeal as before, and she eats more than I do.
If I ever think I’ve warmed up the correct amount of food for her for any meal, she’s quick to prove me wrong. I shovel bite after bite into her eager, open mouth, thinking, “This HAS to be her last bite.” As I’m scraping the last of the food from the corners of the bowl, her mouth is still gaping wide open, begging for more.
I did some reading online, and learned that her stomach is about the size of her fist. Most people giving advice about how much a baby should eat advised that many babies will eat an amount of food similar in size to their fists. Not my baby. The amount she eats is more in proportion with the size of her head. (Her head size, by the way, has always been in the 90th percentile.)
I cannot, for the life of me, figure out where all that food goes. She doesn’t get sick, doesn’t throw it up, and isn’t getting plump. She poops the normal amount, pees the normal amount, and is active. Where is she hiding all that food?
I’d worry about her getting overweight if it weren’t for the fact that she’s only eating homemade baby food, the majority of which are vegetables.
Are you amazed at how much your baby can eat?