How Much Should My Baby Weigh?
How much should my baby weigh every month? Is there a way to determine what her average weight should be each month based on her birth weight?
Each baby develops in his or her own way, so it is always difficult to pinpoint exactly how much your baby is going to weigh from month to month, but there are some basic standards that you can use to help measure how she is progressing.
Baby Weight Gain
Typically, your baby will lose about 5% of her birth weight in the first few days after she is born. This is completely normal and is generally nothing for you to worry about. In most cases, a baby will gain back his or her birth weight by the time they reach two weeks old.
In the first year of your baby’s life, she will typically gain more weight on a weekly basis in the first four months than the final eight months. It is also likely that she will have doubled her birth weight by the fourth month. A normal baby will usually gain about 5 to 8 ounces per week up until they are around four months old.
Over the next couple of months your baby’s weight gains should start to slow down to right around 3 to 5 ounces a week. As your baby pushes past six months his weight will slow dramatically to around 2 to 3 ounces a week. By the time your baby is a year old, she’ll most likely weigh about three times the amount of her original birth weight.
In some cases a baby may gain weight quickly in the first few months of her life and then it will slow down dramatically, or in other instances the weight will not be put on until later months. However, in general most babies eventually end up being around the average percentile for weight some time during the first 12 months, even if at one time they were on the high end or low end of these percentiles.
How To Weigh Your Baby
If you are weighing your baby at home, you always want to do it at the exact same time each day, using the same scale. You can weigh your baby with a diaper on or off, but be sure to be consistent with each weigh in.
Keep in mind that babies go through growth spurts quite often in the first six months, so you will want to only weigh your baby on a weekly basis, rather than doing it daily, to save yourself some needless worrying.
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