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Is it normal for an infants weight to fluctuate throughout the day or to not increase from one day to another? I have a feeling it is, fluctuation happen and average weight gain per day is an average, but if anyone could point me to research or articles of amount or ranges, that would be good.

Backstory (if you care): My daughter's weight fluctuates during the day and from day to day may not see an increase. The pedi does not seem worried (says she is right on track) but I just want some hard data.

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  • As long as her cheeks are chubby, everything will be okay. We don't even measure our little one every day (or week).
    – Dave Clarke
    May 11, 2012 at 21:07
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    Here's a link. kellymom.com/bf/normal/weight-gain
    – user2480
    May 12, 2012 at 19:22
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    Even adults can fluctuate by about two pounds in a day. With babies and their growth, fluctuations alternating with days with no change is normal and to be expected. If your ped isn't worried, you need not be.
    – balanced mama
    Nov 25, 2012 at 23:47

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Yes. OK, the long answer is, yes, and those frequent well visits to the pediatrician always start with height & weight measurements so that you can be sure, on a more macro scale, that the baby is growing over time.

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I can't provide hard data, but...

My (breastfed) daughter had trouble with weight gain in her early months. We were asked by medical staff "Does she have heavy nappies?" and all we could answer was that sometimes they were heavier than other times (after all, heavy is a relative term!), and they investigated no further.

We started weighing full nappies and subtracted the weight of an empty nappy, and totalled it up each day. It turned out that the milk supply was insufficient, and she was half starved; total nappy weight for the day (age 4 months or so) was something like 400g. When we fixed the problem (with a drug that stimulates milk supply), total nappy weight for the day went up to more than double that, from memory, and from that point on weight gain was good.

Measuring consumption of breast milk is difficult, and this technique allowed us to do it. Of course, it may or may not be relevant to your situation.

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  • That's an interesting point: we bottle-fed, and it we always knew how much they'd eaten because the bottle (or bag-in-bottle) was transparent.
    – Will E.
    May 13, 2012 at 20:44
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    Yes, measuring "output" is one way to make sure they are eating enough (in the hospital/NICU they do this with every diaper change). Another option to figure out how much the baby is taking in a feeding is to weigh the baby before eating and after (subtract after weight from before wait to give you the amount of milk the baby took). Weighing diapers is easier than weighing babies so it is used more often.
    – auujay
    Jan 30, 2013 at 20:10
  • You're right @auujay, though the problem with weighing a baby is that it requires a set of scales that many people don't have (analogue scales aren't accurate enough, and kitchen scales can't handle that much weight). We used a digital kitchen scale for the nappies though.
    – Highly Irregular
    Jan 30, 2013 at 23:02
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My son is 22 months old, and I do observe that his weight fluctuates due to several obvious factors like if he get sick he will loss some weight and so on. There are really a lot of possible factors that causes weight fluctuation. As long as your pediatrician assures you that there is nothing to worry about, you can have a peace of mind. It is great that you are keeping track of your child's weight, so you can notice easily if there are any discrepancies.

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Short Answer: Yes.

Long Answer: Yes, my friend.

Weighing the baby on an hourly (?) basis is a waste of your spirit.

You know what? Your weight fluctuates on an hourly basis as well. As you eat, poo, drink, even talk or breath, your weight changes. It's just that 0.4 lb for you doesn't register on a scale that tops out at 450. but it will absolutely register on a scale for babies.

Stop it.

Oh and stop reading the internet (all the time). Lots of horror stories and paradise stories that simply don't apply to the average person. Sometimes I think the internet was just a bad idea.

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