She is off the chart!

It amazes me how big my baby is now.. at 7 and 1/2 months, she is already about 75cm (plus minus 1 cm) and most probably weigh around 9kg if I follow the trend in her growth chart. Since I haven't been to the paed after her 5 months shot, I don't really know her weight anyway but she sure feels like 9kg or more! Lugging her around the house is already a full scale weight-bearing exercise as it is!! Hahah..

My not going to the paed is not because I'm a bad mother.. It's because she has been pretty healthy 99% off the time that she really don't need to go to the paed at all to get additional checkup. What even amazes me more is the fact that growth chart that most local paediatrics use are actually based on the growth chart of bottle fed caucasians. Even then my baby girl length is still at the highest possible graph line! That put her at about 1-5th percentile from the population of the world. Goshh.. was it the gene, or the breast milk that I had lovingly give her since day 1. Alhamdulillah I have managed to exclusively breastfed Zahra for the first 6.5 months and only started solid recently.. Hmm, maybe if I count the few times (ever) that she was given some plain water to drink as not exclusively breastfed. Sigh... but that was when she's not with me.. But that's ok.. it's probably count to about a tablespoon or so in a week.

Many Malay or is it Asian parents especially those who gives formula to their babies. Lo and behold, it turns out, this is the wrong thing to do. There was a radio talk on this topic reveals that the first 6 months, babies stomach is so small and to grow properly, they need to be able to absorb nutrients from every feed. Since water has very little or most aptly no nutrients at all, filling up the small stomach with water would mean that we deprive the little body from the nutrients they need. Water functions to clean the body from excess minerals and salt. Since breastmilk contains less of these than formula, there's little reason why breastfed babies need to be given water at least for the first 6 months. This is the wonder of breastmilk that many people don't realize. Apart from the fact that it contains enzyme and antibody that formula milk have NEVER manage to emulate despite all the hoopla onit's superiority what's with additional DHA or supplements in the milk.