My son was 14, 4ft 11in and 94 pounds, he was much smaller than his peers.

He had
been the same size for nearly two years. He was starting his freshman year of high
school in a couple months and he still looked like he was 10 or 12 years old.
Puberty hadn’t found him at all and his social and emotional maturity was beginning
to be really out of line with his peers. I had taken him to the pediatrician and
was told he was just a late bloomer. If he didn’t have a growth spurt by 15 or 16,
then we’d see an endocrinologist.

I tried to be ok with the pediatricians reassurance, but comparing my son to his

friends and teammates, it just didn’t feel right. It’s not just that he was small,
it was that he wasn’t moving forward in any way. I asked around, talked to some
friends and eventually decided to take my son to a nutritionist. I don’t know why a
nutritionist is what resonated with me. My son ate a ton, ate healthy meals,
although he frequently had a tummy ache, but it was just a mothers instinct. The
nutritionist was much more concerned than the pediatrician. We started logging his
food intake and level of activity. It didn’t add up. My son should have been
putting on mass even if he wasn’t growing taller. He was very active as a
competitive athlete and he ate the number of calories that a college athlete should
consume…yet he was not growing, not building muscle and not progressing
emotionally. If anything, he was losing weight and tired all the time.

It turned out, my son was malnourished. He has a terrible reaction to the proteins
in milk and dairy products. That was why his tummy was upset so frequently. My son
was consuming nearly a half gallon of milk every day!! He’s a very private child,
so he would tell me his stomach was upset, but he didn’t tell me he had diarrhea
every single day for years! I had no idea. I knew he was anxious about knowing
where the bathrooms were, but that had been his way since he was a little boy. His
milk allergy was so severe and he was consuming so much milk so frequently that he
was not holding onto any of the nutrients from the other food he was consuming.

As soon as the nutritionist connected the dots for us, he quit drinking milk. We
also took all other dairy products out of his diet at that time as well. From
August of 2018 to February of 2019 my son grew 7 inches and gained 30 pounds! It
took another 6 months for his overall maturity to catch up with his peers. It was a
roller coaster of growing pains and puberty that was unrelenting for those 12
months.

Now he’s 16. He’s 5′7″ and 140lbs. He’s not a big kid, but he’s not abnormally
small. He is putting on weight and building muscle like you would expect from a
male teen athlete. Now, he avoids milk but will indulge in a little yogurt from
time to time. He decided to have a milkshake with friends a few months ago and
called to tell me what a terrible idea it was….even though it tasted sooooo good.
It will be a long time before he makes that decision again!

So, should you be concerned if your child hasn’t gained weight in two years even if
the pediatrician isn’t worried? Maybe. All I can say for sure is that pediatricians
don’t know your child like you do. Trust your instincts and see where it leads.

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