First, I want to say thank you for all of the advice. I have taken some of the advice and Joshua is doing a lot better. In fact, he gained nearly a pound in just 4 days. He was 14.4 pounds and now he is 15.2.
A lot of people wonder why a mother of 8 would need help/ advice. Well, we are pretty healthy and I really have had no need to worry about nutrition. In all honesty, I have very little knowledge of nutrition. All of my previous 7 babies nursed well. A couple of them, I put on whole milk at 11 months because I was pregnant and they did just fine. I am healthy. I have always been able to eat pretty much whatever I want to and I feel great most of the time. My kids are mostly healthy. No one has any food allergies or long term health issues (at this point). My husband is healthy, and he hates healthy food. Except for the first year of living in a new place, we are rarely sick, and even then, it has been very rare that we have ever had any severe illness. So we eat what we want, and we try to get in some regular exercise and we do great. On a rare occasion this has been different. Joshua is one of those differences. He was fussy, not growing, and my first child to not be crawling before 8 months of age. I knew he was hungry and that I was losing my milk because he wouldn't nurse.
This is what I have tried. I put him on a higher calorie/higher fat yogurt. I tried coconut milk and he loves it (I am really happy about it). After feeling better from the coconut milk, he was willing to try more things, and he is nursing better. I give him half a bottle of coconut milk and then he nurses. Because he is not so hungry he has settled down and is nursing without screaming except first thing in the morning. If he isn't too hungry or too full he is now willing to eat avocado. He will eat a half of one in a sitting. He is also enjoying squash and pumpkin now. I am not completely sure of his problem past being hungry. The coconut milk alone seems to have changed everything. As far as I can tell the weirdo kid won't eat if he gets too hungry and it is just a downward spiral from there. I think I can probably rule out allergies because of his amazingly fast weight gain. Coconut milk is expensive and all of the family likes it, but it seems to be what the baby needs, so we will deal with the cost.
I thought I should also address what seemed to be a few concerns in the comment section. I think some people were worried I was force feeding or being overly concerned about size. I have only ever force fed one of my kids. I hated being force fed as a child and adamantly decided I would not do it with my own children. Mostly, that has worked just fine. Except my third child, Johnny. When he was 17 months and about done breast feeding, he came down with a bad case of croup. After about 6 days he was no longer coughing, but he had a high fever and was not walking anymore. I took him to the doctor thinking he probably had developed pneumonia. The doctor checked him, but could not find anything wrong with him so she sent me to the emergency room. They took a chest x-ray first-- no pneumonia. So they took some blood to see if he had a blood infection. They came back. No blood infection, BUT he was malnurished and severely anemic. They sent me home, but they would not give me iron until I force fed him and took him to see his doctor. So I began force feeding. He hates food so that was not an easy task, but within 24 hours his fever went away and he was walking and good. We got him on iron, and continued to make sure he ate for the next 2 years. He is still very picky. But he now eats 3 to 7 bowls of vitamin fortified sugar coated cereal each morning and is fine.
As far as worrying about size. I think a lot of people worry about that when they look at my family. I have a 13 year old daughter who is devastated that she weighs 99lbs, is 5 feet tall and wearing a woman's size 2 pants. She really is big for my kids, and she has always been a good eater. But she is not fat and I won't let her diet. I have a 12 year old daughter who is 60lbs, 4 ft 5in tall and an entire head and shoulders shorter than other kids her age. She is a picky eater. She would rather go hungry then eat something she doesn't like. Then I have a 10 year old son who is 58 pounds and about 4'5". He is smaller then everyone else his age. He is my boy that was the malnurished 17 month old. Then my son Adam is 48 pounds and almost 7. I think he is a little small for his age, but not so severely and he eats constantly. Then there is a 5 year old girl who weighs 32 pounds. She is very petite and looks about the size of most 3 year olds. She is a very picky eater. She pretty much survives on apples and dessert. Then I have a 3 year old daughter who is 26 pounds. She is small for her age and the doctors always worry, but I don't because she eats a lot and a variety and is taller then all her sisters were at the same age. She is 3 and wears a size 3-- miracle. Then there is Joseph. He is our tall, fat kid. He is 2, wieghs 26 pounds and last we checked and from what it seems like from his peers he is in the 50th percentile. Lastly there is ity bity, Joshua. I do worry some.
But my husband is a short man, and while I am tall at 5'9", I grew very slowly. I did not reach 5 ft until I was nearly 14, and I did not gain my full heighth until I was 19. So between my husbands short genes and my slow growing genes people wonder if we feed our kids at all.
