Jennifer Tenney says:

Kate-
Let me reassure you some, since my Dakota is as small as they come without having to get some kind of tube, I believe. Dakota is 11 months old and 15lbs 4 or 5 oz. She weighed 5 oz on Thursday but on Sunday she weighed 3.5 oz, so their weight does fluctuate. We have a digital scale at home and I weigh Dakota before her bath every third day or so. I notice that her weight goes up and down based on what she ate and how long ago.
When we were in the hospital we barely got out of there without a g-tube! Dr. Kays won’t send you home with a NG tube for some reason so it is a g-tube or no tube. I begged them for a trial without a tube. They let me have it out for the weekend and I stayed over in the hospital and fed Dakota all her meals. Dakota only took about 80% of her volume, but she still gained weight (barely!) so we got out of there! It has always, always been a struggle to feed Dakota! But even though she doesn’t want to take what I hope she would … with my encouragement and all the tricks I can think of, she takes about the same as you listed: 20 oz per day of milk and three meals a day of solids (oatmeal and some kind of fruit or veggie), yet she is 2 months older than Kayla. I have been told by our pediatrician and Dr. Kays, that as long as Dakota follows her own growth curve, they are ok. She has always been below 0% for weight for her actual age and I think less than 5% for her adjusted age. But she parallels the growth curve so they are ok with her weight gain. Around 9 months, babies start to get much more active- I know both Kayla and Dakota are moving all around (Dakota is crawling now and pulling up on everything she can get to!) … burning up calories … so it is natural that their weight gain would slow.
However, all that said, I know exactly what you mean. Dakota’s weight and feeding are constantly on my mind, as is what Dr. Kays said to me before we left the hospital … he said, “It will most likely always be a struggle to get the proper nutrition in Dakota, but if you work very hard, she will most likely be ok without any surgical intervention.” Well, I work my very hardest (as I know you do), but at the end of the day we can only feed our babies what they are willing to eat and hope that they continue to grow … otherwise, it is on to the next trick or calorie boosting method (adding things to the formula like corn oil, higher calorie formula, feeding higher calorie foods like avocado, adding things like duocal, pediasure, etc….. I think there are ways if we really get in trouble). From my perspective, I think Kayla is doing great and am often jealous of how well she eats!