One of my kids is quite small and when he was a baby
I had a conversation with another mom who also had a small
but older baby. She related a story of her visits to the
well baby health clinics in Israel where we were both living
at the time. The nurses there were very concerned about the
size of her otherwise healthy baby and lamented the fact that
he was in the 5th (I think it was 5th) percentile on the
charts. My friend responded, "Someone has to be in the 5th
percentile or you wouldn't have these charts!!"  The same is
true for babies in the 95th percentile. The charts are
part of a bigger picture.
  When our pediatrican and I discussed the issue about my son,
who by age 10 had finally made it to the 5th percentile, he was
not worried because my son was off the chart but was consistently
following his own growth curve. When kids go off their own
growth curve significantly is the time to worry and begin asking
questions, (assuming of course that there are no other symptoms
that cause you to ask questions earlier.)
  As we have said so many times on this list about so many
things, averages are not useful for individuals. They are
statistical tools really designed for research of populations,
not individuals.
Naomi Bar-Yam

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