to be upset by my HV making comments about my heavy but healthy 7mth DS?

[alannabanana]

just saw her for routine weigh in this morning and my DS (who has always been big) was a chunky 24lbs 6oz, which for 32 weeks makes him almost 100th centile.
she's seen us since he was born and has always said to me 'don't worry he's got a very big frame to fill', and he is very tall so i've always accepted that explanation.

but today, she looked over her glasses at me and said 'oh dear', how much milk is he having these days? i think we need to look at this or he'll be off the charts.'
i think she was expecting me to say that i lace his milk with lard...duh, is that not right?!
for the record, he has 3 8oz bottles a day, 3 meals a day - sometimes mush, sometimes finger food - and water in between. he doesn't have and will never have junky crappy fatty food from me.

i guess i just needed to vent because, as a health and weight conscious person, i was upset by the intimation that im causing his bulk.
am i being unreasonable to have got in the front door and sworn my tits off at her repeatedly?

[andirobo]

What weight was he born? My DD was off the charts when born, and then settled on the 95th percentile for most of her time, until about 10 months when she was more mobile, and lost the weight then. He isnt drinking loads of milk, maybe that is just the way he is! Were anyone in your family big babies, or are there any other kids who are big in the family - as if it is a genetic thing!

She had the rolls of fat on her arms - like an extra ring part the way up. but if you saw her now she is a skinny minny at 7!

You do know that the answer is not to go to get them weighed, then you wont know and the HV wont be able to upset you

[Tamarto]

Ignore her.

[Lizzylou]

YANBU, I had this with both my two, DS1 was off the scale heightwise at birth despite being 8lb 13oz, and put on a pound a week.
DS2 was 10lb 11oz born but put on weight much slower (despite following 99th centile).

They are perfectly fit and healthy children now and they never had unhealthy amounts or types of food.

Don't worry, he'll be moving more soon and he'll slim down.

[EllieG]

I don't bother getting mine weighed now. She was a roly-poly thing and now she's mobile she's lost it all. But she is tall, and last time she was weighed I asked for her height to be measured too, and though her weight was on 98th centile, her height was over the 99th, so perfectly in proportion. Ignore your HV, is being silly.

[bedjumper]

My sisters baby was 23lb at 5 months and still excl breastfed. He was exactly the same size as my 15 month old.
Some babies are just big! If you are feeding him appropriate amounts of good food then dont worry

[susiey]

I agree don't get him weighed he will even out might be worth trying to measure his height to find out what percentile he is on ( at home if you can).

I have 2dc my ds is on the big scale tall and broad and always will be

my dd is tiny shes on the 2nd percintle for her height and just above it for her weight. They eat the same diet.

ignore your hv go back when hes a year and walking and I think you'll find hes fine just tall

his diet is the same as what my daughter and son ate at the that age

I hate the way the HV can make you feel so bad over the smallest things and have found as little contact with them as possible is the bast cure!

[queenofthenewyear]

Ignore her. The weight chart doesn't take any account of height so it's meaningless in isolation. I mean, I could weigh 10 stone and be either obese or underweight depending on my height. My HV is completely hopeless at most things, but she loves my DS because he is fully breastfed and is big - not rolls of fat, but definitely chubby! And I'm smug cos it shuts some of the ILs up - they used to compare slim breastfed DD with SIL's rolls-of-lard formula fed boy and look at me as if I was starving her.

[girlywhirly]

With respect, did she ask for detailed accounts of what he eats/drinks? Could she be wondering if there might be an undiscovered condition? H.V.s have suspicious natures. I wouldn't be happy if she announced that it needed to be looked at and then didn't tell me exactly how. I do hate it when they imply there's something amiss and don't offer options as to how they will proceed.

[alannabanana]

thanks guys. i feel better now knowing others have found this with annoying HV's too.
he was just 8lbs at birth, so not huge. in fact the midwife weighed him a couple of times and checked her scales because to look at him you wouldn't think he was 8lbs at all. he is literally big-boned!
plus, my husband and all his siblings were apparently very heavy babies (thanks mother-in-law for only telling me this AFTER the birth!)
it just pisses me off how she can insinuate that i'm over-feeding my child when she can see both me and my husband are tall people and DS is exceptionally tall!
i have to go back for the 8mth check and then i'm just gonna ignore her until 1yr - and by then we might have moved anyway!!

out of curiousity, can anyone confirm that the milk (follow-on) he's having IS the right amount? too much? too little?

[andiem]

I agree with shineon she is doing her job
what centile is he on for height?
if there is more than a 2 centile difference between the 2 ie his weight is 2 above his height then she should be monitoring it and advising you accordingly

[stickylittlefingers]

I had the same thing at the opposite end of the range - and did feel a bit like HV was accusing me of not feeding my long and skinny dd. Because she had dropped so much, I had to take her to the gp who just said she was healthy looking and alert, just a bit skinny (unlike dd1 who had been a real little tub'o'lard!). When I went back for the next visit to HV, she was a bit put out the dr hadn[t been more concerned as apparently they have guidelines (darned things) that mean they have to question if the child is outside certain parameters - she of course has to cover her a*se in case she is accused of being negligent.

So just don't take it to heart. If you were actually concerned yourself you could take ds to a gp, who would doubtless say he's fine, just on the bigger side. Otherwise - you don't have to go, as others have pointed out, especially if it's not reassuring you.

[Seona1973]

24oz sounds fine for a 7 month old - the recommended minimum amount is 20oz between 6 and 12 months.

[alannabanana]

andiem - they refuse to measure his height til the 8mth check...something about it being unecessary to do it as often as weight...
i do it at home though (as best i can!) and he is 99thC or there abouts - doesnt surprise me as he has the worlds longest back.

seona - thanks for that. good to know!

shineon - his meals are definitely not out of proportion - in small bowls and always full of fruit/veg, a bit like my dinner!

[bedjumper]

it should say on the side of the formula carton what the recommended amount is for each age

[filchthemildmanneredjanitor]

ds1 was 24.10 at 27 weeks-what's that in months?

he was HUGE-he is now very very tall and thin as a whippet!

[katiestar]

She must be completely thick to make a comment like that without measuring his height.take no notice and don't get him weighed

[MoonchildNo6]

My HV used to laugh at my DS2. He was a right bloater from the day he was born, lost no weight and put it on at a rate of approx 1lb a week for ages! She used to come round and say 'blimey, don't need to worry about this one!' He was fully BF but he was also off the chart in terms of height too. Even though they don't offically measure their height she used to do it because she found it entertaining to see how much he grew. At one point he had grown 8cm in 8 weeks - no lie!

Anyway, he's now 22 months, quite tall but slimmed right down now that he runs round like a loony.

[Chrysanthemum5]

Hi
When DC1 was born I had the loveliest HV who used to weigh him because she said she had to, but she felt the centile charts just worried parents. Her view was that a good HV should look at a child, use his/her experience, and decide whether a child was thriving / not thriving / too big / too small etc. She made all the mums I met at the M+B group feel really confident about their babies. Then she moved I never really bothered getting DC weighed excpet at innocalations, but I was sad she went. With DC2 the HV is fine, and to be fair she's also quite good at not getting hung up on weighing but I still don't bother getting them weighed.

DC1 and DC2 were both pretty big at birth, and DC1 was big until about 2 years old but then he started running more and the weight dropped off. Now he's tall, and very slim. DC2 looks to be going to the same way.
Donna

[mrsboogie]

surely unless you were a bit clueless a mum should be able to tell whether a baby was too fat or too thin? I have never had my 10 month old weighed since the hv did it a couple of weeks after he was born. There's no need unless there's a problem.

[katiestar]

Of course he is heavy if he is tall too ! What does the HV expect you to do ? Put a heavy book on his head to stop him growing !!

[missmapp]

The HV spent the early part of both my ds' life raising her eyebrows about how small they were ( both on 0-2nd percentile) , seems you cant do right whatever you do!!

[NightShoe]

Do you have my HV? I also got told at 6 months that I was overfeeding DD because she was 98th centile for weight (98th for height too I might add). I had only just started weaning but got told all sorts of crap like don't give her yogurt, give her semi-skimmed milk, no chocolate or sweets(at 6 months WTF?) and stop using any butter/spread/cheese. Now DD is not a small child and I do worry that she is big for age sometimes, but we are all very tall in my family so I can see why she is larger. I was very annoyed and told the overweight HV to try following her own advice .