5.5 month old baby is FAT says health visitor

[ELongstocking]

My 5.5 month old baby daughter now weighs 9kg, which is about 20lbs. She's off the chart for height, but according to the health visitor that doesn't matter. When she was weighed last week, I had a 20 minute HV "discussion" about the dangers of childhood obesity blah blah blah, the importance of feeding her lots of fruit and vegetables and not carbs when weaning, getting her to exercise blah blah blah.

I used to enjoy every bit of looking after my baby and not worry about her weight at all, and now I am sick with worry. I wish I'd never been to see the &%$%* HV.

Has anyone else had this experience? How did you deal with it?

To be honest, I think the biggest problem is me worrying about her "weight issue", rather than the supposed "weight issue". A big part of me thinks I should just get on with enjoyng my daughter, and forget the whole HV experience.

Some people tell me that she'll slim down the minute she starts crawling about, but somehow I think that's not going to happen. She finds it hysterically funny when I demonstrate rolling over, for example, but shows no interest in doing it herself.

I also feel incredibly guilty that I have somehow overfed the poor little thing, and she is now destined for a life of ASBOs, scratchcards, Jeremy Kyle appearances, boozing, and a heart attack by 40. My sister says "plenty of thin people die too, you know" but somehow this isn't much of a comfort.

Thoughts please.

[FiveGoMadInDorset]

HV is talking crap. Ignore and carry on. She will start to lose weight when she is more active. DD is not skinny but not fatm her weight is slightly above height, all the HV's I have spoken to says this is fine. She has an active lifestyle and now does tramplining and swimming in the week.

[Seona1973]

my ds was also about 21 lbs at 5 1/2 months old (on just formula). I never got comments about his weight from the hv. If she is tall then her weight will be in proportion to her height which means she is perfectly normal.

[Chuffinnora]

A 5 month old BABY cannot be fat. What utter bollocks. Please forget it and enjoy your baby. If you drank high calorie milk and sat around all day I dare say you would be carrying a few pounds, she will crawl and change shape and size and still be as beautiful as she is now. My DS was enormous, looked like a sack of spuds, wearing 9-12 months clothes at 6 months and had rolls of fat everywhere. Delicious he was. You should see him now thin as a pin, once he got on his feet he ran everywhere. You are right stupid fecking health visitor.

[FiveGoMadInDorset]

Also meant to say that if height is off the charts and wight is still on it then she is fine.

[AramintaCane]

My babies were absolutely off the charts massive and it was commented on all the time. They have grown up to be skinny little things. She is talking nonsense don't worry about it.

[knickerelasticjones]

Both my best friend's two DSs were VERY large as babies (also very gorgeous as babies, I hasten to add!). One, I think, was off the scale and I think my friend was told some twaddle by her HV about feeding him partly on water.

They are now nearly 5 and 2 and are very active, totally normal and if anything, slightly skinny boys.

Ignore your HV and just enjoy your daughter!

[ELongstocking]

I forgot to say that the HV finished the discussion by looking me up and down and saying "And you just get skinnier and skinnier". Maybe she is a bit obsessed. Maybe she thinks I keep the baby inside all day stuffing her with liquidised Mars Bars and Cheesy Wotsits while I exercise manically on a rowing machine and make myself throw up.

I really don't know what to think.

Seriously, though, I do want to ignore the stupid woman, but why is there a little red book and a chart and all this weighing if it doesn't matter one iota?

[Seona1973]

I have never had a red book or a centile chart but maybe they just dont have them here (scotland). I couldnt even tell you what centile ds was on (or is on now)

[CarGirl]

I had the paed registrar tell me dd3 was overweight when her weight & height were both on the 98th centile............

Stop going, stop getting her weighed she'll be fine.

[ELongstocking]

Also, when I am feeling brave I think: so what's the problem is she is fat? I can think of far worse things that could happen.

[Pyrocanthus]

Of course she thinks it's funny when you demonstrate rolling over, I probably would. She'll get moving when she's ready.

[PinkTulips]

ds1 was 9kgs at 6 months, exclusively bf til 21 weeks and bf and blw after that.

He's still built like a minature rugby player at 3, not a bit of fat on him but an incredibly 'solid' child and much older looking than his peers.

Her and dd have been within a kg in weight since he was 6 months, sometimes he even catches up on her... there's 18 months between them!

[TheCrackFox]

You know you don't actually have to see your HV at all. It is not a legal requirement.

[mum2RandR]

Ignore her shes talking rubbish. My DD weighed 10kg when she was 22 wks and that was just on formula milk. She was never overfed, she only had the required amount of ounces for her age. She was/is also very tall.

She is now 22 months and is on the 98th centile line for weight and height, so she made it back onto her charts when I was told she wouldnt get back on them.
My HV is great and reassured me that she would be fine, which she is and advised me to cut down her milk intake and replace it with food, as it seemed to be the milk that made her put weight on.

Im sure your DD will be the same as mine, once she gets active her weight will probably stay the same for a while and she wont gain as much as she has been.
My DD has only put on about 1kg in the last 10 months, which is what will happen to your DD when she becomes more mobile.

Please dont let it worry you, I remember being so scared that my little girl was going to be unhealthy and that it was something I was doing, and its not true, some babies just gain more weight in the beginning then others.

My DD didnt roll over until she was 9 months, crawled when she was 11 months and walked at 13 months. She is now very active and loves nothing better then going to the park.

Please dont let this worry you too much, just enjoy your beautiful, cuddly baby. She will soon be a little girl heading for her 2nd birthday like my DD and you will wonder what you were worrying about x

[jujubean]

No such thing as a "fat" baby. Studies have been done on babies and toddlers and as long as they are offered a balanced diet they will only eat what they need. My mum is a HV and has said its only something you need to start worrying about when they're 2-3 and should be burning off the calories they're consuming. Your HV sounds like an idiot...bet she has just come back from a childhood obesity training course or something

[AcademicMum]

If you are feeding on demand, I wouldn't worry. She'll find the weight which is right for her when she's ready. My ds2 has the opposite problem and is just under 9kg at 16 months. The HV used to make comments about "if ever I saw a baby that needed more calories he was it" whilst the paed we were referred to said "he looks great, he's just not all that into eating and that's fine, not everybody is". I got sooooo stressed from the HV and her nasty little comments that my life improved immeasurably when I stopped going to see her. However, now, he is small yes, but full of energy and developmentally slightly ahead of his db at the same age.

I do think there is too much emphasis on baby weight and sort of agree with the Dutch system where they don't weigh babies after birth unless there are major concerns. I'm sure your lo is fine and gorgeous.

[BrigitBigKnickers]

DD2 was HUGE at 5 and a half months (breast fed). Weight slowed right down when she started crawling at 7 months and in her 1st birthday photos she looked fairly slim.

Now aged 11 and as skinny as a rake with the wood shaved off!

[ELongstocking]

This is making me feel soooooo much better. Thank you.

[mumofeve]

I know SO many people who don't even bother getting their babies weighed anymore because of the worrying ( and IMO unnecessary)comments of HVs - whether cos their babies are deemed too small or too big. My DD was on the 98th centile once she was weaned, and I used to get a lot of comments (mostly from my mum actually!) about not feeding her too much (she did have a huge appetite!). She is now 3 and is under the 91st centile - although how she is not lower I don't know, as she is very slim - and I struggle to get her to eat a thing. When your DD gets to 3, and is too busy to eat, you will look back on her good baby appetite with great fondness !

[cory]

I shall be getting this morning's exercise by rofl'ing at the thought of lecturing the mother of a 5 MONTH OLD on the baby's avoiding carbs!!! This should make me slim and beautiful.

But seriously, this is dangerous advice and somebody ought to pull your HV up about this. There was an article in the papers a few years ago about children of over-health-conscious parents becoming malnourished because their parents fed them the sort of diet that would be good for sedentary adults. A child is NOT an adult! A small child in particular is using up masses of energy and needs the nutrition in fat and carby foods to grow. It is NOT healthy for a a toddler to live entirely on fruit and vegetables and there have been instances where children have had their health damaged by an overambitious diet.

[FernieB]

Your baby is 5.5 months old - quit going to see the HV. I never met one that talked any sense. They are obsessed with charts and forget that babies are individuals who develop at different rates. Your baby sounds perfectly healthy. Just enjoy her!

I stopped having anything to do with mine after a couple of weeks until she turned up when my DD's were 4 months old to talk to me about weaning. I informed her they were already eating solids and she left in disgust after giving me a lecture on weaning them too early. According to her I should have let them be hungry until she said I could wean them.

[Pyrocanthus]

Good points above - Leonie, I had a twig too. I cried after her 9 month check when the doc said I must do something about her weight - fast, but another doc in the practice later rolled her eyes and said, 'Just because his babies were all huge...'.

I had a superb HV when DD1 (not the twig) was a baby, really supportive and knowledgeable and used to calm down pfb paranoia with 'There are 100 different ways of doing it right,' and 'Remember, babies can't read the manuals'. Then I moved house. All subsequent ones seemed to be reciting government policy and extracts from the manuals (that I'd read!) and never really seemed to engage with me or my babies.

There've been some reports of really weird advice from HVs on here recently - either some of us aren't listening properly, or there's a problem with some of them. I'd love to hear from any HVs on Mumsnet - there's always a teacher around to put their case on the education threads. This isn't intended to be anti-HV, but they have such an influence over our lives when we have little ones, and we need to be sure we can rely on them.