Introduce a bottle?

[Corbby1]

Hi all,
My baby is 11 weeks old and has always been on the 50th percentile. He has recently dropped to the 25th. He is exclusively breast fed. I wondered if anyone had had any experience in introducing a bottle (to combination feed) to gain weight?

[LayTheTableMabel]

Hi Corbby1,
We gave bottle top up after breastfeeding at the suggestion of our health visitor to help lo to gain weight as he was plummeting through the centiles. He is now 5 months and ebf. If I needed to introduce any formula again I would wait a little longer and instead of topping up all the time I would probably just give a bottle before bed- nice for partner to settle baby & likely to give a little longer sleep. What does your HV say?

[Alyosha]

My baby dropped from the 50th at birth, 25th at 2 weeks and is now just above the 9th at 16 weeks (measured at 14 weeks...) HV was not concerned at all although I was!

[mindutopia]

I wouldn’t no. Dropping centiles, unless it’s drastic and combined with illness, lack of wet/dirty nappies, something obviously wrong, isn’t really a big deal. It’s normal for them to move around a bit after birth before they settle into what’s normal for them. My first went from 9th to 60th and my 2nd went from 80th to 50th. Totally normal and fine. Just keep feeding on demand and make sure you’re eating and drinking plenty.

[Corbby1]

Thank you very much for your replies.
HV said to carry on and come back for weigh in in 2 weeks time so I'll ask her then if it hasn't got better. The bottle before bedtime was what I was thinking of doing rather than mixing throughout the day.
I'm worried I'm not producing enough milk for him, but I guess he would tell me if he was still hungry...

[Alyosha]

Dropping 1 percentile is really normal! Is he very active?

[Corbby1]

Thank you for the reassurance. They said not to worry at the weigh clinic but it's one of those things as a mum that you can't help! It's so difficult with bf to know how much they're getting or if they are emptying a breast or not

[Poppins2016]

If they say not to worry, I really wouldn't. They will definitely tell you if you do need to worry, or even if it's borderline (and give suggestions).

With BF it's all about babies output, i.e. wet/dirty nappies. If the nappies are ok, you know they're getting enough. Another indicator that they're feeding well is that your breasts are very soft after a feed (nappies output is more reliable, though).

Unless you really want to introduce a bottle for convenience (e.g. leaving baby with someone occasionally or for DH to feed while you catch up on sleep) I'd leave it... It would only be one more thing to worry about sorting out!

[Corbby1]

Thank you, you're right, I need to stop the worrying :) His nappies are fine so I will wait and see how he is at weigh in in a couple of weeks before I change anything. Thanks so much for advice x