HV has told me my baby is too heavy

[NeverGotMyPuppy]

And I'm feeling really crap about it.

We had his 10 month check. He is weighing between the 75th and 91st centiles for weight but only 25th for height. She said there should be a maximum of 2 centiles difference between the 2.
She told me to stop spoon feeding him completely. This has thrown me because although he has breakfast and lunch as finger foods dinner is almost always spoon.

I just feel a bit low about it because I thought I was doing ok.

@CallMeOnMyCell that's good to know, thanks.

@LoafofSellotape yeah, I was told to introduce nuts ealry, apparently they now believe it helps reduce the likelihood of allergies (obviously not whole ones)

I didn't know this was a thing. DS is 98% percentile for height and 12% for weight. He's just a string bean. I feed him when he wants and he's otherwise healthy. Your son just sounds the opposite. He will start shifting his weight around when he's walking. I'd ignore if you're feeding healthy food when he's hungry.

I wouldn't pay any attention. As long as his diet is healthy that is!
My DS was a right Michelin man at that age and as soon as he was fully mobile the baby weight came off, he's now a skinny 5yo 😊

@mumderland yes it is. As I say I think I've probably made it a bit too fat and calorie dense (coconut milk, chia seeds, peanut butter, avocado) so I think I need to redress that a bit but other than that - breakfast today was homemade 'pancakes' (just egg and banana whisked together) with a banana and some raspberries. Lunch was one slice of wholemeal bread with avocado and some cherry tomatoes followed by a bit of yoghurt. I was out this afternoon and forgot to defrost his dinner so had to resort to a pouch but he wasn't interested so I gave him a back up of hummus on a slice of bread with red peppers. He then had an apple

DS1 was huge - well over top line on the centile chart for weight as a baby/young toddler and about 91st consistently for height. He was properly fat as a baby, however then at 10 months he got up and walked. Now he is just large - not fat at all, 95th for weight and 91st for height. He plays cricket in a league with children a school year older and no one would guess he is 18months+ younger than many of them. HV weren't the least bit interested when he was huge as 'a breast fed baby can't be overfed'. Right.

DS2 we had opposite problem, he started on 91st centile but due to undiagnosed medical problem he dropped to 21st centile. When asked for help as I was concerned the HV said it was fine as 'he doesn't look like an underfed baby'.

@haveuheard that sounds hugely unhelpful! I got anxious just going in. I stopped getting him weighed a while ago and I once made the mistake of saying he wasnt sleeping well. They suggested controlled crying. He was 7 weeks old.

Just saw your last comment - I think that gives you a really good measure of how seriously to take their information to be honest. There are good HVs and dodgy ones and all sorts in between; this I suspect reflects the route that led them into HV work rather than the training they've had specifically to do it.

1 length measurement probably shouldn't be relied upon - you might measure him again and decide he's 50th centile, that's the kind of error range in them I suspect.

Please don't think you should cut down the fats in his diet, fats are incredibly important for brain and neural development at this age. You sound to be creating a beautifully diverse diet for him at the moment. The area to be most cautious of with regards to portion sizes would be carbohydrate dense stuff.

My DS was heavy at his 10 month check, right off the centile... his length was about 50-75th? I think.

The HV wasn’t concerned and just said that if it stayed off the charts he might need to be referred to a doctor, but she seemed to think he was just storing it up ready for when he was mobile.

Which is exactly what happened! He’s just turned 2 and has only put on 2lbs since his 10 month review. The HV is happy, and he’s now on a proper centile line rather than being off the chart, he’s also on the same line for height.

I’d listen to the hv tbh . Let him feed himself and he’ll probably not eat as much. Those centiles are way off. Fat babies turn into fat toddlers turn into fat children .

What can you really tell at that age though?
Mine was edging up to 75% but 9% for height - he was breastfed and we did BLW so I know he absolutely cannot have been overeating. Anyway his weight centiles fell gradually after the baby age and now at 3 he’s 9% for both.
I think it’s difficult to get a full picture as a baby because way pre or list growth spurt or just before they get really mobile and the picture can look different.

It sounds like you are doing an amazing job, and your son is getting a diet I would be proud to serve my two! I would truly take the HVs opinion with a huge pinch of salt and not worry - I think kids just find their level and if he is happy, sleeping well etc you are doing a fab job.

It sounds like you’re feeding him great food but possibly just quite big portions for his age? From what you’ve listed for today’s food it just sounds a lot for a 10 month old, maybe try cutting down the amounts you offer? Some kids will eat and eat if it’s in front of them, not all are great at self regulating. Baby and toddler portion sizes are a lot smaller than most people realise so it’s an easy mistake to make and it’s our instinct to want to feed them plenty so don’t beat yourself up but just try some adjustments and monitor it.

Those centiles are way off. Fat babies turn into fat toddlers turn into fat children

Nah. Mine have always been short (~25th centile) and heavy (above 75th centile) as pre-mobile babies and I’ve never had a health visitor bat an eye at it. By age 2 it was closer to 50th centile for both measurements.

I agree with Amy326

I had a big dc1.She ate everything and anything at 6 months old, and was bf too. At that point the theory was that breastfed babies couldn't be too big, and the HV was delighted.

Then I realised that basically she ate anything you gave her. Whole banana for snack-that's an arm full of banana at that age! Clearly way too much.
What I did was cut back the amount I gave. So I'd only offer a 1/3 a banana at a time. I cut totally back on things like biscuits for snacks and made sure she didn't breastfeed just for comfort unless she was ill.

I can see why the HV is worried. What has been found out since dd1 was a baby is that if you overfeed a baby/child they tend to grow to their height potential early. So the parent thinks "oh they're heavy, but they're also tall, so it doesn't matter".
Problem is that while a mal-nourished child will not get to their height potential even if they then get better nutrition, an overfed child will still not grow above theirs. So if they've been overfed they just grow early.
Parents think "oh they're naturally tall, they'll slim off when they get to their full height" and they don't grow more. But because they're used to over eating, they find it hard to stop that habit. That's when they become overweight.

For me dd1 was very tall as a baby and toddler. She's now average height. Whereas dd2 who was similar height but ate nothing and was much lighter is still very tall.

Exactly what Witchend said. As I said in my post upthread, my DS was tall and heavy. He got taller and taller and heavier and heavier because he was over fed (he was breastfed but greedy - it is possible to overfeed a breastfed baby). Based on his unusual height at say 5, you'd expect him to be an unusually tall adult, but he's not, he's a respectable but not exceptional 6ft 1inch. He is however an outlier in our family of average height skinny minnies.

yeah, I was told to introduce nuts ealry, apparently they now believe it helps reduce the likelihood of allergies (obviously not whole ones)

I was think whole ones,didn't even think of peanut butter,sorry. Mind you I did exactly the same and ds developed an allergy at 2.5 so I'm not convinced it makes any difference.

Thanks. Yes I will carry on spoon feeding him a bit but reduce his quantities. He has a whole banana every morning with then either porridge and raspberries or pancakes.
Is a slice of bread too much?
He doesn't snack at all, I've never let him.

@LoafofSellotape no you are probably right!

Offer him the spoon to feed himself,load it up and see if he picks it up.

He has a whole banana every morning with then either porridge and raspberries or pancakes

That sounds loads tbh, my dad would never have eaten all that at 10 months,does he eat the whole lot or just bits of what you offer?

@Pythonesque thank you.
He actually doesn't really eat a huge amount of.carbs apart from fruit
Often his evening meal will be curry or chilli or something but without the rice, I wanted him to have more protein. Sometimes after dinner I will give him a bit of yoghurt and fruit or chia pudding.

I'm just so scared now. I'm really trying to trust my instincts but they apparently aren't right.

I might try and remeasure him, just to see.

He eats the whole banana and will eat the vast majority of the pancakes.

I had a child like this too. One that ate anything and everything. I still didn’t worry when he was on the 95 centile.
Ten pint when I started to be more careful was when he was about 2yo and clearly wasnt loosing as much ‘baby fat’ as you would have expected.
And still then I didn’t put him on a diet or restricted his food intake. I just gently taught to stop eating when he was full and redirected him towards fruits instead of biscuits for snacks.

He carried on eating for two as a child (like his dB who has always been ‘skinny’) and raised many eye brows each time he went to one of his friends house. But wasn’t overweight.

He is a teenager now and skinny/lanky (his words).

I wouldnt worry about the comment of the HV. Imo it’s as unhelpful as comments that you can’t overfeed a bf’ed baby we used to have etc...
But I would start ‘listening’ to your baby, check if they are hungry or not rather than being fully led by him. Check what sort of food he is eating too.

If anything what I would give him is vegetables tbh.

I'm just so scared now. I'm really trying to trust my instincts but they apparently aren't right Get the Annabel Karmel book and compare what's in there to how much/what you are feeding . I thing BLW might be a good suggestion actually as it might slow him down a bit and he will take what he wants.