To wonder if fat people overfeed their babies....

[LittlebearH]

Ok...bit of a judgy one I am guilty. I am ready to get flamed!

But I have been to a few baby groups there and cannot help but wonder why a few (VERY) large mothers seem to have overweight babies.

One this morning had a 4 and a half month old who weighed 20lbs and she was weaning him already too. She also told me he has 7 7oz bottles a day. He was just over 8lb when born 2 weeks over due.

My DD is 9 months and only weighs 18lbs and is fully weaned. She is on the 25th centile and I am not underfeeding her!! :)

I was a bit when she told me he is weaning him. Is she over feeding??
Has anyone else wondered this?

My hairdresser told me that when he was 2 he was put on a diet because he was termed a really "fat" baby. He is a really skinny man now in his 30s

I just cannot see how anyone can term a baby as fat? Babies are supposed to have fat on them, they are not little adults, they are babies ffs!

OTTMummA I like you. Well said

OTTMummA

Of course I dont want to make anyone feel crap. It was just that I wondered this from the women I saw. I wasnt being judgy as such. I knew that people would think me so. Hense why I knew some people would go mad at me on here.

It just seemed that this was maybe the case from these women I have seen. I already apologised that I meant to change the title post and forget as DD was clambering on me.

I also say that my DD is rather small.

It just seemed that these babies were being weaned too early and they were not chubby but very very large.

I accept I have probably offended some people but that was not my intention. It was just to get some insight as to why these babies are large. If indeed a coincidence.

Can find a link to the Channel four program.

Think this might be one of the research papers on this - not sure as have not had time to read it throughly.

www.clinsci.org/cs/106/0141/1060141.pdf

The offspring of dams fed a low (8 %)-protein diet were significantly (P

I am not overweight and my DD was a porker as a baby- you'd have had a field day, OP judging the fuck out of me! She was 20lbs by the time she was 5 months old, all milk.

OTOH, My sister is obese yet her DD is 9 months younger than my DD (now 3) and weighs a teeny 22lbs aged 2 and a half. My DD weighs about 34lbs. Both are totally healthy and eat normally.

YABU to assume anything about someone based soldely on how fat or non fat their baby is!

It just seemed that these babies were being weaned too early and they were not chubby but very very large.

There is often pressure from HV and others to wean large babies early because of the idea they can not be satisfied with just milk. This is especially true IME with bf. If your bf and you had large baby who is coming down the charts to their natural size your milk is not enough but mothers bf who put on loads of weight with bf are under pressure because it must be a stain on them to feed LO who will soon not be satisfied. Makes no sense - but there you are especially as early weaning food are frequently less calorific than milk.

There is also a culture of early weaning in some areas.

I've got past the stage of being personaly offended OP.
I just know how it feels when you're insecure as a larger person.

Instead of wondering and assuming from afar, why not try and help?
We are all culpable as a society if we all take the view of its not MY problem, so i will just sit on the side lines and point the problem out, not actually do anything positive to change the situation.

LittlebearH
Its your kind of unpleasent judging that makes going to toddler group the torture it can become for anyone different.
What you need to ask yourself is would you say what you posted out loud in toddler group or with your friends or would you be concerned you'd cause offence?
DS1 born on the 98th centile stayed there until 2 EBF till 8 months
DS3 born on the 9th cantile- still there EBF for 6 months
CHildren are what they are
I'm pretty avarage (size), my children are spectacular!

Children on 25th centile underfed?

All mne were seen by Paeds about slow gain- ds4 especially as he had a (self resolving) heart murmur.

They were fine, well fed.

They're gannets, with one side of the family all with a tendcency to being overweight (not all overweight but have to work very hard and have had to lose weight at times), and one that is all very underweight (MIL 6stone, FIL 8, if I touch my fingers thumb to thumb and index to index to make a loop, can get the loop around BILs thigh).

Babies have two parents generally, and most fathers are about, especially when baby is little. You'd need to know dad's weight too to build anything of real note about family diet, and not just that Mum was overweight when they met but hasn;t actually agined in three years as dad does the cooking.

I am very insecure as a boring mediocure average sized person beleive me and have anxiety issues too.

I always want to help anyone if I thought I could but people are very sensitive when it comes to their DCs. Me included.

Maybe I was being unreasonable, I was wondering not assuming. But I wonder how much HVs advise on amounts to be feeding rather than the method of feeding.

By doing this thread I am amazed at the variation in sizes of babies whether mum is fat thin or whatever.

Wonka It was not unpleasant judging. I just wondered in some cases.

I think it depends on if the mother is fat and stupid or just fat. Chances are that if she is just fat , she is perfectly aware of the mistakes she is making ie. eating too much and not exercising and is therefor unlikely to pass these habits on to her children. If she is stupid and fat then it is almost inevitable her baby will be fat too as she will unwittingly feed it the same crap!

A 13lb baby??

placenta flow affects birth weight - which I suspect is governed by genetics - as all the woman in my family have large babies while not being obese themselves.

LittlebearH
One this morning had a 4 and a half month old who weighed 20lbs and she was weaning him already too. She also told me he has 7 7oz bottles a day. He was just over 8lb when born 2 weeks over due.

8 lb birth weight is on the good side - though was lighter than all mine. Perhaps she is facing pressure or thinks she should be keeping his weight high to follow a chart? People do assume larger babies should stay that way. It will probably drop when he starts crawling and depending on what he is weaned on that may bring it down. While four months is earlier than the recommended 26 weeks it is not so early that it is extreme.

I thought this must be some sort of joke thread - I see not. How very disappointing.

A friend of mine is quite overweight. When her DD was a baby/toddler she hardly ate or drank anything. My friend was quite frantic. Nobody took her seriously and she got no real help or advice.

I could see how little her DD ate. Had she been my child I'd have been worried too. Unfortunately I think all the medical professionals saw that my friend was overweight and just assumed that she was trying to stuff far too much down her DD, and that her DD was eating normally. Which was NOT the case, her DD ate practically nothing. Made me and

"Toddler Taming" has a cartoon to the same effect - fat mother complaining that her baby hardly eats a thing. Oh ha ha. Well sometimes it's bloody TRUE.

I think its because the baby was ff instead of breast feed as there is more fat in ff than beast milk

Witchcat - human breastmilk 4.2g per 100ml
here
Formula - 3.6g per 100ml here

A common misconception about formula is that it has more fat.

Hmm had babies on the 98th centile and ny current baby is diddy on the 2nd centile, same weight throughout all. All healthy just their own sizes.

So guess, would that make me underweight or over weight

I can see the outrage, imagine op if people judged you in passing thinking you were neglecting your child by under feeding her when in fact that is not the case.

Lol!! My chunky DS was a whopping 19lb 03oz at 12 weeks old...he was 7lb 15oz at birth and was EBF till 4 months old! Health visitors flapped as he was way above average...he is now 2.6yr weighing about 36lb, is 3ft 3" tall with huge size 9 feet!
I'm slim and short and daddy is 6th 4 and skinny too!
So as much as understand what you're trying to say, you ABU to generalise!

OP, my DD1 was barely on the 9th centile at 9 months, I could carry her round for hours literally in one hand, tiny thing. But 18lbs! 25th Centile?!! Are you fat too? You need a nice thin baby, only the best people have one.

What? Did I say something wrong? Just getting into the spirit of the original post.

Fuck me, is it stone fat people day on Mn?!

I just wrote a really long post but cant be arsed to post it because frankly you and your judgyness have pissed me off....I'll be sure to starve my DC when I have them, what with me being a size 24 and all, I wouldn't want people thinking I overfeed them

I have a really skinny friend, been underweight her whole life who admits that she fed her DD huge portions of whatever her DD desired, at any time of the day or night, because she had spent her whole childhood feeling very hungry, and in her opinion, she was practically starved. She never ever wanted her DD to feel hunger, so terrible was it for my friend.

Her DD very quickly realised the way to get 100% of her mum's attention was to say the H word, which would send a shiver down my friend's spine, and she would prepare food for her DD immediately, regardless of whatever else she was doing, it could not wait a moment longer and as a result, DD (now 21 years old) has grown into a very obese young lady, who still regularly demands her mum cooks her egg and chips in the early hours of the morning.

I understand this is an extreme situation, but it is real.

It is not the weight of the mother which decides whether a child grows up with food issues, surely it is more likely if the parents have deepseated severe food issues, not whether they are fat or thin.

My friend is very very thin, but is still driven by food issues of her own, that in turn have given her DD weight problems and probably some food issues of her own now.