To be scared HV thinks I'm neglecting my daughter.

[RoryPowers]

I'll try and keep this brief.
DD is our first baby. When she was born she dropped weight (I know this is normal). I persevered with breastfeeding (I thought this was for the best) I didn't have her weighed but she felt heavier to me.
When the HV came and weighed her she had fallen from the 8th to the 2nd quartile. I felt completely awful like I had been starving her purposely as I had been so intent on breast feeding rather than changing to formula.
She is getting weighed again this morning. I am petrified she hasn't gained again. Whenever I take her to baby groups or on the street people tell me how tiny she is and are shocked by her age.
I love her so much and she is well looked after. She always looks lovely and we are lucky that we can afford to buy her lovely things so on the surface everything looks fine. I'm so scared the HV thinks that this is all a front and that I just think of the baby as a dolly :-(. Any advice or experience or even a handhold will be gratefully received. Thank you.

"Failure to thrive" is like "incompetent cervix" - one of those terms which is meant purely descriptively but puts a knife through your heart when it's used about your baby or your pregnancy. Im glad the terminology is changing, it means so much to nervous new mums.

And don't start me on "Personality Disorder". Fuck off with telling people there is something wrong with their entire being.

11-5 so six hours is too long without feeds for a small breastfed 8 weeker. Could you wake her a two and feed her. If you don't feed in the night not only will she not be getting enough milk that is hie you produce milk for the day by feeding around 2am.

*how

shineynew Id never considered that one. That really is telling you that everything about you is disordered. That's horrible.

Yes. I have to admit that I use it at times because there really is no alternative that would be generally understood (e.g. in a referral letter). But I hate it and think it's bizarre that the MH profession would have chosen it without considering how stigmatising it is.

It will change. I have no doubt that this has and is considered. These things take time, as always though.