My baby is huge?!

[Tjsmumma]

AIBU - No my baby wasnt big for age
YABU - Yes my baby was big.

My EBF DD is 4 months next week, is 18.8lbs (98th percentile)!

She was 6lb 12oz at birth. She has a head circumference of 42.5 which puts her at 90th percentile and her length of 63cm puts her at 75th percentile.

So on average a big baby all round and quite in proportion, she is in 6-9 month clothes already in most of the bits and pieces and my aunt has a baby whos 6 months whos only just in those clothes!

Now im a bit worried something may infact be wrong or something is wrong with my milk considering she's so big for her age!

Every time shes been weighed shes been around 75th upwards but this is a big jump up!

Am i worrying for no apparent reason or has anyone elses babies nearly tripled their birth weight by 4 months? She never lost any weight in the first five days and put it on, should i not be feeding her on demand etc? Or am i thinking way to much into it?

Surely theres a lot of bf babies out there, so it would be a totally inaccurate chart and would say 'only bottle fed' but it says babies in general.

The U.K. has one of the lowest bf rates in the world so there aren’t as many as you think.

www.unicef.org.uk/babyfriendly/about/breastfeeding-in-the-uk/

Breastfeeding initiation: 81% (up from 76% in 2005).
Exclusive breastfeeding at six weeks was 24% in England compared to 17% in Wales and 13% in Northern Ireland – see below for more recent survey results from Scotland.
Exclusive breastfeeding at three months: 17% (up from 13% in 2005).
Exclusive breastfeeding at four months: 12% (up from 7% in 2005).
Exclusive breastfeeding at six months (as recommended by the World Health Organization) remained at around 1%.

so only mums/babies who directly breastfeed shouldnt be included by your thought? That's why they include all babies no matter how fed.

I did not say that nor was that my suggestion.

I’m telling you what I was told by midwives.

Either way, if they are following their curve then it's fine!

That’s what I said in my first post.

I didn't say you didn't?

She'll have to be that weight at some point in her life. Why delay it?

phoenixrosehere what does milk intake have to do with growth charts? The growth charts are a calculation of growth with respect to height and weight, over time, related to age, in a statistically relevant population. Nothing to do with milk intake. Recommended EBF milk intake is whatever the baby wants (as long as there is no failure to thrive). I don’t know how they arrive at FF amount recommendations.

You are overthinking it. 1 in 50 babies is on the 98th centile or higher, that's how it works :)

The growth charts in the red books have been based entirely on BF babies since 2009. I know because the changeover happened when my now 11yo was tiny, and it was a big deal on BF forums at the time.

BTW, when you upgrade her to the next car seat, you will want to make sure you get one that goes up to 25kg, not the ones you can more easily find which go up to 18kg or 105cm. She will outgrow those seats by about 3 years old, which most people feel is too young for a booster seat. Britax or Axkid are the brands to look at for rear facing (highly recommended) or Joie for forward facing.

I didn't say you didn't?

I know you didn’t. 🙂

@phoenixrosehere You stated your midwife asked how your DC were fed not that she stated thats hoa growth charts work. Im confused by your answers if im honest.. If it was on intake there would be an intake measure on the chart but there isnt as its completely unrelated. BF babies may be lower or higher on the chart due to the amount theh feed. Simple research shows that its based on all babies :)

@Floatyboat eeh when did i say i wanted to delay it? Just wanted to see if that was norm for BF babies as evrry other BF baby i know is remarkably smaller than her and older is all

@BertieBotts i probably am, like i do with everything 😂 Oh yeah i know they work like that i was jsut anxious as every BF babg i know is smaller than her, even a baby who is a whole year older is a few ounces smaller so i was concerned my milk was producing incorrectly as i know you cant over feed a BF baby, especially feeding on demand and letting them unlatch themselves as ive always done.

Ah see i assumed they were on both! Everything ive read states both BF and FF

You stated your midwife asked how your DC were fed not that she stated thats hoa growth charts work.

Sorry. I should have been more clear. This was back in 2015. They (more than one) said that the growth charts were based off of formula fed babies anyway saying that we obviously can’t gauge how much he is taking in, but he is obviously growing and is staying on his curve so not to worry.

That 2015 midwife was well out of date, in that case.

The growth charts are relevant for both BF and FF babies, but they are based on BF babies. They used to be based on a combination of BF and FF babies back in the 90s and earlier part of the 00s, but this isn't the case any more. Baby formula, not to mention baby feeding patterns (including weaning age) in the 80s and 90s were quite different to today and so these older charts didn't reflect perfectly normal and OK patterns of growth for babies which includes a typical plateau around 4 months old. They also assumed a steady growth pattern from the day of birth onwards, whereas the newer ones have a blank space for the first 2 weeks reflecting that centile at birth is unhelpful and that growth should be assessed in terms of weight loss and regaining during this period. Then from 2 weeks old the centile can be tracked from there.

This isn't a secret, you can read the guidance yourself, it's right there in the red book! Or on the charts which you can download from here: www.rcpch.ac.uk/resources/uk-who-growth-charts-0-4-years

I can show you DS1's red book chart from 2008 if you like, it's different.

I have had one baby who was very low on the charts and one who is pretty much off the top of them Different dads, but actually the one with the shorter dad was the bigger baby!

This was back in 2015.

The WHO revised growth charts were introduced back in 2006 and were based on the Multicentre Growth Reference Study:
www.who.int/childgrowth/mgrs/en/

"The MGRS collected primary growth data and related information from approximately 8500 children from widely different ethnic backgrounds and cultural settings (Brazil, Ghana, India, Norway, Oman and the USA).

The new growth curves are expected to provide a single international standard that represents the best description of physiological growth for all children from birth to five years of age and to establish the breastfed infant as the normative model for growth and development."

The UK was one of the first countries to adopt the new WHO growth charts and they were definitely being exclusively used in 2015.

Your MWs were wrong in what they said, although they are correct that it is difficult to assess milk intake for BF babies. Some attempts have been made to weigh BF babies before and after every feeding but were on the whole very difficult to carry out and of doubtful significance.

@phoenixrosehere still a bit confused as you say you EBF then when midwife asked you said bottle fed, so, did you pump and bottle feed or? Even then the guidance for FF would be different to BF even expressed. Think your midwife had out of date info as from what ive read it's both and others posts it changed a while back. Doesnt matter as such but yeah, i think it would be baised if not and not a true representation of all babies so it would infact be incorrect to even have the graph

I’ve got three DC, same father, all breastfed till 6/7m (with one daily formula feed from around 2/3 weeks).

Eldest was always big. 8lb at birth, 25lb by a year, always put on over a pound a week in the early days, high on centile charts for weight and height. Now a teen and nearly 6ft, skinny as anything.

Middle was 7.5lb, gained around 6/oz a week, has remained around 50th centile ever since. Both older two easily regained birthweight by day 10 despite a few issues with establishing breastfeeding in the early days.

Youngest was born just over 7lb and has always been smaller, no problems establishing feeding and he fed like a little dream but took weeks to regain birthweight and I had to be referred to a specialist clinic. I think he was about the same weight at a year as DS1 got to by 4 months!

So same parents, same feeding method, completely different weight gains and patterns and physical builds, all healthy.

They are all different OP, you may well find your baby evens out in her own time especially once she is mobile with crawling, toddling etc.

My first was the same. Born on the 50th percentile, ebf and 98th percentile from 3 weeks. He’s now 21 and still huge!

DS2 was exactly the same EBF for 6 months and he looked like a little Buddha. 6lb 4 at birth. I am small. I found not believe how huge he was. Huge fat cheeks and endless rings of fat on his legs and arms.

Now 7 and he is skinny. As soon as he got moving he slimmed down and now is underweight

goldpartyhat that is so funny, we called DD little Buddha as well! At one point her GM bought her a ballet outfit and she looked like a sumo wrestler in it!