Should I ignore the HV?

[marvellousmaplesyrup]

Health Visitor came round to visit DS (8mths) this week for a general check up.

She said (in her own words) how "horrified" she was to see the size of DS. He's always been on 99.6th centile in both length (now 78cm) and weight, but since being weaned he's tipped slightly off the charts in weight to just over 25lbs. She me feel about 2 inches tall and gave me a proper rollicking for "over feeding" DS.

He used to have around 500mls of formula three times a day, porridge (65g) for breakfast and home cooked dinners with veg (around 100g) for lunch and dinner. No snacks, apart from some chopped up fruit when he was a bit grumpy.

Her advice is I need to cut all of this in half. Two bottles (150ml each) only on waking and bedtime, 32g of porridge, 50g of food for lunch and dinner. What's worse, is that she wants us to go from lunchtime at 11.45am until dinner at 5pm with nothing in between?

Because she made me feel so small and being a FTM, we followed her advice for a few days, but DS is understandably inconsolable and is sobbing with hunger most of the day. He is waking up in the night (despite sleeping through) and takes ages to get back to sleep.

My gut tells me I should probably cut down a bit, but not to the extent she wants us too. Surely there has to be a happy medium? AIBU to ignore her?

@Sertchgi123

Follow the advice, a fat baby will grow into a fat adult.

Hardly... the baby is 8 months old! My son was very chubby but as soon as he was on the moved it dropped off and he’s a very healthy size and weight now with a good relationship with food

As you say, there must be a happy medium. Not cutting an entire meal out.

I'd just cut back a little on portion sizes and see how that goes, but other than that ignore her.

How long is he? At that age my DD2 was at the top of her centiles for weight but way off it for length. She was far too long to record it properly on the chart. It meant that she was in proportion and definitely not overweight.

At 8 months of age your DS will have a lot of growth spurts on the way, so highly likely that he will be fine with what you are doing.

500mls three times a day? So 1.5l of milk a day? Or 500mls spread over 3 bottles a day? Is that all formula or is cows milk included?

I am inclined to say ignore her just because I havent had the greatest experiences with HV for different reasons to yours. Many babies level out weight wise once they start to move more. I feel putting an 8 month old basically on a diet is a bit extreme.

Maybe just focus on only giving healthy food, although what you are giving sounds ok to me, see if you can move lunch to 12:30ish, which means he should be fine going to 5PM without a snack. Maybe keep it to one snack a day of just fruit. You cant do much more really.

My old GP hated HVs with a passion, when I was a FTM I went in with the baby because at the six week check the HV had told me he was gaining too much weight and it was a problem. The GP went off on a huge rant about HVs causing more problems than they solve before reassuring me that gaining 3lb in six weeks was perfectly normal and healthy for his age.

Honestly, I would do nothing. His height and weight are on the same centile and it doesn't sound like he is overeating. Don't go cutting down his milk or his food without speaking to a dietician first.

He's at the age where he is going to be mobile soon and based on my experiences with my own DC, he will slim down loads over the next couple of months as he starts crawling and then finding his feet.

It sounds like he's following his natural line. Honestly OP I would ignore, he's just a big baby! My son was on the 99th for height and weight since birth and is just turned 5 in age 7-8 clothes. He's incredibly tall but then his dad is 6ft 3. I really wouldn't give her another thought

Yes you can’t cut the Formula milk yet. Is that 500 including what you make his porridge with? If not try making the porridge with skimmed milked or almond milk or giving something different for breakfast, toast fingers with banana’s a good one or homemade American pancake fingers with mashed banana - you can batch make these and freeze.

Make lunch later.

Cut right down on the fruit. Where you might have given fruit try cucumber sticks instead.

Why is a baby taking vitamins? (If i read that right) Personally I found HV more help than GP's so followed their advice

Yes I would ignore. Honestly I've had so many friends, or people I mind for tell me the ridiculous things health visitors say. I've had some in tears the latest being my friend who's one year old couldn't thread cheerios through a shoe lace, and only had about 3 word and apparently the health visitor was very concerned about the child's development because of this .

Follow the advice, a fat baby will grow into a fat adult.

Also ignore this comment. Ignorant crap.

In a word, yes. We had a similar situation with our DS, who was incredibly fat at a similar age (98th percentile weight, 50th percentile height - he looked like a baby Kim Jong Un). The HV made me cry going on about the impact on his heart and lungs. In our case, I think we were overfeeding him a bit as we transferred from fully BF to combi feeding as he drained every bottle. So, we tried to trim portions slightly, particularly on the milk (as he can have some water at this age) and made sure we didn't increase them as got older - as I understand it, when they're really small, this is the best way to get them to lose weight as their calorie requirement catches up to their intake. One thing that really reassured me was seeing a picture of me at the same age - I was also a little sumo wrestler and have been a healthy weight my entire adult life (current BMI 21). My mum said I ate the same amount at 1 as I did at 6 and just gradually thinned out as I grew, so am expecting DS, who is now nearly 2, to do the same - I certainly won't be upping his portions for a long time. Much like me, he has no sense of portion control or ability to say no if food is in front of him, so we carefully measure portions and never give seconds. He very rarely doesn't finish a meal or snack. When he was little, we once tried to see how much milk he would take, and after 10oz when he was still raring for more, we gave up before he exploded! Nursery have commented on his appetite too - I think it's just how he is.

So, probably not a bad idea to cut down a little, but the amount of food your HV has said sounds ridiculously small and entirely impractical if he's been used to more. Is your DS crawling yet? We found our DS slimmed rapidly once he was on the move. He's still definitely overweight at 20 months and we're still watching his intake closely, but he's headed in the right direction.

If you have a good GP, go talk to them. There is huge variation in quality of all professionals, health visitors included. Centiles are not easy for people who don't like statistics.

We had a very similar issue (tall, thin baby). Though our issue was the other way round, GP freaked, health visitor rolled eyes.

He was always around the same centile, his weight was on a lower but consistent centile.

See @marvellousmaplesyrup, the hatred for HVs. You really don’t get good advice or a balanced view on this forum, if you mention those words, Health Visitor.

@Sertchgi123

Follow the advice, a fat baby will grow into a fat adult.

Complete and utter bollocks.

@Sertchgi123

Follow the advice, a fat baby will grow into a fat adult.

Not always.

My daughter was really chubby as a baby.
She’s now 10, with a 22inch waist. Very slim without an ounce of fat on her.

Ignore her! That's frankly dangerous advice. If your baby is following his curve you don't need to be worried. I had two huge babies, my youngest had doubled her birth weight by 3 months (EBF) and she's now a healthy 6 year old.

Sorry thread a shoe lace through cheerios.

I would ignore tbh. Pretty much said the same to me about my DD. She looked like she had elastic bands on her arms and legs, she was so chubby. Shes 3 now and has slimmed right down, still in age 2 clothes and runs around from the moment she gets up.

See@marvellousmaplesyrup, the hatred for HVs. You really don’t get good advice or a balanced view on this forum, if you mention those words, Health Visitor.

Thats because so often they talk absolute shite.

He had multi vitamins as NHS suggest giving them if a baby has less than 500ml of formula milk a day. The 500ml he used to have per day is formula and doesn't include the milk he has in his porridge.

He's not crawling yet.

We absolutely do not feed him anything unhealthy - apart from one tiny spoon of ice cream when we went to the beach about a month ago!!

@VeniceQueen2004

Take child to the GP and advise you are concerned about his weight based on what the HV said (name her and quote her) and ask for your son to have a health check.

HVs ime are poorly-trained, overworked harridans who enjoy the ego trip of criticising first time mums. I wouldn't give anything she says a lick of thought if your son seems healthy, happy and hitting his milestones. If she has worried you, speak to someone who actually knows something for advice or reassurance.

Aren't they just I had one tell me I wasn't feeding DD enough on a Tuesday because she had made me wake her up and she was understandably miffed and grizzly. On the Wednesday the same old cow came round again and DD was awake this time and had just been fed. HV had another woman with her and she says "I've been telling this one she over feeds the child, first timer you see, utterly clueless, that's why she's not asleep" Well I'm not ashamed to say she got bloody told. I turfed her out my house and asked if she got off on being rude to women in their own home and making them feel like shit. I said to her she told me I wasn't feeding DD enough the say before now I was over feeding her and she was a disgrace to her profession. You could tell whilst she slagged me to her colleague that she was getting off on it too. She had a face like a slapped arse when I told her to leave. DH was worried she would cause grief so I rang Midwifery team and told them she was a horrific bitch and a bully, explained how she sat talking about me to her colleague whilst I was sat there, and she was knowingly undermining me. Nothing came of it and she didn't come back again, in fact I got a terrific young HV afterwards and she was brilliant

It's not so much hatred for HVs, more hatred for their practices. They have a little checklist for what they're told a baby or toddler should be doing and their advice comes undone when they come across any child who does not fit the checklist.

My HV with DC1 was very old school. Sucked her teeth at me letting him into my bed, sucked her teeth at me formula feeding, sucked her teeth at his weight despite him being on the same centiles from birth onwards, sucked her teeth at him still using a pushchair some of the time at age 2, sucked her teeth at him using reins as he should hold hands, and so on. She even told me he was dressed wrong at an appointment, he was wearing a sleep suit and a cardigan and apparently I should have been getting him dressed so he would know day from night.

By DC3 I had a different HV and she was great. When I mentioned co-sleeping she said that was my choice and she could show me how to do it safely if I needed (I already was), was supportive of DC food issues and fussy eating, when I was unwell after DC4 she said she could help me carry on breastfeeding if I wanted or help me switch to formula or to mix the two, whatever I wanted.

A good HV is worth their weight in gold but unfortunately the profession appears to be riddled with the kind who think their job is to bully and shame new mothers instead of helping them.

@Topseyt - you took the words out of my nouth!

I had 2 health visitors lecture me about how I was overfeeding my son at around 1 year old - gave me a right talking to about how obese he was going to be.

He is 19 now. 6 foot 3 and is 10 stone. I'm still trying to feed him up! Hollow legs.Bean pole etc

If you can get a referral to the dieticians as they are fantastic with brilliant advice for all children feeding issues.

I’d make small reductions IF that suits baby. If baby is demanding more than crack on as your are. When your baby starts moving more he will use the calories.

Don’t let the HV upset you.

Well ignore her on the milk, he should still be having a pint a day at that age - but 50g of porridge is huge for an 8 month old - and adult portion Is 30-40g of oats

@ all leiaskye

Chubby isn’t fat, it’s chubby. It’s normal for babies to be chubby, although some aren’t and that’s also normal.

Dietary habits are formed really early on in our lives. We have an obesity epidemic in this country and parents need to be responsible regarding their child’s diet.