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?

The spooning in food isn't great - I'd switch to full baby-led weaning.

Height is often a symptom of obesity at that age, not necessarily a ‘target’ for weight - otherwise most obese babies would grow up to be exceptionally tall and they don’t. To determine if this is a problem look at you and DH - are either of you exceptionally tall? If not then the HV can have a point.

My DS is 9 months old, on the 25th centile for weight and 75th for height - he eats 4 times per day plus snacks but is cruising and walking and so the HV advice is to treat him as if he’s over 1 in terms of snacking advice.

Unless you are really worried just ignore. I keep any interaction with health visitors to an absolute minimum.

"Horrified" seems over the top and I'd be upset, as well. I had a HV tell me my DS had "lost weight" since our previous appt, which sent me almost to tears as I'd been exclusively BFing and was PPD so the whole experience made me feel like I was failing at what felt like the only thing I was doing at that time! Thankfully DH was with me so I had a second pair of ears, we figured she actually meant he'd gone down on the centile chart because his actual weight had gone up. But it was all in the delivery by the HV, I was made to feel as if I was doing something wrong, it still winds me up and it's 10 years later!

I digress. I think you've had loads of good advice here. I think if he's hungry, you need to feed him and from the sound of it, you're feeding him good food. Veg, protein, milk, etc, you can't really do much better. You can try lowering some things and maybe giving him more veg, but I'm sure it's something that will work out once he's grown a bit more. Both yourself and your DH are tall so I bet he will be as well!

@GalaxyCookieCrumble

Thanks for giving me a good laugh this afternoon! Social Services?! FGS!

You do ignore her, let me tell you this, if you ignore a HV and they can clearly see your ignoring their advice, they can and will get SS involved as professionally I have seen this happen.

This is rubbish that my HV with second child always threatened me with if I wasn't excited about her advice - I took family to appointments I felt I couldn't avoid and eventually complained about her and nodded to her batshit comments till that point.

No-one ever had any concerns - I was a 30 year old married well educated woman who's children were frequently seen at local toddler group her concerns seem to be personal dislike about small age gaps - just under 2 years so not uncommon age gap and fact I'd just moved to the area. She seemed very put out I never had pnd on top.

The constant use of SS as a threat does no one any good and SS a very streatched service that has it's own level/ standard to intervene and disaggreeing with HV isn't it.

If you do have concerns talk to the GP - if they think there are issues they can refer on to experts.

of course he needs an afternoon snack

There are a few good health visitors, but by far the majority are a menace to society with power tripping tendencies

IF YOU are concerned about his weight then you could very slightly cut down, but at 8 months they self regulate pretty well with actual food, but you do need to watch the volume of formula & which formula you give him.

He will grow into any excess. It's not like you're feeding him a ton of junk! & putting cola into his bottle.

I could just do with a cuddle from a squishy 8 month old!

She may have been particularly blunt but babies shouldn't have rolls, you are probably over feeding a bit. I suggest properly writing down what is given, then just keeping it mostly constant but replace most sweet fruit with cucumber, carrot sticks, celery

Ignore
And the fat babies, fat adult thing is bullshit.

replace most sweet fruit with cucumber, carrot sticks, celery

absolutely nobody is overweight because they have too much fresh fruit. It might be a problem for teeth, it might be an issue for sugar levels (especially if you're MN-level of weird about avoiding carbs and sugar, but hopefully no one is doing that for babies), but nobody is fat because they ate too many apples.

My ds went from the bottom centile to the top when he was a baby but as an adult he is really thin and looks under weight. I wouldn't worry too much, you are doing a good job on feeding him healthy foods once he is walking he will probally become thinner naturally.

Really just ignore her. I was told by a health visitor that my son was obese at 9 months.
He’s now a healthy strapping lad at over 6ft.

@Sertchgi123

@ 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.

I was being polite. She was fat. Rolls on her arms & legs.

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

Utter rubbish. My DS had rolls of fat until he was about 4. By 6 he was skin and bones and he remains very skinny in his teens despite eating well.

@marvellousmaplesyrup is he following the same percentile line that he always has?

If he’s roughly following that line, then I’ve always been told it’s fine as that’s his ‘natural’ weight. It’s only big jumps up or down the lines that are a worry

Just as a reassurance DS1 was 91st from the day he was born - was so chubby (also tall) until he was about 20 months. And even then he is VERY active with a good balanced diet.

You’d never look at him now (or even then) and think he was overweight. He’s just a bigger child and looks much older than he is (looks closer to 3 years than 2 years)

babies shouldn't have rolls

Come again? What nonsense is this?! My EBF, fussy eater DD with severe reflux (i.e the child ate practically nothing for a year) had rolls, upon rolls, upon rolls.

Many, many babies have rolls. They are born that way. The rolls go away of their own accord once they become more mobile regardless the diet of the child - the vast majority aren't rolling around like the Michelin man by the time they start school

@marvellousmaplesyrup, how active is your child? I'm going to assume not very because as soon as they get up on their feet all those extra rolls fall off. I personally wouldn't worry unless he was jumping all over his height/weight chart. Babies literally come in all shapes and sizes, embrace him and give him a good cuddle.

OK I scrolled through 2 pages of comments all saying to ignore the advice, I didn't read any further so apologies if I'm repeating something already said. I don't agree! An ADULT portion of porridge is 40g! 100g of dinner sounds alright maybe, hard to visualise, but I had roughly 100g of meat, 60g of potatoes and 2x80g portions of veg for dinner last night. I know because I logged in on mygitnesspal. I believe a portion for a baby or toddler is the size of their balled up fist. I quite like the Facebook page my kids eat in color, you might find some useful info on there op.

Ignore her. Surely to God they have more pressing issues on their case load, with real safeguarding issues or where parents are struggling to cope. It sounds as if you feed him a very healthy diet and once they become active most babies lose the chub unless there is persistent bad dietary habits. I feel that sometimes they feel they have to comment just to justify their jobs, because I'm never quite sure what their role is.

Honestly 25lbs at 8m is huge. Fat children often attain height earlier than thin ones, leading to the misconception that their height is why they weigh so much. Actually what then happens is they go through puberty earlier and the height tails off and they are at risk of being left overweight.

Its easy to overfeed a child or baby who loves food, they will eat fast and overfill their tummy before their brain can process it. Their tummies stretch rapidly doing this.

In the hv defense, there are a LOT of fat children around and it's a big problem. Sure she may have got it wrong this time, but it can be difficult to tell with formula feeding and spoon feeding. Can you stop the spoon feeding so he only eats what he puts in his own mouth?

and I'm sorry to say but you do see lots of overweight babies around, which is a bit heartbreaking tbh. It's hard to know on here if that's yours op! :/

I think seek a second opinion at gp?

@Indecisivelurcher an adult portion of porridge is 40/50g of oats plus approx 200ml of water/milk so 240/50g in total. Presumably OP means 60g of made up porridge rather than 60g of porridge oats plus milk. The baby jars of porridge are about 120g.

@Willow4987 and @GrumpyHoonMain Op has already answered your questions. Her DS has been on the 99.6th centile for length since birth and her DH is 6'3"(99th centile) and she is 5'9" (94th centile).

@marvellousmaplesyrup can you add up your DS's average daily calorie intake?