Fat shaming baby

[Alee36]

Perhaps a bit of a sensationalist title! 😂 Writing mostly for a rant, but otherwise, for any genuine advice. More a 'am I being oversensitive' than unreasonable.

I am a ftm to my darling little girl, who is 3 months this week. She was born at 40+5, weighing 6 pounds 15, a decent and average birth weight I thought, though it was cited that she was 'small for her gestational age', by a number of midwives and by health visitors at subsequent visits.

LO is ebf, and was slow to put on weight, not any cause for concern, though consistently mentioned, and I was asked to consider supplementing feeds with formula (I didn't in the end as she started to catch up).

At her last weigh (14th Oct) my LO was 13 pounds 4, I've taken her today and she is 15 pounds 6. I am/was absolutely made up and relieved with her weight gain, given her slow start and the fact that breastfeeding is so hard to quantify.

The health visitor on hand today said 'hmmmm she's in the 91st percentile and hasn't moved since last time, bring her back for monitoring next month'. I was anxious as my first assumption was that she wasn't weighing enough, but when I asked if all was okay, she said that if my baby was bottle fed, they'd be suggesting dropping a few ounces, but that they couldn't say that to me. Then she said 'I can see that she's tall, so maybe it's okay'.

MAYBE??? What's the issue here, is there one? I was also struggling to get back on my baby's suit as she was wriggling and the woman said 'maybe it's a bit small for her'. (It isn't). I was outraged. I'm not slim myself so felt like there was an overall judgement there. I'm probably being oversensitive, but convinced it was an odd exchange all round. AIBU?

Is my baby huge? Can you overfeed breastfed babies?

Thanks!

What an utter idiot of a HV. I'm sorry. You have a healthy baby.

My oldest was born at less than 5lbs. She caught up around 6-9 months and has always been in the 90+ percentiles, sometimes 98%. She is 4 now and wears age 6 clothes. The doctor said that as long as her height and weight are both increasing on the curve then there are no issues. They have never once been concerned.

On the flip side my younger one has always been under 10%, and I would give all the money in the world to kick him up a few percentiles and get some meat on his bones.

Enjoy your healthy child, hopefully if she is well fed then she is sleeping great too!

Ignore ignore ignore

Those charts are made up years ago from non representative populations. They are worse than useless.
Is your baby happy, she pooing and weeing plenty, is she putting on weight nicely? Yes. OK great then you're doing a great job mum and don't worry about a thing !

Some babies are just fat, my sister was like that. Had massive cheeks. My dad would say "I don't like the fat ones" to her.

Honestly try to rise above it. If your daughter is hitting milestones then there generally isn't anything to worry about.

Put it this way my youngest was born at over 10lbs at 39 weeks, he was actually above the top centile. At his two year check I was told he'd be overweight at school if he carried on. Bearing in mind he had dropped to 75th centile over this two year period. He's also 75th for height, he is solid but definitely not overweight. I stood my ground and asked her what she was insinuating when myself and my eldest have normal BMI's/middle centiles. She did backtrack when I asked her shouldn't she be more concerned that his weight had been on a downward line since birth?

A HV did the same when my baby was 3 months too. She was EBF and a real chunky monkey. Luckily my 2nd child so I just smiled and ignored her. She was actually bigger than average up until about 15/16 and now 19, she’s 5ft 7 and a size 4/6.

That HV sounds a melon. You can't overfeed a breastfed baby! Well done getting feeding on track. It's so tough in the beginning when HCPs sigh and says oh dear, but don't offer any practical help!

I was always told you can’t over feed a breastfed baby. By my health visitor! My first was fat, very fat. He was EBF and on the 98th centile by the time he was about 5 months.

People used to make comments about his all the time, sometimes strangers would poke him 🤨 He was a complete porker until he was about 18 months, and then he slimmed right down.

Goodness does she know that the NHS website says:

Do not worry about feeding your baby whenever either of you wants to. You cannot overfeed a breastfed baby, and your baby will not become spoiled or demanding if you feed them whenever they're hungry or need comfort.

I think she needs some more training. I wouldn't be going back.

Just stop taking her and don't worry would be my advice.

Hi there it's a midwife with specialist infant feeding training (as well as a mother of 2 exclusively breastfed babies who only slimmed up once they started crawling). You can't overfeed a breastfed baby. Well done on your breastfeeding journey!

Pay her no heed.

Anecdotally, mine were both larger babies at birth (9lb 13 and 9lb 5 respectively), and proper chubby (bottle fed) babies. Both 91st percentile the whole time they were still getting weighed.

Fast forward 16 and nearly 13 years, both are tall and slim. They had both grown out of the chub long before they started school.

My DS was 8, 2 and ebf- he was a right little chunk even when just having my milk. Your HV is being unnecessarily critical- sounds like you are doing a great job!

I wouldn't worry. My son gained at an above average weight and became chubby. Now he keeps growing taller but hasn't gained much and is very thin. I'm grateful he had a bit of weight to spare bc he sure needed it later.

Plus when they start picking up bugs when they're older it can be harder to gain weight.

When I had my first, one of the other FTMs at a baby group was breastfeeding a baby who was, objectively, large compared to the others the same age and was shooting off the percentile charts. This FTM was a HV herself, and she was being told by the HV she was seeing to feed less (and being accused of secretly feeding formula!) she just said 'yes, ok' when they told her to feed less and then ignored them.

Your 3 month old is at the same weight my kids were at 18 months. The hv absolutely did the right thing in wanting to monitor it. Not to scare you but her worries won’t be related to obesity but other disordersz

Midwife here, it's not at all possible to overfeed a breast fed baby. Ignore the HV who should quite frankly have told you what a fantastic job you are doing and not make you doubt yourself.
Keep doing what you are doing. Your baby is thriving all because of YOU.💖

You can overfeed a breastfed baby because mine would guzzle so much that he then kept being sick 😅 He never got fat, but he never stayed still long enough unfortunately (no bald patch, no chubb rings on legs). His appetite continues but he's really tall and does loads of sport, so still not fat (not super skinny though like some boys, he will probably have to watch his weight if he gets a desk job).

Mines nearly 4 months ebf and I haven't bothered seeing the health visitor or getting her weighed since the initial early weighings because of this sort of reason, I can see mine is gaining a lot of weight but they are supposed to!

Please don't think on it,I had to reassure my Dil who was very worried that my gorgeous,chubby little granddaughter was perfectly OK and not overweight from being ebf for 7 months.She was 9lbs born.Her HV said similar to yours.

Taking your baby to get weighed is optional. If you’re happy with how she’s growing then don’t take her. It’s unnecessary and like you said you spend more time awkwardly trying to get them dressed and undressed. I took mine a handful of times - my DD sounds similar to yours small for dates but v quickly filled out.

Tell her the next time she comes for a visit that you will stop feeding her Lindor Truffles. That is just as ridiculous as what she is saying.

It's not possible to over feed a ebf baby they will have what they want and need. All babies are also different due to their genetics!

DS1 was a chunker when born by 6 months he was 25th for weight 98th for height where he has stayed regardless of me boosting his calories with weaning and him eating like a horse at 5 years old!
Keep doing what your doing.

It’s a load of rubbish. I had two babies - at the three month check one was 91st centile, one was 8th.

Theyre now 2.5 and 4 and both tracking around the 70th for weight for the bigger one and 50th for the smaller one, with corresponding height.

Yanbu

You can't overfeed an ebf baby

This is why I never went back to my hv after nonsense comments like this with dc1.

If your children were really 15lbs (not kg) at 18 months then they were well under the 0.4 percentile.

OP’s baby sounds fine.