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!

Op 18 years ago my DD1 was a Buddha baby 99 percentile height and 104 percentile weight. She was ebf in fact I was still breastfeeding her big brother who was 18 m when she was born for the first few months.

I was told I needed to go to GP 🙄 by an overanxious HV.

He basically said "wtf" and said she is clearly fine. She was big but I was not over feeding her she slimmed down when she was a toddler but was always a sturdy child, tall and strong. All children are different and built differently, charts are a blunt tool.

She is now at uni and a very normal size, if that helps. Not skinny and not fat.

Health visitors are obsessed with percentiles and fail to reassure parents that every baby is different. They go through growth spurts at different times and can and do move around percentiles, in my experience. 3 months is far to early to impose body standards on her. Your baby sounds perfect and you are doing a fantastic job.

I have never heard a health visitor say anything worth listening to.

My daughter was 91st percentile and no one shamed her! My son was 98th he's now 6ft 4 and 18.5 stones

If it makes you feel better OP, my DD was 91st centile weight around this age… and only 9th centile for length/height!! Basically she was round 😆.

Also born small and was EBF. I think I produce butter.

She is now 9, around 25th centile height (I am too) and no fat on her.

I don’t think you should read too much into it.

You are doing great OP! You have a happy healthy baby, ignore the nonsense

Ignore her! And you don't have to do weigh ins at the HV if you don't want to. You'll be able to tell she's growing healthily without them.

I (naively) took my HV's every word as gospel when my first (super titch) baby was born. Looking back, she wasn't very bright and I was very vulnerable. Your HV is not a guru. She's just a person. They seem to be quite clumsy/ thoughtless as a profession. But maybe that's just my unfortunate experience.

3 months was Peak Podge for DS (who was a small slightly prem newborn on around 50Th centile corrected for prematurity).

I can’t remember what centile he was on at 3 months, but it was over 90th centile. He had rolls of fat everywhere.

Then he started rolling and moving around a bit more, and slimmed right back down again. 25th centile for height and 9th for weight since he was 1 - he is now 8 and still thin.

My 2.5yo is probably 99th percentile for weight, bit less for height. HV wasn't concerned. She's heavy but not overweight. I think it's obvious if they are overweight, not what the charts say.

If you ebf... Forget the weight. I wouldn't even weigh a baby that old.

My kids have been ebf and very different weights. If you feed on demand there is no issue.

10% of the babies that HV meets are going to be in the largest 10% of babies. She’s going to have to get over it.

In fact, rather more than 10% are going to land on the top 10% of the graph since as a PP pointed out, the graphs are outdated and people are bigger now.

As an aside, I twice met HVs who were well informed and helpful. They are out there somewhere, or were a couple of decades ago. Among the twits.

Amazing job on the bf, OP! Enjoy your bouncy bonny baby!

My son was formula fed but always chubbed up just before he had a growth spurt. Just ignore the hv and keep doing what you are doing

The vote is tricky, as obviously YABU with your "fat shaming baby" comment, but YANBU to think it was a bit of an odd exchange.

Ridiculous comments!! My baby was born at 39 weeks, 9lbs 11ozs. Exclusively BF and remained up and around 98th centile. One nurse referred her to GP due to her centile even though it was the same from birth- GP more or less rolled her eyes and said she was fine.

Both my babies were total chunks (not born big but absolutely ballooned once born). They were both BF so I never gave it a second thought. Once they started crawling and walking they slimmed down.

“Peak podge” 😂😂😂

I stopped taking my red book when I got ds weighed, because I realised that when they commented about him not gaining much, it made me subconsciously try and feed him more (formula fed)
After a nightmare with breastfeeding that was so so upsetting for me, feeling like I'd let him down and failed as a mother etc, more judgement was the last thing I needed
YANBU, and well done on the EBF 🙂

Another unhelpful HV. Just ignore OP

I had two enormous babies. It was tiresome hearing the comments.

My oldest was 11lb and 60cm at birth - of course he’s fucking big. Honestly it was unbearable sometimes. Circular conversations that made no sense:

’well he’s very big’

’…yes..?’

’We’ll need to keep an eye on that’

’Ok… what action would we need to take if you’re concerned? Should I reduce his feeds?’

’Oh no - just keep an eye’

’With what aim? What action would be needed?’

’Oh nothing in particular - we just need to keep an eye on it’

I didn’t take my second to be weighed once.

He’s six and currently the height of a 9 year old. Not at all fat. Just BIG.

This was done to me with my first baby, I left the clinic in tears carrying her away because I'd just been berated and I "must have been supplementing" which I wasn't.

I declined HV visits with my second and had only a couple with my third, which is a shame as I think HV in general could be a great help to new mums.

This person is looking out for the health of your baby. It's their job to take note of a baby's weight and how it compares to others. You have a big baby, it's not fat shaming for God's sake for a professional to advise you of this fact. I agree with PP you can't overfeed a EBF baby so you are doing everything right. Try to enjoy baby and not be so sensitive

Thanks for sharing your experience, that sounds tough, I'd imagine really stressful. I trust that all was well as your LO grew up? 💗

Thanks for sharing your experience, that sounds tough, I'd imagine really stressful. I trust that all was well as your LO grew up? 💗

Of course, the 'fat shaming' was tongue in cheek. I'm not that much of a wally 😂 great to have reassurance all the same x

Thanks a million all, for taking the time to read and share your experiences. So helpful to hear all the varying weight journeys and outcomes etc! I'm a novice in this mum business, so lovely to have some feedback and perspective 💗