to think my HV is an idiot?

[mololoko]

my dd pfb dropped from 50th percentile at birth down to 2nd at 4 weeks. she was tongue tied and had trouble breastfeeding.

I started giving her formula then as HV told me I was "starving my baby". (wish i'd known then what i know now).

have really struggled with bf, had all kinds of problems and she is probably 90% ff (about 25oz a day a 4 months - HV tells me she should be on 40oz). i have always been v. unhappy about ff, and still bf as much as i can and just top her up.

today dd is up to 75th percentile HV says she's fat and i should stop doing the bf and just give her formula!!

aaaaaaaaaaarghhhhhhh. grrrrr.

at least now i know not to listen, which i didn't know when she was 4 weeks old

Report her moloko. I'm a HV too and HVs like this irritate me beyond belief. Centile charts need burning for the majority of normal healthy babies - they serve absolutely no purpose except to wind up new parents.

Your HV is woefully misinformed - ignore her.

Fucking idiot.
She needs shooting.

I would ask inncontly
'A few weeks ago you told me I was starvuing her by breastfeeding. Now you are suggesting breastfeeding is making her too heavy.Could you explain your logic please?'

NHS full of people who don't know what they are on about setting themselves up as developmental gurus but I'll not go there just now.

I recently attended a pilot 'healthy eating for 2 year olds' group. It was run by HV's and the ,new to the area one, gave a talk on vegetarinism. There were no veggie toddlers but one Mum. She went into great detail that current advice is soya milk should not be given as it has added sugar. I did challenge her on this stating that you can also buy unsweetened soya so whats the problem and all she could do was stammer "but its current advice" and was very adamant I was doing the wrong thing (My DS is dairy intolerant)

I thought the advice odd and on checking saw that semi-skimmed had MORE sugar than even the sweetened soya. I was angry that she may be spouting this noncense to mothers who wern't as stroppy forthwright as myself. I bought it up with my HV and she said she had never heard such advice and would have a word.

Saw new HV at Co-Op and she put her head down

It is shocking isn't it? When ds was born, I spoke to mw about the trouble I was having bf, and she told me it was because I had a big baby, my body wouldn't be producing enough milk. So I thought, oh, ok. This was 3 days after he was born so head all over the place anyway, but logically, my body knows what sort of baby it had, and was she saying that if ds had been born 50 years ago before formula was around, he'd have died?

I really don't have time for hv anymore and won't be contacting them for advice when ds2 arrives.

oldraver - I think the HV you saw was confused. Soya formula has a lot of added sugar to make it palatable for infants - been linked with some nasty cases of tooth decay when kid have had it into toddlerhood. Normal soya milk (unsweetened) would not be an issue, I wouldn't have thought, for two year olds. She's mixed up the advice on formula and thought it applied to all soya milk.

(Semi-skimmed (cows) milk has lactose in it - but of course the lactose is there as part of the milk, IYSWIM!)

Good for you for complaining. All she needed to say to you when you asked in the class was 'thanks for letting me know - I'll go and check and get back to you.'