DS has slow weight gain, he has been like this since 8 weeks old, he is now 20 months old. My HV has stressed me out about it in the early days to the point of despair. She even said after they pressured me in to putting him on formula that 'oh, we thought his poor weigh gain was to do with your breastfeeding but we can see now that he's the same on formula'. Yes, I told you I was breastfeeding him just fine but thanks for making me feel like I was starving him and that you were talking about me behind my back!
She wouldn't listen when I told her he is very high energy, just kept saying 'they're all like that'. She kept suggesting things to feed him but couldn't grasp the fact that he is very difficult to feed and only eats small amounts. She refered me to the paediatrician and had me worried there was something physically wrong with him. He has seen ds several times, done blood tests etc, says he's just a normal little boy but made small. He said he doesn't put on weight very quickly as high energy and doesn't eat massive amounts and that's just the way he is. He follows the bottom centile nicely.
It was only when I mentioned that he was difficult to feed to the paed that my HV suddenly tried to help with that. She came to 'observe' him eat ad was no help what so ever, she then claimed that this was the second time she had seen him eat - not true at all!! I think she was worried she would get in trouble for not trying to help earlier... She kept saying 'oh I saw him feed a while ago didn't I?' when she called me and I was thinking 'have you???!'
She then refered him to a program called 'moving pictures' as recommended by the paed to see if they could help. The lady came and filmed ds eating. The program is a group of psycholigists that deal with children who have behavoural problems. She reported back that we are doing nothing wrong at all and that he's just not got a great interest in food. She said to just be relaxed and encourage him to play with and experience the food etc and just said it will take time and progress will be slow. She added that she didn't really need to have seen him as he doesn't have a behavoural problem and usually they work with parents who have problems but we don't.
The HV also referred him to the physiotherapist at 11 months as he was commando crawling but not 'proper' crawling. I said I had no concerns about this as he had been a little slow with milestones but not exessively and I could see that he was making steady progress. She still insisted on referring me anyway .
So then I had to attend a string of appointments with the physio at 9am each time only to be told he was fine. Still had to go and see her though as now that i'd been referred she had to see him till he was walking. He walked at the age of 15 months, hardly 'late'.
I was also referred to the dietician, I explained to her he eats small amounts, she advised on high calorie foods and put him on high calorie milk which he's still on now.
I was also referred to a speech and language therapist to see if he had a physical difficulty with eating. Again, I didn't think he had. When the SLT came to see him the first time she said my HV had written to her telling her my ds gags, chokes and goes blue when eating . She also said she was told he had very frequent hiccups. To explain this I said he had gagged 'a few times in the very early days of weaning' which baby doesn't? The going blue thing was because she thought he looked a little blue on his top lip on one occasion when she visited, yes, i'm aware babies get this if they have a little trapped wind but theres a difference between that and 'going blue' everytime he eats. The hiccups were also observed on one occasion on one visit. I told her he gets hiccups 'now and again', not 'very frequently'. I feel like she exagerates everything and is constantly looking for problems with my ds.
At his year check she was not flexible at all on her 'marking' of him on her lists and made him out to be a lot less capable than he actually is. For instance she wanted to know if he would get the 'ball' if asked. Well, we hadn't taught him the word 'ball' by then so no he wouldn't. BUT if she had asked him to get the 'cat' he would have done it no problem. She didn't write down that he can fetch things on request though cause 'get the cat' wasn't on her list. She was just very pessamistic about his abilities and I felt like I was hitting my head against a brick wall as I kept explaining he can do this this and this but she was like 'oh but can he do it exactly like this'. Bascially it made him look like a different child on paper. She also made out he had a weak left hand just because he wasn't keeping hold of a crayon with it when she handed it to him. He just didn't want to play with it! The physio checked this, nothing was wrong with his hand. So, another thing for me to worry about for no reason!
I stopped taking him to her at the clinic to get him weight when I was referred to the dietitcian and paed as they weighed him every few months and were a lot more optomistic about his weight gain.
When he was younger, she had me getting him weighed every week until he was 20 weeks old, then every 2 weeks till he was 50 weeks old! Every single weigh in caused me stress as she would pull her face and say 'only 4oz' or whatever the gain would be. I would then get questioned again about what he was eating, I dreaded it each week. I spend hours googling and posting on MN to find out what could be wrong with him as she had me so worried with her pessamistic attitute and constant referrals.
I went to see the doctor during all this and broke down and was put on ADs and sent for counselling. I am feeling a lot better about the whole thing now. I am no longer depressed and am off the AD's.
I am at the point now where I can see ds is small but perfectly formed and we just relax as much as we can about food. We encourage him to explore his food and he is slowly making progress. The paediatrician is happy with him and doesn't want to see him till he's 2 (last saw him at 18mo). He still see's the dietician as she is in charge of his high cal milk. In every other way we feel he's a perfectly normal little boy.
Sorry this is so long. I haven't seen the hv since his year check and didn't want to see her. She always stresses me so I made the decision not to get him weighed by her. As I said before he just gets weighed every 2/3 months by the dietician or paed which is quite frequent enough.
Anyway, last week he had a check up with the SLT just to see how he is getting on. She was happy with him regarding the food and said to just relax, make food fun, try food role play games etc.
What I am not happy about is her interpretation of him in other ways and also my HV (again). I recieved a phone call from my HV yesterday out of the blue (as I said, haven't seen her for 8 months). She said she had recieved the letter reporting back about Ds from the SLT and had I recieved my copy. I said no I haven't recieved it yet (and therefore had no idea what it said). She said that the letter said we should 'continue to monitor his weight', I swear this woman is obsessed with weighing him. I said 'well we are, he gets weighed by the dietician and paed', she said 'oh cause I noticed you hadn't got him weighed at the clinic for a while' I said 'yes, there's not been a big enough gap for me to need to plus I prefer to get him weighed by the paed/dietician'. The she said 'oh the letter says i would be a good idea to have him go to creche for a dinner time each week to see if eating with other children would help' I said 'yes that was suggested, I haven't had time to look in to it yet'. She was then like 'I can phone up about it for you if you like, would you be willing to pay for that every week' (I don't want her to phone for me particularily, I am an adult and can do it myself). Anyway, I felt a bit arkward so I just said 'yes if you like but it depends on the cost'. Then she mentioned a help with costs form and arranged to come round next week (great!) to fill it in with me etc
Anyway I recieved the letter she was referring to this morning. At no point in it does it say the words 'we should continue to monitor his weight' and certainly doesn't mention the hv doing it. It is worded in a way that assumes he gets weighed already and that we should seek help if his weight drops or he becomes pail or lethargic. This is unlikely however as he has so much excess energy it's unreal and I would never describe him as lethargic. But, if this did ever happen it would be picked up by the paed/dietician anyway as they weigh him...
Another thing in the letter is that it doesn't suggest him going to creche every week. It suggests to try him with 1 session to see if eating around lots of other children would be beneficial to him. So again she has exagerrated and I didn't know as I hadn't recieved the letter yet.
Another thing that has stressed me about the letter is the way the SLT has reported about Ds and how he is generally. She saw him for half an hour when he was tired and due a nap, has never seen him before.
She said things such as:
'Dylan has a very limited attention span' - He was tired and is only 20 months! What does she expect?
'Dylan continues to cast toys such as out of the box rather than continue to play with them for any length of time' - Again, he was tired, doesn't always do this, sometimes plays with toys for long periods of time with excellent concentration.
'Dylans speech can still be quite hard to understand' - He only said about 3 words whilst she was there as he was a bit shy and had never met her before, a lot of his words are clear as a bell and he is only 20 months!
'I have suggested that they should intrude on his wheel spinning and try to encourage some more imaginative play and show him how to brmm a truck or a car' - He likes to spin wheels but it's not the only thing he does and he can 'brmm a car' if he likes, he plays with allsorts, why would I purposely interrupt him doing something he enjoys all the time?
'I do think it's important that we continue to monitor his language development, social interaction and emerging imaginative play and refer to the Portage service in the autumn if this were needed' - I dont' feel there is any problem with any of this, he can say 40-50 words at least, interacts socially just fine and does engage in imaginative play (makes dolls dance, pretends to feed us, tries to ride the dog like a horse(poor thing), pretends to eat fake plastic food, cuddles teddies, pretends to talk on the phone etc etc).
I don't feel the SLT got a good idea of what he's like at all. This keeps happening, hcps see him for half an hour and assume he's a different child to the one we know. I don't want to be referred to someone else, i'm sick sick sick of appointments, I just want to enjoy raising my perfectly normal little boy without people picking and poking at him!
I don't want to see my HV again, she will drive me to despair, always does arrgghh!
Does anyone know if I can request to change HV's? I feel constantly undermined in my ability to be a parent and this affects my confidence, i'm sure it has contributed to my depression and in the early days affected my relationship with ds . I just want to be left alone to raise him. I dont' mind seeing the paed or dietician but all the other referrals seem over the top!
Thanks for getting this far, give me your oppinions good or bad.
Disclamer : I am hormonal and pregnant so I may be getting a little more wound up than usual but I wasn't pg in the past when she upset me. I felt like crying after she called yesteday as I thought 'here we go again'.