12wk old falling down weight centiles

[exBrightonBell]

(I suspect this will be a long post!)

My pfb ds is just over 12 weeks old. I took him to the drop in health clinic yesterday to be weighed as it had been a little while since he had last been weighed. I now kind of wish I hadn't as he has not gained as much weight as I had hoped, and has slipped down the weight chart centile wise. He weights 12lbs
11oz, which puts him somewhere about half way between the 25th and 50th centile. The last time he was weighed he was just about on the 50th centile. However when he was born (2 weeks overdue) he was above the 95th centile! I am now ebf but was mixed feeding for the first 4 weeks as we were both poorly after the birth and it took a while to get bf established.

I am just a bit worried about this trend continuing and his weight gain slowing further. I suppose I am wondering if this has happened to anyone else? Should I be worried? The HV seemed relatively unconcerned. DS is producing lots of wet nappies and pooing regularly and normally. He is a very active baby and is very alert and interested in his surroundings. He doesn't like to sit still - he is always bouncing and wriggling, and really likes to be held in a standing position. I don't think he looks skinny, just not chubby! He is also a very long (98th centile) baby if that makes a difference?!

I would love to know what experiences others have had?

Hope somebody with recent experience comes along soon, but didn't want to see your post unanswered.

The wet nappies, pooing and alertness sound like very positive signs that your DS is thriving. Maybe your DS, being overdue isn't naturally a 95 centile weight.

I too had long thin babies. I remember comparing my stick insect babies with the "bonny" ones my friends had!

Missed out some punctuation there. What I mean is that your DS, being overdue, perhaps isn't naturally a 95th centile weight.

Babies aren't robots, they don't follow consistent lines, for that matter they don't even follow them 10+ years later when they are children & have big plateaus or sudden growth spurts. The charts just tell you about population trends, not much about individuals.

If he seems fine in himself in other respects (plenty in, plenty out, bonny, happy, alert & content after feeds) then I would say he is fine.

Some of DC bumbled all over the weight percentile charts for first 6 months of life. Never meant a thing.

Thanks Marjorie. I do think that the 95th centile birth weight was unrepresentative and more to do with him being overdue rather than anything else. But I am just a bit worried that he has fallen further down the centiles - when will this stop! I would love him to be following a centile line upwards like they are supposed to!

I think you should keep an eye on him over the next few weeks/months and if necessary your HV can refer you to a paed. Its likely that he is just settling into his place and the 95% was just higher than he should be. All of my babies fluctuated quite a bit and when my youngest did I wasn't overly concerned but it did turn out that he was quite ill so whilst I would never say that weighing is bollocks and they are all different etc. but it is likely that it isn't anything to be worried about.

What was wrong with him after birth? My ds was damaged by the birth and this resulted in a temporary liver disorder that meant he wasn't breaking down any fat. He was living purely of the sugar in BM and couldn't go longer than a couple of hours without a feed or his blood sugar would plummet. I thought he was just sleepy until I started measuring his blood sugar. (Dr told me too, I'm not just a nutter)

Eion - we both had a group B strep infection acquired during a prolonged and ultimately unsuccessful labour resulting in an EMC. He was in the SCBU for a week and was tube fed for the first few days, then bottle fed formula plus whatever I could express. Took a little while for him to learn how to latch on and how to suck properly. I gradually reduced the ff as my supply increased through regular bfeeding and expressing.

It sounds completely fine. Birthweight is no guide at all to the centile line they eventually pick - in fact it's not till about 8 weeks, I believe, that they get to roughly where they'll stay. Have him weighed again in a month and if he's still somewhere between 25th and 50th then I would just assume that's where he's meant to be. The HV isn't concerned, I don't think you need to be - he's obviously fine in himself.

I had exactly the same thing with dd1 and dd2 currently 9 weeks looks like being the same. Both a week late, born on 95th centime. My dh and I are both slightly built, though he is tall.
Dd1 slid down the centiles eventually stopping between the 2nd and 9th, all the while she was alert, smiling, developing correctly etc. I excl bf and did doubt myself but luckily had a fantastic health visitor who was incredibly supportive and just said to concentrate on the other factors in her development and given mine and dh build it would be odd if she was 'meant' to be a 95th centile child. She is now 3 and tall and lithe rather than skinny and incredibly healthy. Dd2 has already fallen to 50th and I fully expect her to fall further, but have the same health visitor so luckily not being made to panic!! Honestly, I really don't think weight by itself is hugely helpful. Hth.

Thanks everyone for the reassuring words - I am trying to chill out about it all. There is just something about being in the presence of the HV that turns me into a bumbling bunch of nerves!

did you have fluids in labour then? This can arterfishaly inflate a babies birth weight. Did he look puffy when first born, in which case he probably wasn't a 95th centile baby.

I don't think that I had any fluids given to me via the IV drip, just the hormone they use for induction - strange how the memories have faded already! So I don't think his weight was artificially raised from that. I do think that being 12 days overdue was the main factor for him being a whopper (9lbs 13oz!), although he always measured quite big on the scans. I also probably think that he isn't naturally a chunky boy - his dad is very tall but was apparently quite lean as a baby.

I went through something similar with my ds (though he was born on 25th centile, 1 week overdue, and I had been on a saline drip throughout the labour for various reason). He was EBF and on the 5th centile by 8 weeks, 2nd centile by 12 weeks and the health visitor was quite worried for a little while. But he settled right at the bottom of the chart and has stayed there every since. Now at 2 he is starting to creep up a little, but is still relatively small for his age. I'd just keep an eye on your DS over the next few weeks and see how he does. (Interestingly, we saw a paediatrician when he was 10 months old and she was very unconcerned about his size - in fact she said that at that age they would look at his weight at around 8 weeks to give a more realistic idea of where they'd expect him to be from then on, rather than birth weight).