baby clinic says my baby needs to lose weight!

[lovezara]

Hello mums! I'm newly registered here so please give me time to adjust on how the whole forum works. I've been a regular reader for a while reading threads that relate to me.

So i'm a first time mum and loving it. I have a 6 month and 2 week girl.
so i've payed a visit to the baby clinic today morning and got out of there extremely upset and worried. my little girl is quite big, although i should first tell you that her father is 6ft tall and extremely big boned, his family's babies so far all have been big babies so naturally she has chubbiness n her genes. She is currently in the 95 to 98th percentile weight on their charts, she weighs 9.3/4kg.

the health advisor told me that i feed her too much and should decrease her formula intake to 18 oz a day. she currently has 5 6oz a day (although she usually doesn't finish them) and 3 meals a day, breakfast lunch and fruit for desert. She told me keep her meals the same but give her about 4 3 oz milk a day but for her to be ruler dilute the bottle with however much water i want.

I just think that's a bit too extreme but i also don't want my baby to stay like this and also she still doesn't sit up and hasn't rolled over yet, so that worries me a lot!!

the health advisor thinks her development is being delayed due to her weight and told me if she hasn't lost weight from now to 6 weeks she'll refer her to a dietician. I'm extremely worried and really don't know what to do!!

Sorry for the long post but hope i get some advise on what to do, currently i'm thinking of just following her advise and see what happens??

Apple Cow's milk can be given as a main drink after 12 months.

sorry her height is 71 cm , that's an old measurements

yeh i think i will book an appointment with my gp just to be sure, otherwise i'm not really psyched on starving my baby

Agree with fliss.

I couldn't remember... Thanks for clarifying.

Can I also add op that even if your child is a little 'overweight' (although I'm not sure that term can or should be used about a 6 month old)... I'm sure it has nothing to do with rolling or sitting up. Babies do that at very different times, please don't worry.

Oh god I can't work it out then. The who chart, is the measurement down the left side in centimetres?

IME I had lovely HV who were reassuring and helpful and others who made me worry about things that hadn't occurred to me until they mentioned it, one panicked me about asthma (until my GP informed me babies that young didn't get asthma and my DS had a cold) and another who was forever trying to get me to stop breastfeeding. If I was ever in doubt I referred to my GP and of course MN!

Don't worry apple, cows milk is fine in cooking at that age but not as the main drink until they are one. I think a lot of people get confused over that too

Using the weight 9.3kg and height of 71cm, an online centile calculator says that your DD is over the 97th centile for both - which puts her in proportion.

Big, but in proportion, and that's the important bit. Some people do not understand that all babies shouldn't be on the 50th centile.

The HV has given you shocking advice in telling you to water down your DD's feeds, and I'd consider reporting her for that. She clearly needs to update her training.

OK, 71cm looks like 98th centile to me - 9.3kg is around 98th as well, in which case she is a perfectly in proportion big baby, not overweight at all.

I would keep an eye on her milk intake, it should begin to drop as she eats more. Just make sure she keeps having about 20oz a day until 12 months.

All of my babies were a little chunky at 6 months they soon lost it when they got mobile.

I think that once you are weaning, feeding on demand is not the thing any more.

If she is not finishing the bottles, I would definately reduce them.

I hope you find a way to do this without feeling that you are starving your child! That can't be a good feeling. But over feeding is one of the potential problems with formula.

I don't think the OP should be keeping an eye on her milk intake as much as she should her SOLID intake. Baby is only 6 months old...that's when tasting is the main part of weaning...a few spoonsful of steamed veg or whatever...not a bowl full and a pudding of fruit after.

Bump...over feeding is a potential problem when it's given in conjunction with too many solids too early.

As she is in proportion I would stop worrying straightaway and actually give yourself a congratulatory glass of wine. You've done a wonderful job bfing to 5 months and she has obviously thrived on it.

Agree with fliss again on your HV. I would report her and suggest she has her training updated. Please don't worry about doing this as she may be giving this advice to mums who aren't able to come on here and be advised that it is wrong

my 8.5 mth old DD is off the scale for both weight and height-she is a FAT baby (and soooo gorgeous, with very squeezy cheeks). My HV, my GP and my whole medic infused family have said nothing but lovely things, albeit whilst also acknowledging her chunkiness :) I don't know if they are more relaxed as she is a BF baby? She is also not particularly interested in solids, although today did eat "3 meals".

This week she has started crawling, pulling herself up and standing and I swear I can see the chins disappearing already! Your baby has plenty of time to get on the move.

I would second that everyone else said and go see the GP (if your GP is good that is-mine is rubbish and my HV far superior)

I had this nonsense with my DS when he was little. He was on the 98th centile for height and 95th for weight and the school nurse decided he was overweight . I cannot understand why people who are too stupid to understand centile measurements are allowed to give "professional" advice.

He is now 16, 6'2" with a BMI of 20. He is so long and skinny I have to go to specialist suppliers to get trousers that are long and skinny enough to fit him!

It could just as well be on the larger side because she doesn't roll/sit as the other way round. Do you give her plenty of opportunity to move, lying down on floor/bed, tummy time etc? Is she trying to push up, lift head etc?
9.3kg/71cm is about the same as my daughter a month or so ago, so at 7 months. She wasn't fat i'd say, just a bit chubby, and was crawling and cruising confidently at that age.
What percentile was she born on? I think hvs are programmed to worry if they move too far from their starting %ile.

As others say, her advice sounds v dodgy, and you should really thing of reporting.

My 6m twin girls take 5x6oz bottles as well, and like your girl they don't usually finish them (they take about 4-5oz) and breakfast, lunch and dinner. Funny - the senior HV at our clinic said that was all fine, although a few weeks ago the older but less senior one said that them going over 5oz was a sign that they ought to be weaned (!) I think a lot depends on how much she's eating - one of mine eats everything, the other loses interest and starts playing with the spoon after about 2 bites! Despite that they're only 10g different in weight. Babies, eh?

Like other people have said, I'd go for the referral - you'll get more sense off the dietician. The HVs worry over everything.

I've had the opposite problem to you till now - as mine were twins, they were quite small when born, although they're now just over average weight. Till now I've been trying to get them to eat as much as possible but now they've caught up I'm going to try and back off a little - I'm going to move some of the milk feeds closer to the solid feeds. Like, at the moment I give the first bottle at 7 and breakfast at 8, and the next milk at 10.30 and lunch at 11.30. I'm going to try and move breakfast to 7.30 and move the second milk feed forward to 11am so that there's only half an hour between those milk and solids. I'm also thinking (in a month or so) of trying to wean them off the 11pm feed.

Sorry I posted in a rush yesterday and did not quite finish what I wanted to write.

I'd take the advice form this health visitor with a pinch of salt. A HV visitor who advises to dilute formula and who tells you that your child's development is delayed because at 6 months DC does not turn around or sits indicates that she probably doesn't really know what she is talking about.
As someone else said, it is regarded as very poor practice to dilute formula. Equally, if your DC does not spend much time on your tummy, she won't have much of chance to practise turning around.
My DS was never very mobile as a baby, and therefore, looks like a little buddha. The moment he started crawling and walking, he thinned down a bit.

If your DD does not finish her milk, maybe you are offering her too much, so it might be an idea to reduce the milks a little. I do this with DS2 at the moment, I offer 5 or 6oz (depending on how much solids he had) rather than the pre-weaning 7oz.

thank you all for your replies, they all helped dramatically. tbh although the hv's advise was too extreme i have taken a little advise from here and there and changed her feeding schedule to this:

7am: 4oz formula
10am: cereal
12pm:4oz f
3pm: lunch -pureed veg i haven't introduced finger foods yet
5pm:4oz f
7pm: depends on how she seems sometimes i'd give her pureed fruits sometimes i don't otherwise i'd just give her her night bottle 5-6oz formula at 8pm.
although for the past month she's been waking up at around 3am and i'de give her a little water and she'll go back to sleep. she'll drink about 2/3oz. i used to
five her 4oz formula but when i tried water she would sleep much better, it just occurred to me that she was only thirsty not hungry so that was just an extra unneeded feeding!

she seems happy with that schedule so far, and she's the type of baby that will scream if she's still hungry!

to answer previous questions, she loves her meals, she'd eat anything and enjoy it, but she likes it much more when i let her hold the spoon and feed herself so i let her.

i've been increasing tummy time now to a couple of times a day but not for long periods cuz she really hates it. i mean she has no problem keeping her head up , and sometimes she'll sit up alone for 4 or 5 seconds. and for the past week she's started doing these mini pushups as soon as she wake up, it's incredibly cute.

my dd was born at 37 weeks so she weighed 2.6kg. she moved up to 3 kg in 10 days then at 10 weeks she weighed 7kg. so really she was quite a big baby ever since.

i don't think hv judged her to be overweight cuz of me cuz i'm quite small, i weighed 50.7kg when i gave birth and now i weigh 50.3kg and i'm 5'7. i don't blame her for thinking she too big cuz she was bigger than all the babies that were with me in the baby clinic hehe.

sorry i weighed *56.7kg, i wish i weighed 50kg when i gave birth lol

Sounds like you've done a grand job. As he weight is in perfect proportion with her height, I don't think I'd change a thing quite frankly!

I had this. DS was 98th height and weight. The health advisor told me he was a diet and I should restrict what he eats. She then told me he was stupid because he couldn't speak (aged 1). She then told me it was because of the way I'd weaned him (I'd told her I wanted to do blw and ended up doing purée because he wouldn't eat anything vaguely lumpy but I didn't tell her this) and I should let him eat as much as he wanted

I queried it with the paediatrician at his 1 year check and he told me it was nonsense, he was clearly in proportion and what was I proposing to do, put a 1 year old on a diet? As if it was the most ridiculous suggestion in the world.

Developmentally, my DD couldn't sit at that age (she's 25percentile for weight, 75th for height) and nor could DS. DS hated being on the floor, rarely rolled unless in a fit of temper, but walked before he could crawl. DD crawls all over the place and is pulling herself up on things. Every child is different and your child hasn't read the health visitor's sheet, so she doesn't know what order she's supposed to do things in.

Do you give water with the meals? If she's thirsty this might mean that she drinks a little less milk in between. But you know her best, if that's what she needs, then that's what she needs.

I just wouldnt bother getting her weighed again.

And thinking about it I dont think 30oz is that much - my 50th centile baby at just before 6 months had 5 8oz feeds a day. It will go down to around 20 by 7 months but thats when they eat more solids in one go. Make sure she's eating stuff thats filling, not just pureed veg.