7 month old - weight dropping down the centiles...

[bitofadramaqueen]

My DS was on the 75th centile when he was born, but quickly dropped to the 50th and stayed on that line for a few months. I don't get him weighed too often, mostly because lots of women I know in RL really obsess about their babies weight and I didn't want to go down that route!

Over the last two months his weight has dropped down to the 25th centile. It wasn't initially obvious because the health visitors marks on his chart have been wildly inaccurate.

Anyway, DH took him to get weighed today and the HV has asked that we keep a diary of his food/milk for two weeks and then take him back. Her tips to get him to put weight on were to give him cereal before his milk in the morning and reintroduce a milk feed with his lunch (which he wont actually take).

He's fully FF and gets offered 24oz every day. He usually takes at least 18 oz which I think is the recommended minimum. On top of that he gets 3 solid meals a day, which includes additional milk/cheese/yoghurt. I guess I worry like lots of first time mums that he's getting the right portion sizes of solid foods, but tbh he doesn't guzzle his food and rarely finishes everything he's offered so I dont think he's going hungry at mealtimes.

Would appreciate any thoughts/suggestions/reassurance. He is of course my PFB.

How's his development? Has he started rolling/crawling a lot?

Seems ok. Rolling a lot, desperate to crawl but hasn't quite figured it out yet. Sits up well, waves his arm at the birdies or his daddy!

Might be all that moving he's started doing? Ds2 (nearly 12mo) was on the 50th centile at birth and for the first few months, but dropped to below the 9th centile by 8 months (doing a lot of crawling and rolling), despite eating and drinking a lot, but has grown lots since.

Could be burning a lot of energy wiggling then. He sounds ok and I can't see what else you could do really.

Maybe someone else will have some input.

Oh, hadn't thought of that at all! He does love jumping around in his door bouncer. Thanks.

Have nothing to suggest BDQ except that babypearls is not putting on weight so rapidly now that she is moving all the time. At her heaviest she was only on 25th centile. Hope someone has the answers you seek though as you are obviously concerned. ((((Big hugs))))

BDQ DS started on the 91st, at three months went doen to the 75th and has steadily been going down even more and about 2 weeks ago at 8 months is just under the 50th. No one has shown any concern. He 's active and seems to be healthy so I'm not worried and it seems like your one is probably fine too!

Thanks all! Bloody centiles...

Three solid meals per day might not suit him, try thi
0700 milk
0800ish breakfast with cereal/toast
1000 juice and fruit and biscuit
1145 lunch with yoghurt
1430ish snack- fruit and cheese and milk drink
1630-45ish evening meal
1900 milk or you can try milk at 1815 and cereal before bed.

If you are feeding your own food you need to remember not to modify fat content i.e. its ok to give chips and roast potato cooked in veg oil because unless they have things like this they aren't getting enough fat, same with some biscuits and butter on toast instead of marg. Due to healthy eating drives many parents apply this to babies which is bad because the human body does need some fat. I had a similar problem with dd1 at a similar age, she had started moving but was only getting 'healthy' fruit veg, meat and dairy which had too little fat content for a fast moving and growing baby. HTH

Thanks for that dillydaydreamer. He's getting plenty of full-fat cheese/yoghurt etc but I've added in a mid-morning snack this week to see if that helps. He's been taking it ok without it affecting his other meals so I'm pleased about that.

Glad that you are managing to fit a snack in as well. Great stuff
Sometimes if babies go too long between feeding and milk their stomachs shrink and they actually take less at meals, by boosting sugar levels regularly it will help to increase appetite.
If you are feeding with a spoon at all meals it could also be a refusal because they start to want to have a go themselves. I started letting my dds do finger food snacks themselves and then they seemed happy to be fed meals until eventually they started to refuse the spoon but would eat finger food meals iyswim. Both lost weight at that point too because they got more on the floor than in their mouths and they wanted more milk for a while. It has just settled down again at 10mths. HTH

Sorry I feel like I'm going on but just wanted to add it is worth checking the balance of the meals.
Babies don't digest meat well so if meals have a high concentration of meat with less cards they get full quicker and take less calories. Try to make sure most of the meal is carbs such as pasta,bread, potato, parsnip, turnip which are high in calories that can easily be absorbed, then some other veg and a small amount of meat/fish.
1 portion of each thing should be the size of his fist closed. Usually a meal would be 4 fists of food in total if it was meat and 3 veg including potato or 3 fists of pasta and a bit of garlic bread to chew on. HTH

Thanks dillydaydreamer. He is in fact eating/drinking plenty and regularly and getting a good balance of meals. He's just not wolfing it down and looking for more IFYSWIM so I dont think he's going hungry. My mum mentioned that I was a really skinny baby (ah, if only that had stayed the case into adulthood ) so it may just be that he's a bit of a skinny minny at the mo.

Well in that case I think you are right It will all come right (or wrong) when he starts on alcohol and Burger king LOL Hopefully not for a few years yet LOL!

I have the opposite babies LOL dd2 is 10mths and just growing out of 12-18mth clothes Not massively fat btw, just massive!

Hi, not sure if you're still reading this but I have a similar problem. My DS was born 5 weeks early and above the 90th. He's now slipped down to below the 50th. My gut instinct says that he is fine and well just finding his own weight but I still get into a flap whenever it comes to weighing time. (Every month). I was like it too with my DD, she was always on the 4th though. I used to not weigh her if she'd had a big poo already that day as I wanted the extra weight!

I've spoken to GPs who say not too pay too much attention to those graphs but to look at the overall picture. DS is now 8 months old and weaning is going well. He does not like his bottles any more which could be my problem. I'm trying to get him snacking in between meals and offering him ready made formula through a cup. It's still early days but I'm not too sure what else to do either.

If it helps though. when my DD turned 1 I stopped getting her weighed regularly and all this centile worry disappeared.