5.5 month old baby is FAT says health visitor

[ELongstocking]

My 5.5 month old baby daughter now weighs 9kg, which is about 20lbs. She's off the chart for height, but according to the health visitor that doesn't matter. When she was weighed last week, I had a 20 minute HV "discussion" about the dangers of childhood obesity blah blah blah, the importance of feeding her lots of fruit and vegetables and not carbs when weaning, getting her to exercise blah blah blah.

I used to enjoy every bit of looking after my baby and not worry about her weight at all, and now I am sick with worry. I wish I'd never been to see the &%$%* HV.

Has anyone else had this experience? How did you deal with it?

To be honest, I think the biggest problem is me worrying about her "weight issue", rather than the supposed "weight issue". A big part of me thinks I should just get on with enjoyng my daughter, and forget the whole HV experience.

Some people tell me that she'll slim down the minute she starts crawling about, but somehow I think that's not going to happen. She finds it hysterically funny when I demonstrate rolling over, for example, but shows no interest in doing it herself.

I also feel incredibly guilty that I have somehow overfed the poor little thing, and she is now destined for a life of ASBOs, scratchcards, Jeremy Kyle appearances, boozing, and a heart attack by 40. My sister says "plenty of thin people die too, you know" but somehow this isn't much of a comfort.

Thoughts please.

Hello me again

DD is still huge but is such a happy, well-developed baby her weight is bothering me much less. Thank you for all your reassurances. My husband has banned me from ever seeing the HV again.

Out of interest, I met up with the midwife who helped my baby into the world and shared my concerns about having a fatso daughter. She had just read an article in the August issue of "Health Visitor and Midwife Monthly" (or whatever it's called) saying that the new charts in the red books are causing chaos, with lots and lots of babies around the 4 to 5 month mark being classed as obese, as they are based on World Health Organisation data. The article said the data sets don't allow for physiologically bigger Western babies of this age, who are put to sleep on their backs and are therefore not meeting the same developmental milestones that babies used to around this age. They are therefore starting to wriggle, roll, crawl etc much later, and are therefore staying bigger for longer.

I am not sure I am explaining that properly, so I hope it makes sense.

Also, breastfed and bottlefed babies are measured according to different data (there are different charts in the book) so account is taken of that.

I think mothers are programmed to worry endlessly about their children so I am going to have to find something new to give me sleepless nights now...

To paraphrase your thread title "HV is idiot says mumsnet".

My ds was also off the charts for weight and height. He was a chunky baby. He is now 6 and whilst not a whippet of the small boy world, he is healthy labrador size. To illustrate how clueless they are, because ds is so far off the charts in terms of height but still clinging on in terms of weight, the GP recently suggested he might be malnourished. How the consultant laughed!

If you are happy with how much you feed her and are not shovelling liquidised chocolate biccies down her, I would not worry.

So glad to read this thread - had a talk from HV today about my son who is 36 weeks and 24 lbs (between 91st and 98th percentile). I was told he should not put on any more weight for the rest of the year or 'drastic action' will need to be taken. It was really upsetting when he was exclusively b/f for six months and now has a bit of formula in the day and at 10, plus his meals are home-made Annabel Karmel, or Ella's Kitchen sachets (veg variety) when we're out. Hardly pastie and chips! We were told to cut out rice-cakes ('habit-forming'), replace banana/mango with apple, adopt a more confident manner at bedtime and cut the 10pm feed completely. We've worked so hard to get him to sleep from 10.30/11ish 'til 6/7ish and he's a very happy little chap - it was galling. My husband and I are both slim and DH is over 6 foot! I hope our boy will be too :-)

Hmm maybe you should ask for some scientific research to back up those appallingly ridiculous suggestions. The HV system in the uk really is a joke.

My DD was HUGE (she was breastfed). She looked like a roly poly pudding. Actually, I look back at photos now and `m a little shocked myself at just how many rolls of fat she had under her neck and on her legs.

Anyway, she turned 3 yesterday and she`s slimming down lovely.

I`m skinny, and thats why I was never once bothered by how big she got as a baby. I knew that whatever she was it was probably the right weight for her.

Thesedays I do try to make sure I limit the sweets and ice-cream now though, just so she knows not to expect something everytime we go out.

As for excercise, I read a study that said a professional athlete tried to mimick the actions of a toddler. The athlete got exhausted after about half an hour but the toddler just carried on. They need to store up lots of fat in case famine strikes, or in case they`re ill.

Bagabee - that's the kind of advice I was given too. They've obviously all been on the same HV "Fighting Fat Baby Syndrome" training course.

By the way, since I first posted this my daughter has put on hardly any weight at all. She probably just needed a poo before being weighted last time, but the HV was full of how well we'd been doing.

Everything's apparently okay now that we're scraping the bottom of the pink section of the chart rather than sitting a few milimetres into it. I can cancel her Infant Weight Watchers subscription then - that will leave more cash for some tasty "habit forming" rice cakes.

PS: Yes I did go to see the HV again. Despite my husband's insistence that I should stay away frmo the Mad Cow, I was worried she might contact social services or something.

PPS: I've done absolutely nothing differently since the last time I saw the HV.

I was just reading this thread as my hv reckons my twins are the opposite and thought to myself blimey this must be where eating disorders start, with health visitors!!!!! and no I don't bother with my health visitor now either!!!

Having read this thread I'm sitting here all and I just can't find the words for my outrage.

you don't need to see the hv or get your baby weighed at all - unless you are worried about something.I have never had my DS weighed and he is 13 months now.

If your baby is 5.5 months she is only just ready for weaning so how can she be fat? unless she has been fed liquidised cheeseburgers or something crazy like that. they take as much milk as they need. Babies are meant to be a bit fat anyway.

A baby I know who was enourmous at this age (and exclusively breast fed for 9 months) turned into a very lean sporty little boy. I think there's a lot of cod 'knowledge' out there and stuff 'professionals' read in their own diet magazines getting regurgitated.

My 6 month old baby was 'fat and greedy' and apparently needed regular monitoring and a diet

I posted on MN was advised to ignore the silly HV and carry on as I was.

My fat 6 month old is now a very healthy 2.5 year old. She still has a good appetite but I wouldn't describe her greedy and she is not overweight.