Very active 6 week old weight gain issues

[willyk]

Hiya, first post so please be gentle!

I went to the health visitor today to get dd weighed, and she said that dd wasn't putting on as much weight as she would like. She said that if dd's weight didn't go up by more next week she'd look more closely into it. This has worried me and I'm concerned that DD isn't getting enough milk...... some history:

DD was born at 7lb11oz

She lost 10% over the first week , and regained her birth weight after week 3.

Between week two and week five she was putting on 6oz in 9 day cycles, until this last week when she's put on 3oz.

I've been breast feeding with the occasional formula feed when the sleep deprivation gets too much.

We had our 6 week examination with the doctor last week, which went fine, he commented on the fact that DD moves ALOT. He said she was exceptionally active.

My question is this - would DD being exceptionally active mean that her weight gain would be less than less active babies? I assume that more activity means more calories burned?

I know DD is lean - she's certainly not chubby, but she wee's and poo's plenty, so I've been thinking that she HAS been getting enough....

If she's weeing and pooing lots, then chances are she's just a lean/small baby. My suggestion to you is to stop weighing her weekly. Do it monthly, if you feel you need to, otherwise it's not a requirement and will only serve to worry you further.

Thanks for the response, the HV is asking to see me, I'm unsure if I can put her off to monthly weighings.....

How many times are you bfing willyK?

Is she content on the whole?

You are under no legal obligation to see a HV at any point, just so you know :)

Best practice for weighing for this age is once a month, guidelines are in the red book. You don't have to see the HV, if you want to put her off, make an appt with GP, ask GP if any concerns, and if all's fine, avoid the HV.

I have a skinny skinny baby, and I just can't get him weighed - he's fine, but if the HVs got their hands on him he'd be on formula straight away.

You can refuse to see the HV. Or just be honest with her and say that you don't want to obsess about her weight gain so you will drop in and see the GP if you have any worries but for now you wouldn't like any more home visits, thank you.

How often does she feed? If she has plenty of wet and dirty nappies, and isn't dehydrated, I wouldn't worry, tbh.

If your LO has plenty of wet nappies (yes the dirty ones start to get a bit sparse around now) then don't worry. You know if she is alert and alright.

It's normal for them to go up and down a couple of percentiles, so as long as she's gaining weight and you're not worries, then by all means listen to her, but she can't make you do anything.

I think the recommendation is not to get them weighed more than once a month (in fact I think this might have changed to once they're past their 6 week check to even less).

My LO very rarely put on more than 3oz a week is now down on the 2nd percentile (from 25th) which is just normal.

If you feel she's not eating enough in a meal you can try switch feeding. Also around now, they can drastically cut how long it takes them feed (by about half).

As others have said, you don't even need to see her, or you can go elsewhere.

Oh and ours was and is also very active (so I agree with the theory)

Thanks everyone. Our gp wasn't concerned at the 6wk check-up so I'm going to put hv off.

DD feeds about 8 or 9 times a day for a good half hour. I think she's comforting towards the end sometimes but that seems to be in the evening when wind and tiredness are playing a part. Mostly she's pretty content once she's fed and is quite dozy or has that 'drunk look'.

DD has about 8 wet nappies and 3/4 dirty nappies every 24hrs. She soaks through the cloth nappies in an hour so not using those very often.

Also sometimes when feeding she will come off the boob crying, and go back on, come off again, but there's still milk there....

And Climberchick, there have been a few less dirty ones the last couple of days

She sounds fine to me. My EBF DD also atarted to have slow weight gain from 6 weeks and has dropped from the 9th to 2nd centile. Shes also a very active non sleeper!

In order for the centiles to be mathematically correct then some healthy babies must to be in the lower centiles. Its not more or less healthy to be in a higher centile.

The on-off-on-off boob behaviour is fairly normal, normally peaks around growth spurt time. Don't worry about it :)

Like ClimberChick said, at around this point poo slows down. Babies can then go upto 2 weeks without pooing!