When did you baby double their birthweight.

[strawberrycake]

I've been told 6 months/ 4 months is the norm. Providing ds stays on his own centile that he's carved out he'll be about 7-8 months when he doubles his, probably 7 has he's speeded up a little. This doesn't seem that far off 6 months to me. He's abovethe 98th centile for length so is clearly growing and is now tracking 9th for weight quite steadily without further drops.

Does anyone else have experience of a baby who's a little slower to double. It's the latest bee in the hv's bonnet, though all she's said is 'he won't double his birthweight in time'. I don't know what 'time' is!

they are meant 'roughly' double their BW but 6 months. That soesn't mean that they will be exactly 2xBW at 26 weeks. DS1 (weight gain slowed due to oversupply) was about 9 months IIRC.
If he dropped at first but is steadily gaining I would think that's more important assuming he's happy, meeting milestones etc?

DD only recently at just over 8 months.
She is petite wee thing.

He hasn't dropped weight, just centiles, sorry if I was unclear. He was big at birth so he's not tiny, plus he's long.

Glad to hear it's not unusual! He's ff but allergic to milk/ crap at weight gain :-)

wotmania, I really agree about milestones. As hv talks about development he'll be bloody attempting to crawl belly shuffling and rolling around and babbling, no problem there for a 4 month old!

Around 5 months.

But Strawberrycake, you know he's had a slow start because its taken you time to get the right formula. Ignore the HV and discuss with GP if you are worried.

10 weeks, but that wasn't bloody right either apparently. He's a very healthy 4 yr old now though.

Stark same here - DD has doubled her birth weight at just shy of 11 weeks and HV is muttering about her weight gain needing to level off soon.

Not sure how to do that as she's EBF and is between 98th and 99.6th percentile for length so totally in proportion!

My son didn't double his birthweight till about 11 months. He's nearly 7, still a bit small but fine.

Yeah ds was the same. breastfed. Dunno what they expected me to do.

They did actually refer me to a dietician, but I called to cancel because I had an inkling it was all a load of rubbish. The dietician came on the phone herself and couldn't advise me not to come in, but did say that the reason for referal alone would not give her any concerns.

Just really pointing out, that healthy babies come in all different shapes and sizes and with different growth patterns. There is more to health than weight.

DS was around 8.5 months ish! I asked HV about it when I went to get him weighed around 7 months when I went back to work, and she pointed out that as it took him 4 weeks to get back to birth weight she wouldn't expect it until around 9m! Now of course (heading for 10 months) he's a little fatty and catching up lines quicker than you can say dinky boy

DS1 doubled his birth weight at 15 weeks (EBF)
DS2 at 17 weeks (FF)
DS3 AT 10 weeks (mix fed)

Mine is nearly 8 months and I think she has only just doubled. As you say if some follow their line, they don't

At 6 months she was 12 12 from BW of 6 12. But then she became really active so weight slowed down more.

hows the prescription stuff working?

Ds1 was 7 weeks
dd was 9 months
ds2 was, um, can't remember

All BF

ds1 was 16 weeks (FF from 8 weeks)
ds2 was 15 months (bf for 6 months then ff) but he was 10lb 12 when born and is a little short arse now
think he will triple it about age 4!!!!!
Do I win?

Weighing is just a way HVs can filter out children who need a further looksee by a paediatrician. It tells very little in itself.

We had a v refluxy son who dropped from the 9th centile to the 0.4th at worst. I think he finally doubled his birth weight at 9 months. Having finally, in desperation, taken him to see a private paediatrician (NHS wait was 3 weeks), I noticed the paediatrician only weighed him at the very end, merely to mark the chart and gauge future progress. All he wanted to do was exclude serious underlying conditions (such as CF etc). After he saw him smiling and trying to get to his stethoscope, he just reassured us and put him on ranitadine and Domperidone (which I decided not to use, having read about the pros and cons). Ranitadine was really a miracle drug as it eased the pain as well as helping him hold food down. Weight gain was still painfully slow to come, though, as he had developed food aversion. We also topped up BF with super high fat formula and weened earlyish.

Dairy allergy does occur but tends to have symptoms. Without the rash, slimy stool etc, I was told most paeds would not make it their first call. So, I would be wary of cutting out dairy unless there is really an indication to do so.

Anyway, as long as he is tracking a centile (maybe not the 0.4th, but certainly the 9th) there is no real cause for any concern unless there are other worries.

Surely it all depends on birth weight too? A 6 pound baby only has to put on 6 pounds to double but a 10 pound baby has to put on 10.

I'm really embarrassed about my DDs puney weight gain :(

Yet the HCP never measure her length. I'm really proud of her length.

WHY??

Feellike,

Because they think they need a special device to measure length (I forget the name). They don't really.

Please remember, though, that when your daughter is sitting her scholarship exam to senior school or competing athletically for her county, no-one is going to be thinking how much she weighed aged a few months.

Weight is ONLY ONLY ONLY a cause for concern if it signifies an underlying condition or falls so low that it affects development in other ways. Above the 2nd centile, I would virtually ignore it, otherwise.

My dd2 was born on the 75th and cruised down to the 9th. We were abroad from 11 weeks old till 6 months old and no one weighed her till she was 9 or 12 months old after we returned to the UK. She was happy and meeting developmental milestones so I couldn't have cared less. Stop getting him weighed if he is fine to you.

DS1 and 2 were both about 20 weeks according to their red books. DS1 was 8lbs 7oz DS2 was 10lb 1oz at birth.

They measured DS2s length when he was born but only because he looked like a 3 month old I think. DS1 was 66cm at 17 weeks DS2 was 66cm at 11 weeks.

After several weeks of nonsense and stress with slow weight gain and being advised time after time by hvs and mws to 'top her up with a bottle' I don't have dd weighed anymore so I don't know. I would suggest that the discussion you've quoted with your health visitor shows that she really isn't very helpful either.

Is your baby healthy? Is the weighing telling you anything you don't already know?

If people ask me what dd weighs now (5 months) I say 'we've stopped having her weighed - it didn't seem to be making her any heavier'.

I honestly think they (and lots of new mums as a result) are unhealthily obsessed by weight. It's just one piece of data. In my (and your?) case, it may not be the best data.

FeelLikeTweedleDee - I was exactly the same with DS. He was long and lean like DH and very beautiful with it, but the bloody HVs would have preferred it if he was a fat short-arse like me :o

FLTD - it is usually pretty pointless to measure a healthy, thriving baby's length. It is very difficult to do accurately, anyway, so the results can be misleading.

However, if it's important to you know her length, you could ask them to do it.

FLTD - they only measure his length t hospital appointments, not the normal clinic, it's pretty inaccurate.

climberchick the prescription milk has pros and cons, the big pro is weight gain (after 5 weeks of static he put on 12oz in the first week and has managed about 3oz a week since). The bog neg is that he poos so much on it nappy rash is really hard to keep at bay. His eczema is worse, but could be coincidence, doublebass is now making a big difference.

larry my ds had a big food aversion for months, and is still prone to it. Dairy allergy was only diagnosed at 4 months, after pead referral at 6 weeks.

I'll admit I only weigh him because so many mums meet at the clinic, often going on for groups. walks or coffees. It's a good social point for us as we don't know many mums as it's a new area. I now avoid hv unless she actually gets up and collars me at the scales (every now and then) and writes in the book there and then. I have no desire to see her.