17 week old and not gaining much weight do i need to give formula?

[Fernie3]

Had my daughter weighed today for the first time since 11 weeks. At 11 weeks she was on the 25th line of the chart today at 17 she was on the one below ( i cant remember what number it is but the whichever comes below 25th). The health visitor who weighed her didnt seem too concerned but she did make a point of showing me thay she wasn't gaining aling the line and that she was at the lower end of the chart. She has told me to go back in 4 weeks when my daughter turns 5 months. There was no tme to discuss it with her as it was a drop in with 2 other scales in the room being used by different people so it was crowded and busy!.

I am really worried about her not gaining and she is very small compared to my other children at that age she is still only 12 pounds 1 ounce which is a couple of pounds plus smaller than my other children at that age, all of them were at the top of the charts by now although they were all formula fed from birth so that may account for the difference.

She has been much more fussy at the breast the last month, she wants to look around she prefers shorter frequent feeds and still feeds every 1-2 hours in the day with a longer nap around lunch of up to three hours, she still wakes multiple times at night, the only thing that has worried me up until now has been that the feeds are short but after a while she start crying and pulling away then she just sort of settles happily doing something else so i assumed she was full?

I am wondering whether to try and give her some forumla I bought some today but haven't used it yet, i had hoped to breastfeed to six months at least and hopefully until she was weaning off milk feeds altogether but now i am second guessing everything!

Any advice would be appreciated :)

If she's still gaining weight I wouldn't worry - my ds is smallish too at 16 weeks and his weight gain has definitely slowed. He was on the 50th centile til about 8 weeks and is now below the 25th. I don't see any reason to give formula, breastmilk is better after all!

Some babies are always going to be small - for every baby on the 91st centile there has to be one on the 9th.

I agree that there's no need to panic yet, babies don't all gain weight at exactly the same steady rate. Is there a decent breastfeeding group nearby that you could go to for in depth advice? Here is a list of LLL groups.

My DD is the same she is almost 17 weeks and was 10lb 11 last week dropping from 9th to 2 nd centile but she has had a couple of illnesses so HV wan't too concerned. DS did the same and went from 25th at birth to 0.4th by 6 months. Both don't seem to have huge appetites but are otherwise happy and healthy. The charts are based mostly on ff babies who do tend to gain weight faster. Kellymum has some BF charts. I would say dropping 1 line is not concerning or an indication to need ff. Like yours my DD is becoming too nosey to feed well during the day. Not sure if anything I've said helps but just to let you know you're not alone. For what it's worth I stuck to my guns with DS when I was getting pressured to wean at 17 weeks and an glad I did as ut turned out he had milk protein intolerance and couldn't have regular formula. He's fine now (3) just petit.

The charts are based on breastfed babies now.

Sounds like she's doing brilliantly - as are you.

Are you sure it was the BFing charts you were shown? A lot of places still only have the FF charts in the red books, are there is a difference.

A fall of one percentile is nothing to be concerned about.

The pulling off again sounds normal, its a developmental stage. A pain in the bum, but normal

Don't doubt yourself :)

HV only seem concerned if they drop more than 1 line, so if yours wasn't worried then I probably wouldn't be either. My DS has always been quite small, and he dropped a line a couple of times then went back up. Just different rates of growth, or once when he had a cold.

Very normal for babies to get fussy and distracted as they get older and want to look around. If she seems alert and well, then you're probably doing fine. She won't starve herself. You can pop along to a clinic in a couple of weeks if you want to weigh her sooner, but try not to get hung up on the charts (I know that's hard though).
Re formula, doesn't sound like any reason to give it unless you want to. And no guarantee that this would push her weight up. You could try encouraging her to go a bit longer between feeds by providing lots of distraction. But my DS was a very snacky feeder, I think some babies are just a bit like that, maybe little ones even more so.

And you are doing great by the way :o