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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

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Original poster

Gaining too much weight?

9 replies

Sandy999 · 04/01/2011 08:32

Hello,

I'm new to mumsnet and I hope it's OK to just fire away my questions.

I understand that I'm having the opposite problem to most people but I still worry about it.

My DD is 5 month old and EBF. She was tiny in the beginning but is now really, really chubby. I checked on Kellymom how much she should roughly be gaining and she is way higher than that. She had doubled her birth weight by 3 months and is now on her way to trippling it. She is not that tall, just very chubby.

Because she was so tiny at first and lost quite a bit of weight as she wouldn't suck, I expressed and we fed her with syringes for a week. She kept falling asleep so we always changed her mid feed to wake her up again. Out of habit, I still do that and I just wonder, if I'm feeding her too much now. She only feeds 4 or 5 times a day but those are really, really big feeds and she's not happy if I take her off before she thinks so.

So am I feeding her too much? My cousin said that she was fed too much formula as a baby and her stomach got used to that much food and that's why she is so big now. I just worry that I'm setting up the same pattern for my baby. Everybody who sees her chubby little legs, comments on them so I'm assuming it's not that common?

My bf adviser said that BM won't touch the fat cells so there is no need to worry about obesity in later life, but I'm not worried about the fat cells but about expanding her tummy...

Sorry for the long post, I'm just rambling now.

Thanks in advance for any thoughts.

OP posts:

xMrsSx · 04/01/2011 09:29

I am sure I have read a thread on here which says you can't overfeed a ebf baby, let me have a look for it for you. Your DD sounds lovely and it sounds like you are doing a great job!

xMrsSx · 04/01/2011 09:34

OK, try this, it is mostly about ff, but there is some info about bf and some research papers cited by Tiktok, who I'm sure will be able to answer your question. Hope it helps?

Lizzylou · 04/01/2011 09:35

I love chubby babies! Everyone will be commenting on how lovely her thighs are, definitely. Who doesn't want to squidge chubby baby thighs?

DS1 was very similar, HV used to say that they should bottle my breastmilk, which made me inordinately proud He was off the scale, used to be mistaken for far older than he was.

He is now a skinny 6 year old, so please just keep feeding your DD as you are. As soon as she starts toddling she will burn more off.

EauRouge · 04/01/2011 10:46

Welcome to MN! My DD looked like a weeble when she was 5 months old. Once she started crawling and then walking she slimmed down a fair bit. You sound like you're doing a grand job, just go with the flow and let her dictate her appetite.

mamjo · 04/01/2011 15:04

I have just got back from the weigh in with my 3 month old DD. She was 8 lb at birth and is now 17 lb 7 oz. She is EBF but I am still concerned by her rapid weight gain. She has gone from 75 to 99 centile.

mamjo · 04/01/2011 15:05

sarahbuff · 04/01/2011 15:27

To OP and mamjo, my fourth DC is 7 weeks and a total chunk. :) All my babies have been really good feeders (all EBF until 2.5 years) and with every one of them they were lovely and fat until they started walking, and then gradually thinned out to be perfectly healthy normal children (now 5, 4, and nearly 3). All of them put on a whole pound a week in the first few months, my sisters babies were the same and my friends too. It is actually quite a good thing to have a chubby baby because if they were to get ill, it isn't likely to be as serious for them as for a smaller baby. I really wouldn't worry, as you said in your original post, you're obviously doing something right having the opposite problem to a lot of mums!

No offense to your cousin, but I don't really buy the "stretched stomach" story. While it's true that regular overeating stretches your stomach, that is not irreversible. Have you ever had the flu and not eaten for a few days? After that it takes another few days to be able to eat more than a tiny amount at a time because your stomach has shrunk. If you want to break yourself of the habit of overeating you can, and your stomach will shrink after a fairly short period of time. (And so will you!) :) So I don't think your baby being a big feeder at the breast will translate to a big eater at the table. It certainly hasn't with any of my three DSs...

mamjo · 04/01/2011 18:52

Thanks sarahbuff Nice to hear.

Original poster

Sandy999 · 04/01/2011 20:51

Thanks so much for all your nice replies. I suppose I should just relax.

The thing is that I was fairly slim before I got pregnant but I had to work bloody hard for that. I think I am quite greedy and if I wouldn't take care, I would just eat and eat and eat. Same goes for my DH who is a bit overweight. My dog is overweight too, so I guess I just worry that I'm setting up a pattern for my baby.

But it's good to hear that chunky babies doesn't equal chunky children.

Thanks again.

OP posts:

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