12 week old very small

[loopylo]

My 12 week old started off on the 50th centile but her weight gain over the past 5 weeks has only been 4 onz a week. She is now just under the 25th centil-although she has been on that line since two weeks after she was born. She is exclusively breast fed, feeding every 1-2 hours during the day, cluster feeding during the evening then sleeping 8pm-7am, waking once in the night for a feed.

I'm worried that my milk is rubbish.

loopylo - hope you have someone like a HV who can explain to you that this pattern is perfectly normal.

Many, many babies go onto a lower (or higher) centile than the one they were born on. In fact the birth centile is no more than a 'snapshot' and no one sensible would even begin to judge your baby's health now on what she was at birth.

She seems to have found a comfortable place for her on the 25th, and a four ounce weight gain a week is fine. In fact good practice these days is not to weigh more often than monthly, once it's clear the baby is thriving and feeding well....as yours is. Frequent weighing causes needless anxiety and gives misleading information.

Your milk quality will be fine. Milk quality is consistent among mothers on all sorts of different diets and taking in varying quantities of food. No one's milk is poor quality, believe me. Nature doesn't arrange it like that :)

You can get more information at the website here www.kellymom.com.

She doesn't sound "very small" to me if almost 25% of babies are smaller!

If it makes you feel better, my ds was born on the 75th and is now under the 25th (or at least he was a month or so ago) - he's a very happy and healthy 5 month old and just not destined to be a chubby baby.