left the HV and burst into tears - feel like an utter failure

[OnlyWantsOne]

DD2 was 7.12 at birth - that went right down to about 7.2 in the first 10 days, had lots of problmes, failure to get a good latch, we were using nipple sheilds, then DD wouldnt feed without them - when she was 6 weeks I cut them up and went cold turkey

I thought that now we were fine!!

Had latch checked, we go to a BF group on a Friday morning - went to clinic and weighed her (using the self weigh thing) just out of my own interest, HV pops up - looks at red book

DD was 10.4 last friday (10 weeks)
and today is 10.8 1/2 today

she says she not putting on enough weight and wants me to take her next friday for a weight review - and then she said that formula was probably the way to go

now I feel like a oomnplete an utter failure.

I want to breast feed. If I had wanted to bottle feed - I would not have spent so many hours in the last 10 weeks crying in pain / up every 2 hours during the night etc

but you need someone to help you latch him on well.

and even if he doesn't latch now, babies have been known to latch up to seven months of age, maybe even older I don't know.

sorry! latching info

Pootle you need some RL help from someone who knows what they are talking about with bf. Milk coming in on day 3 is normal. Latching 5 times since being home needs help. Doing all 3, expressing, ff and bf is the worst of all worlds, if you want to bf you can get this sorted with some help and perseverence.

When he starts to cry whilst bf can you calm him down (rock/shush/wind/whatever) enough to try again, or do you feel you resort to the bottle straight away? Can you offer the breast when he isn't too hungry and so have more chance to attempt the latch?

Have you seen anyone about this feeding since you have been home? Or tried any of the bf helplines?

Have you seen a breastfeeding counsellor Pootle? Milk not coming in til day three is normal, so not sure why the hospital had you cup feeding.

you can always give him a bottle of expressed then get into bed with him skin to skin and just let him sleep next to your boobs, like in the video, then when he wakes up the next time, just see if he latches on himself. if you keep doing this and just be patient, he might latch himself, plus you will get to know each other and you will have a rest too.

Make sure you have cake on your bedside table! - I find jaffa cakes are perfect actually. And try your best to relax, I know it is hard when your LO is so upset, but I really found that relaxing (I find singing something completely made up and badly out of tune helps) helped my DS not get quite so worked up.

Pootle, nothing to add to the excellent advice above except that breastfeeding AND expressing AN topping up with formula is really hard work so I hope you get some RL help soon. Post again and let us know how you're getting on.

Pootle - Um, day 3 is totally normal. What the hell were the hospital doing getting you to top-up?! Talk about trying to mess you up.

What I had to when getting back to bfing (DD was on tube feeds in SCBU then bottle then top-ups) was give DD a tiny bit to take the edge off her hunger before trying to latch her on, but only 10-20ml. And hand express a few drops out first so LO knows boob means milk.

WantsOnly you do not have to give up breastfeeding. If they ask you to supplement with formula you still do not have to give up breastfeeding. I think if the baby isn't on the right centile from the beginning (that early weight loss)it sometimes takes quite a while to get to where the HV wants you to be. Just remember to bfeed very often, spend lots of time resting, and if they still say it is very important to supplement you still do not have to change to formula completely. This happened to me at 10 weeks due to early problems, and I did top up a small amount (6oz a day) because I felt so unhappy that my baby might need more food. But I kept bfdng, and soon bfdng went extremely well as my confidence grew, and I was able to stop topping up at 4 months. Perhaps I didn't need those topups at all, who knows, but I certainly did not give up breastfeeding till he was 10 months. And he was a very chubby baby by 10 months.

Check the latch, if it is still hurting, as that could mean that the baby is not properly attached and thus not stimulating the breast to make as much milk as it could. I could hear an enormous increase in the amount of milk the baby was taking when he was properly latched after a few days, and hadn't realised how much less I was making when he was badly latched on, even though he was cheery, weeing and pooing etc...See a bfng counsellor it makes such a difference. And baby moon. Very important if there are weight gain issues.

Oh please dont beat yourself up about this. You carried a child, gave birth to it and are now trying your best. And caring enough to post about your worries..already you ARE a good mom.

My 8mo was pathetic at latching and I could not manage to get him to feed from me. i was keen to EBF and not go towards formula. I was given long talks by breast feeding support groups..it was hellish trying to grip a screaming child, over my tender (post csec) tummy and i was in floods of tears. i was told about trying all kinds of holds on the baby and he would not respond to any. My HV told me a lot of C**P and of course laid the blame squarely on me, for not trying hard enough.

I invested in a Medela Swing. Got started and was producing 210 ml in one sitting. I breast fed via pump exclusively for 6 months. little baby went from being 3.5 kg at birth to being 10 kg at 6 months !! No formula and no latching. The pumps are good. Try them if you wish. you can see how much they take in, they sleep 2-3 hour cycles and it means you can sometimes be free of the feeding routine at night to be able to rest.

BTW - same HV has now told me to keep him away from the milk to prevent him from becoming fat. Hmmm .

IMO you should try it, if you are keen to BF, rent one and see if it works for you.

Thank you for all your recommendations, will try some of them out and will report back on our progress.

The local bf support group is not til Wednesday so will try some of the other ideas first

Thanks

Pootle, La Leche League, NCT or your local hospital would all send you a breast feeding counsellor or you can go to them, even at the weekend. Give one or all a call asap. My sister in law had a problem when our neice was a couple of weeks old and the BF counsellor came out to her, even in several inches of snow. They're all there to help.

DS peed on the HV in protest last week. We have the opposite "problem". He is very tall, very solid and heading towards the 99th centile. I was told she would consider it a problem if he went above 99th centile. Statistics for beginners anyone?

Agh!

Onlywantsone - your baby gained 4.5 oz in ONE week - that's brilliant. Tbh my blood boils when I see this kind of crappy advice from HVs (and I can say that because I am one).

The guidence changed over two years ago and locally we advise women to weigh their babies no more than twice a month and preferably once a month.

Obviously I do not kn ow your DD or any medical info about her so I cannot say don't go to the clinic (although I want to). What you need to do is ask this HV to justify her advice. Honestly SHE sounds the failure here.

FutureNannyOgg I have the same problem now. 8mo son is in the 99th percentile for height and weight. lazy one does not crawl at all yet.

birth - 3.5 kg
6 months - 10 kgs
8 months - 11.56 kgs

height - fits into 12-18 month onesies - but just about.

A while ago HV told me that babies can never be called FAT. and then 2 weeks ago told me to hold back the food and the 4th milk bottle of the day and weigh him alternate weeks to make sure he does not go over the 99th percentile.

ack!

Conclusion - Go with your gut instinct - do as you think is right, its your baby. HV's are guided by guidelines which change like the weather.

This thread is so so depressing. Stories like Only's and Pootle's just shouldn't be happening, where are the educated supportive HCPs?! Why are these people having to come here for help?! And thank goodness for MN.

Hiya just thought I'd let you know my DD's weight gain so that you may worry less!!

Birth weight 7lb
5 days 6.7
9 days 6.10
3 weeks 7.2
4 weeks 7.14
5 weeks 8.8
6 weeks 8.13
8 weeks 9.1
9 weeks 9.8
12 weeks 10.3
13 weeks 10.11
16 weeks 11.4
17 weeks 11.6

As you can see she has had huge weight gains then little ones. She is EBF off one breast and my HV has never suggested formula just feeding on demand. I am going to stoip getting her weighed every week but I just like to see the numbers going up!!!

What a load of bollocks. DS is ff, 19 weeks and 13lbs 13oz. Some babies are slow gainers, no matter how much/what you feed them. At one stage, he was taking an 11oz bottle at bedtime! He'll just be one of those skinny children I think. Carry on with bf if it suits you, hv are obsessed with weight gain in an unhealthy way. Actually, have you noticed how loads of them are overweight themselves?

please don't give up my dd was very similar she started at 7lbs 5 5oth percentile
dropped to 6 lbs 8 at 10 days at 10 weeks she was 9lbs 4 oz just above the 2nd centile (so 10lbs 81/2 at 10 weeeks isn't bad)
since then she has never gained more than 3oz a week ven once we started to wean her at 6 months
luckily she was not my first and i had breastfed all 7 of my children till well past their first birthdays,so i knew she was a happy contented baby and the hv knowing my history didn't pressurise me into ff ( isuspect had she beeen my first this may have been different)
she is now a year old and weighs just below 17 lbs that is the 9 th percentile ,the wavy line she has followed since about 6 weeks .she is fully of energy , a real live wire just beautifully petite. remember in order to be a 50th percentile ther needs to be someone on the 99th and 2nd.
i dealt by not having her weighed more than once a month sometimes every 6 weeks so when she had gained it was usuaaly a decent amount about 12oz over 4 weeks and it minimised the anxiety over the weigh in which had begun to feel like an examination on my mothering skills .

please don't worry if your baby is happy contented ,with plenty of wet .dirty nappies etc . your hv is attitude makes me really angry for you and your dc.

the percentile there born is not always the centile they follow they can drop through the ranks until they find there own level and then stick to it .

jazzie mine was 13lbs 10oz at 9 months. The ILs could have fainted when they found out

Wow penguin that's tiny! I don't get what all the fuss is. Just because they're on formula, doesn't mean they're going to stack the weight on. That's bollocks. DS has 30oz (almost 1 litre!!) of formula a day, and lunch and dinner too. His weight gain is still mega slow, following the 9th centile curve in the red book. In fact, tonight he troughed his way through 7oz of formula and half a jar of banana baby rice and will probably take another oz before he goes in his cot in a minute. He will then have a dream feed at 10pm of 4oz. He is still tiny and hasn't yet outgrown his 0-3 months clothes! People come in all shapes and sizes, some children are just petite.

There are adults about who can eat mars bars and McDonalds all day everyday and not gain half a knat's knacker in weight. Has it not occurred to these HV's that some children 'might' be the same?!

Oh FFS another HV talking rubbish

Don't let her guilt trip you into FF if it's not what you want. If baby's healthy and happy I'm sure you're doing fine.

Babies often drop down the centiles, my lovely HV said as long as there isn't MASSIVE discrepancy between height and weight centiles then it's fine. DS was born on the 99.95 and gradually decreased - AFAIK anyway, I hardly bothered weighing him TBH.

Jazzie,

It is important to distinguish between a tiny baby and a skinny baby. A baby who is tracking a centile is fine, a baby who is falling through them needs monitoring. A lot of people don't seem to "get" centiles. A 9th centile baby would be the 3rd smallest in 30 babies, not that dramatic really.

Formula will not help a baby put on weight unless the problem is getting the milk, such as some inability to suck. High energy formula, on the other hand, will, as it has more calories/ml. However, for someone who wants to breast feed, it is the last option, not the first.

If a baby is healthy and looks normal, don't weigh them. If a baby looks MUCH skinnier than their peers, then the weight needs to be monitored and you need to try to find the cause. This is ideally done with the help of a good paediatrician, used to dealing with babies.

Some babies are long and thin though, not just petite. DD is now on the 9th centile for weight and is slowly tracking up through centiles (she initially settled on 2nd after a rocky start) but she's near the 91st centile line for length, so she looks really long and slim compared to her peers. Very healthy though and everyone is now very happy with her weight.

Hope you're both doing better and feeling more confident OWO and pootle.