5 weeks, no weight gain, advised to give bottle...

[Blondeinlondon]

Need some mumsnet help here
My cousin's baby is 5 weeks old. She was weighed this week and hasn't gained weight.
She is breastfeeding and has been told by the doc to supplement with a bottle.
My questions:

• is she going to mess up breastfeeding if she supplements now?
• if yes should I email her offering suitable advice? We are not close, she lives far away and my advice would be unsolicited. Thanks in advance

how big is the baby? my friend had a 9lb baby that didn't gain weight for ages after he was born just mantained,

meant to add baby fine now just maintained and then followed 50% percentile line

do you mean didnt gain weight for one week or the whole 5 weeks? one week i wouldnt worry about. 5 weeks depends. is she taking into account that they lose weight after birth and if baby weighs the same she has probably lost and then regained. if she supplements now she will do herself no favours at all if she wants to continue bf. tbh docs usually arent as good at this stuff as midwives or (dare i say it) health visitors. as for advice - why not introduce her to mumsnet. i think you can enter the leappad comp then aswell

Hi,

Alot depends upon the baby herself. Is she a happy and contented baby who just hasn't put much weight on (but may be growing in length instead)?
At five weeks it's early to start with bottles without messing up breastfeeding. If this is the only week she hasn't gained any weight then my advice would be to hang on with the breastfeeding. Feed frequently, lots of skin to skin contact and just re-check the weight in a week. I work as a health visitor and I find that babies don't always gain every single week - they're all different - sometimes they are having a growth in their length and all the calories go into that.
If she's a happy and contented baby then my advice would be don't worry and carry on breastfeeding.

a friend also has a 5 week old - she is now 4oz over her birth weight - also breastfed. She was just over 7lb at birth.

She seems fine, has been very sleepy but is now becoming much more alert. She seems very content.

I would not be worried, as long as the mother has breastfed before. If she hasn't - then maybe I would suggest trying to feed more often, or maybe seeing a breastfeeding counsellor to check latch etc.

She is a first time mom
Baby was 8lb at birth and has not gained any weight since birth.

I would guess she lost weight (they all do) and has gained back to her original weight.

Maybe suggest seeing a breastfeeding counsellor to check latch and get any tips - and boost her confidence that she is doing well. Sometimes HV's can undermine that a bit.

tell her to ring the breastfeeding helpline, go on kellymom and see if there is a bf counsellor in her area

My DS3 struggled to get back to his birthweight. He had jaundice and was too sleepy. Although he was my third, I just didn't realise that he wasn't feeding properly .

I am assuming that your cousin's baby probably doesn't have jaundice, because if she had, someone would probably have picked up on it by now. But it might be worthwhile just checking? Apart from that, how long does your cousin let her go between feeds? I had to start waking DS3 up for a feed if he was still asleep three hours after commencement of previous feed. I was also told to express milk after feeding him and top him up with the expressed milk. This worked well and obviously didn't interfere with breastfeeding, as it helped rather than reduced my supply. I would definitely recommend it, although it is a faff because she will have to get a breast pump, sterilise it etc.

Is the baby weeing and pooing enough? Is she generally contented?

I second recommending she see a BFC. You probably can't get into the details of this too much with her, from a distance, but passing on the details of the LLL, ABM, NCT and, damn, I forgot the other organisation (which happens to be our local one). Or find a local breastfeeding drop in or cafe?

I'm concerned she will follow the docs advice, give a bottle and then not manage to breastfeed for much longer

I know she wants to breastfeed. She is very much an all natural type of person and is very upset that she had to have a C-section.

I can really understand your concern, Blondeinlondon. Why not give her a call and suggest she contacts a breastfeeding counsellor.

I second the advice about phoning a breastfeeding counsellor near her. I think that offering her unsolicited support is a very nice thing to do - she can only say no after all.

Fwiw, mixed feeding is possible from this age, because I did it with dd2, but it would be harder for a first time mum I should think. (I found that my milk supply was much steadier and more reliable with the later babies than for the first) Also, I was lucky that dd2 fell in with my plans for mixed feeding, and didnt start rejecting either the breast or the bottle.

NQC, do you mean Breastfeeding Network?

Would definitely agree she needs to see somebody who knows about breastfeeding, but it does sound as though a fair amount of weight was lost in the weeks after birth and she's just back up to birthweight again. That's not unusual.

Is the baby weeing, pooing, etc? Does she seem happy?

Um, if you're not close, have you heard about baby's weight via family tomtom? In her shoes, I'd be entirely freaked out by unsolicited advice. Would have hated to know that my baby's weight was being debated by all the rellies.
If you just happened to ring her, though, to say congratulations... well, that's different.

Could the mother express some milk and feed her that in the bottle? WOuld that be an acceptable compromise? Then at least she would know how much her baby was eating in a single sitting (as it were...).... it shouldn't mess up the breastfeeding if she does it once or twoce a day should it?

Might do, Orangina - and if the baby's not latching properly, introducing a bottle might be the end of breastfeeding, which is why she needs to see someone who knows about bfeeding.

I cup-fed DS3 with expressed milk - it didn't put him off breastfeeding - but he did have a latching on problem which I hadn't spotted.

bakedpotato - yeah I heard via her mil - I am a bit unsure about offering the advice/support - it would be via email to her hubbie

I wouldn't want to offer advice about your cosuin's baby, BiL, but I've been in that position myself. I've supplemented with one bottle in the evening but it didn't have an adverse effect on my breastfeeding, it helped us over a rocky patch and eventually I was able to drop the bottle completely. Hth.

My first baby didn't gain weight for 5 weeks and was breastfed. With hindsight this was because he was falling asleep during feeds and I didn't realise he wasn't actually feeding, and he had reflux (we we only realised very late on). I was advised to supplement with bottles and it was incredibly stressful. Ds wouldn't take a bottle to start with at all and my milk supply rapidly diminished once he did. On the other hand at least he did start to gain weight.
I have learnt my lesson with my second baby though who is thriving and breastfed. I second what lots of others have said, she ought to see a breastfeeding counsellor. Also if her birth experience has affected her strongly does the hospital offer a 'debriefing' to go through what happened? My friend had depression for four years resulting from a very difficult birth and has only just gone for counselling which has at last sorted some of this out but it is a shame that no-one helped her earlier on.

Is there anyway you could chat to her. Emailing her hubby might seem a bit weird. Not sure I'd be pleased to get third hand bf advice. But I would have been pleased to talk to anyone about the problems I had bf my first baby.

I agree - introduce her to mn, and at least suggest a second opinion.

Expressing at this stage, although successful for some, made my confidence dive to rock bottom because when my ds was that little I expressed and only got a little - so I panicked and thought the poor boy was starving as I did not seem to be making ANY milk. Of course, if I'd got proper advice, I'd have known that it takes a while to get the hang of expressing.

could you just email her and say something like when you first started breastfeeding you found it really useful to talk to a breastfeeding counsellor - to check latch and get ideas about other techniques of feeding - that it gave you a much needed confidence boost ?

That way you can put the idea in her head but without commenting about supposed lack of weight gain with her baby. No need to mention MIL or anything else that way.

Any update, Blondeinlondon?

Why not phone your cousin to offer your congratulations and ask how it is going? it's normal to ask about the baby's weight and feeding and maybe you could then see if she's open to advice...eg Oh, that happened to my friend and they saw a breastfeeding counsellor who told them X and Y.
I think emailing her husband is a bit odd.