4 wk old EBF Baby weight woes, should I worry?

[caramellokoalalover]

My 4wk old DD is EBF on demand. I thought the feeding was going really well. She seems to latch well, plenty of wet nappies, feeds twice through the night...

I took her to be weighed yesterday for the first time since she was weighed at the 7 day check and she is the same weight she was at 7 days old, which was a teensy bit more than her birth weight (born 2.99kg, now 3kgs exactly). So she didn't lose weight in the first week, which I thought was good, but now hasn't gained anything since . The Health Visitor didn't seem worried and I wasn't worried when I left the clinic but as time goes by I'm getting more worried that I'm doing something wrong or that there's something wrong with DD.

Please come and reassure me that I'm being silly and that it's ok for a breastfed baby to not gain any weight in 3 weeks at such a young age!

Don't know about that one sorry caramel think you might need to speak to someone trained or with experience and I've got neither.

Are you in the UK? Have you spoken to a Bfing Counsellor and have you had your latch checked?

I'd get your latch and position assessed to see if you can make any improvements (bfing is a skill that you can always working IME!) and make a real effort to offer boob as often as possible over the next week or so, then get the LO re-weighed.

I just checked my red book and your LO was just above the 9th centile at birth and is now just below the 2nd. Bit hard with only 2 weigh-ins, but I'd say you need to keep an eye on the weight, bt not panic

caramel - the two most common reasons why a healthy baby might not gain weight in three weeks:

• this is how the baby is
• the baby could benefit from more milk

It's always sensible with a new baby not to assume reason one, and to work on ensuring more milk ie more frequent feeding, several 'sides' each time, more effective feeding if necessary. So for instance if you are only feeding one side per session, double or treble or quadruple this; feed at every little feeding cue;get someone you trust to observe a feed to check milk is being transferred.

The other possibilities are poor scales, poor weighing technique, poor weight recording, poor imperial/metric translation.

More rarely, infection or other underlying issue, and if scales are ok, and a greater intake of milk does not mean the baby starts to gain sufficiently, then this should be investigated.

Hope this helps.

Yes, get a BF counsellor to check the latch, offer the breast at every opportunity, especially at night as this is when the milk-making hormones are most active to ensure a plentiful supply. If practical, I would spend a few days snuggled up with LO, skin to skin if possible feeding, feeding, feeding and then get her re-weighed. Also, be really attentive to any hunger cues she might be giving you - feed her at the first signs of any fidgeting, lip curling, rooting etc.

Some great advice already Caramel. Was just wondering how often roughly she has been feeding during the day and night.

Thanks everyone for all the advice. My latch was checked at the 7 day visit but tbh the midwife glanced at me feeding and said 'so the feeding looks like it's going well then'. I'll get it checked again and offer the boob more often. Maybe having a demanding 2yo DS has distracted me from all of DD's feeding cues, poor little bean .

Jilted DD is feeding every 1-2hrs in the day (apart from the odd time she has a 3hr sleep) and feeding at 8pm/12am/4amish through the night.

Might be worth getting a BFC to check you latch then and Tiktok's plan on increasing the milk she is getting.

I would double check as well that the HV didn't make a silly mistake converting lbs to kgs or something like that.

Nah, I'm afraid I saw the scales myself and it was set to kgs. Bang on 3kgs. I'll give it a week of trying everything suggested and fingers crossed it will make a difference!

My HV once weighed DD and she had put on a huge amount of weight, it was a real spike in her chart. I questioned it at the time and was told in no uncertain terms that there was no way they could have got it wrong. The next time I had her weighed she appeared to have lost weight according to the chart but looked bigger to me. If you look at her chart now that one weigh in really stands out and was obviosly an error.

Just wanted to tell you so that hopefully you won't worry too much and to let you know that just because you saw the scales yourself doesn't mean they have been calibrated correctly

I'd seconed getting some to check latch. Just looking while baby is feeding isn't good enought so much can be missted a whole feed need's to be observed from state to finish to see if there are any problems. A breastfeeding counciler or even a pear supported at a drop in group can do this.