can a baby put on too much weight?

[suzi2]

Stupid thing - I'm just getting quite annoyed...

All I seem to hear is "xxx has put on 14oz this week" or "xxx is now 17lb at 13 wks" and then those people show concern for my DS who puts on an avaerage of 5oz a week and doesn't put on at all sometimes for a few weeks.

Is large weight gain something to be proud of? I just feel like weight gain is a competition and DS is losing! And I feel that I'm always answering questions about why his gain is lower...

suzi, you know the answers to all of this, don't you?

Your real question is not 'can a baby put on too much weight?' Nor is it 'is large weight gain something to be proud of'? And you know fine well it is not a competition.

Your real question?

It is this :

'how can I tell people who ask stupid questions about the weight gain of my perfectly normal and healthy, thriving baby to
take their stupid questions and place 'em where the sun don't shine?'

I suggest you either say that, or if you want to be more polite, simply say, 'healthy babies grow at their own rate, didn't you know that?' and smile in a sarcastic manner.

I agree with tiktok (welcome back btw tiktok )
My DD is at the top end of the scale in terms of size and we always get comments ... I tend to say something along the lines of "Babies come in all sorts of shapes and sizes, much like adults"
If it gets into a discussion (which sometimes it does) I also say that in order to even HAVE an average you need to have big babies and small babies.
You also need to look at the genetics of the parents ... my friend's little boy is very little for his age (well under the 7th percentile) ... but my friend and her partner are not very big people (she is 5' tall, wears size 6 clothes and has to buy her shoes from children's shoe shops ... he is 5'8"). Like I say, my DD is on the 98th percentile but there are some big people in both mine and my DH's families (I am the shortest of all my family at 5'7", my brothers are over 6' tall, my grandfather was 6'5" ... my DH is tall too) ...
There is no normal weight gain IMO ... as long as the baby is healthy and developing and growing (even a bit) all is well!

You'll be pleased to know that people stop asking your child's weight once it stops being an issue for car seats.

Suzi, as the mum of another relatively slow gainer (threatened with the dreaded formula at one stage ), I know how you feel! ds is 6mo, bright, chirpy, smiley, mobile , plays with his toys for England, is a rotten sleeper mind you, but absolutely fine, just on the small side! 5oz/week is about what he was doing until 4 months or so, sometimes 6. We're going for his 6 month check in, oh, 4 hours so will be able to update then . The main thing is they're alert, healthy, happy and growing - at their own pace. Sometimes when people have commented how small he is I have felt the same about weight gain being a competition - but everything is so individual from baby to baby.

I had weight gain stress with DS1. I found things changed significantly once there are actual milestones (crawling, babbling, walking, talking) to look at. The HVs and everyone else essentially lose interest in weight then, as they have other things to cause stress or competition about.

(Well, maybe if your child is heavy, they start hassling you then? DS1 is 75th centile for weight, but must be about 100th centile for height, as he's certainly not chubby!)

I've always had comments about my dd(9lbs 14oz at birth)being huge and enormous and massive!! she was exclusivly bf till 6 months,hv had the cheek to question me as to whether i'd been sneaking her solids early on as she had put weight on so rapidly sometimes.at 16 months i do still bf and she loves her grub(like her mum)and shes very tall but perfectly proportioned.I havn't had her weighed since july cos i get fed up with people commenting on how heavy she is. i just wish mums and dads were not so competitive sometimes.

tiktok - you're quite right! I just wanted some come back with a "well your baby's gaining too much" type line! It's just seriously p*ssing me off at the moment! Everyone seems out to undermine my feeding confidence...

NQC - the other milestones are a bugbear as well! "my baby is on solids already", "my baby can roll both ways", "m baby can recite the alphabet backwards and he's only 3 months old"... grrrrr

I must be stronger... I must be stronger... I must be stronger...