Bf Baby 18 weeks dropping centiles

[RottenRow]

title says it all really. I have a happy, healthy dd who has dropped from 75th centile at 2 weeks to almost on 25th.

She feeds on demand every 2.5 to 3 hours. Usually wakes once or twice in the night for a feed. She consistently gains weight but obviously not in line with the chart in the red book. The hv told me today I have to go back in 2 weeks to make sure she hasn't dropped any more. I can't help wondering what course of action they will suggest if she is not meeting their milestones.

I really cannot stress how ok I think she is doing. She has chubby legs, never stops smiling and I hate the fact that I am being made to feel like something is wrong.

I am thinking they might suggest top up feeds as discussed above or even early weaning. I have certainly heard the nursery nurse who does the weighing giving advice to a mother about what she could feed her daughter. I chatted to the mother and her daughter was 5 months old.
I don't think we are ready for that yet though. I tried to get a 2.5 ml spoonful of nurofen into her last week when she was in pain with her teeth. After about 5 mins most of it was all over her chin.

My DD (15 weeks) has dropped from 60th to 25th. HV wasn't too concerned as height is tracking this too but said to keep an eye on it as she is being treated for silent reflux.
Personally, I think she's a sucky baby and the lb she gained in her first week was due to sucking. Since she's had a dummy, she's BFing less as she's getting her comfort there now. I'm not overly concerned but will keep an eye on it as she is sick a lot after feeds.
DD1 (2.8) is and always has been on 0.4th centile so I just think my kids are small

I completely agree with organiccarrotcake's summary of the GP response. My GP felt that DD needed more calories and suggested formula, although when I suggested EBM she agreed this would be ok. I completely respect her assessment that DD needs more milk, but I would prefer to achieve this by improving BF rather than topping up. Particularly as the GP advised stopping feeds after 20 min as "the breast is empty by then", and I don't think this is correct. I've had some advice from a BF counsellor and I'm going to see how it goes for a couple of weeks, but obviously if that doesn't work I'll give top ups.

Hope things are going ok with your babies RottenRow, minicorrect and inlovewithbaby

Thanks for posting this rottenrow. I am going through similar weight obsessed hv issues and feel so much pressure to top up, despite me thinking my DS is healthy (you might find my thread an interesting read). Good luck with it all.

Hi sciencegeek I have read your thread and am in awe that you have been doing so well in what must have been very difficult circumstances. I hope your son gains enough weight to get the hv off your back and give you some breathing space.

"Particularly as the GP advised stopping feeds after 20 min as "the breast is empty by then", and I don't think this is correct."

Aarrgghh no, you are absolutely right, this is total crap.

Have you tried switch nursing hefner? This means offering the first breast until your baby is done, then the second, and assuming the second is accepted offering the first again once she's done with the second. You can continue switching sides as long as you want. The key is to allow her to come off in her own time, which is likely to be when the milk is slowing down from one side.

It doesn't "run out". It's constantly being made, and the emptier the breast the faster the milk is made. When the breast is full it sends a message to the body to stop making milk, or more accurately to slow production (and eventually stop).

There is a certain amount of storage in the breast tissue (which has nothing to do with the size of a woman's breasts), but perhaps an analogy is a dam where a stream flows into a lake made by a dam all the time. Flow can be released (the let down), and you can get a lot of water coming out in a gush but it doesn't ever run out because it's still trickling in behind. If the whole lake was emptied the outward flow would really slow down but never stop because it's still coming in from the stream. However, if the dam isn't released (the breast isn't emptied) the lake at some point will reach capacity so the input has to be told to slow, then eventually stop. Once the flow is released again, off we go again.

hefner what advice did the BFC give you if you don't mind me asking?

Organiccarrotcake, the BFC suggested switch nursing.

Sciencegeek, I've read your thread and it sounds like you're having an incredibly tough time and doing brilliantly. I hope the health professionals start to listen to you.

RottenRow, my HV has suggested I wean DD (17 weeks) to improve weight gain but thankfully isn't putting any pressure on yet. I'd like to wait till 6 months and she definitely doesn't seem ready.

hefner OK I'll be quiet then

Weaning to improve weight gain? Might be worth asking for information on how that would work as milk is VV high fat and typical weaning foods are low calorie/low fat, and can displace milk if too much is given.

(Although there are times when earlier weaning really is required for certain conditions, although normally because the baby is more likely to have limited iron stores or similar).

I just wanted to add my experience to this. DD1 was born in the 75th centile and by the time she was 12 weeks she had dropped to the 2nd centile, despite being happy and content, having plenty of wet and dirty nappies, etc. GP referred us to a paed who immediately suggested formula top ups. I didn't want to do this but tried and DD wouldn't take them. Went back to the paed who suggested a round of blood tests which we refused as we knew that if something was wrong with her she would let us know. DD is now 3, is on the 10th centile and is thriving. It's just the way she's meant to be, very long (90th centile) and thin. You know your baby best, a d if you feel she is thriving then if be inclined to ditch the scales and focus on other aspects of her development. I know with DD2, born on the 90th centile for weight, I will be staying clear of the clinic unless I feel something is wrong and she actually isn't thriving.

That is my fear banana. At 5 weeks the hv referred me to paeds as dd had suspected jaundice. I swear any trace of yellow was almost imperceptible. It was just the light that day.
Anyhow they weren't that concerned as the appointment was made for a fornightt later. By the time we got to the hospital she was pink as anything but at no point did anyone look at her and say she was clearly not jaundiced go home. We were on the treadmill so she had the tests done including blood tests which they had to do twice as they messed the first lot up. And so all results came back negative from my clearly non jaundiced pink baby.
I don't want to put her through something similar again.

Then don't Rotten! They can't force you to have tests, we politely refused and said we would come back if we had any concerns down the line. They can make suggestions but they cannot force you to do anything.

I know they're just trying to make sure that they don't miss anything, but how frustrating that they went ahead with tests on a baby that was clearly fine. Banana is right that they can't force you, but I find my usual assertiveness can disappear when faced with a health professional!

Organiccarrotcake, it's reassuring to get the same advice from you and the BFC! I think the HV was thinking of calories from food in addition to all her usual milk, but I was concerned that the food might displace some milk as you mentioned - DD doesn't have a big appetite.

Even when DD had dropped to 2nd from 25th (and eventually 0.4th) at 16 weeks they still didn't increase weighings. Her weight gain was consistent but it still dropped centiles.

I wish I had said no but there was that tiny inner voice telling me I must go along with it and 'what if?'.
We are not there yet so am hoping it will not come to that.
This thread has been great and I hope baby minicorrect, sciencegeek and hefner have a good run in the next weeks. It will be time to wean soon enough so I want to enjoy the last few weeks of bfing.
Thanks to everyone who has come on to discuss and share their stories.

Good luck to you too. And remember - mum knows best! Listen to your instincts - you know if something's not right.

DS did exactly this at roughly the same age. I weaned early (around 20 weeks) as was suggested by the HV and paed at the time. It made not a blind bit of difference plus he wasn't really ready and has not been a good eater ever although is much much better now. He is still at 3 tracking the 25th (fell from 75th at birth). I went for his assessment recently and was looking at his chart and can see that exactly the time he started to fall was when he became distracted and also started moving around more. He crawled at 5.5 months and walked at 9 months so there was never any question of him not meeting his milestones! He was just way too active (and still is) so burnt off all the energy/calories. It may be that yours are just the same.

DD is 6 months next week and I've stopped having her weighed after she was heading in a similar direction (although she was born on 25th went up to above 50th after 3 weeks then started dropping again around 16 weeks) and guess what she has just started crawling. I didn't give in and wean her early this time despite it being suggested by the HV again. We've just started because I think she's ready and she's taking to it really well which is a complete different story to DS. So I'm really pleased I stuck to my guns. It's probably already been mentioned on some of the other threads but there is an article 'Look at the baby not the scales' which helped me to have a bit more confidence in my choices this time around (I'm sure you can find on google). I'm a worrier by nature too and it's a horrible feeling looking at the scales and hoping they've gone up isn't it.

Just wanted to add my story. I have 3 sons. All of them have done this and are healthy. First DS was born on 50th for weight, ended up following the 9th for his first year. I was stressed as anything about it. No 2 came along, born on the 90th, after a few weeks settled on the 25th.

DS no 3 is just under 4 weeks and is looking the same. Born on 96th but has only just got back to birth weight. I'm in Canada now and they don't routinely use the chart, my midwife is not worried. Bear in mind when these charts were made (50's i think) and that they are based upon a population that was mostly FF. the same growth pattern just doesn't apply to EBF babies.

I also read the article about 'look at the baby, not the chart' - maybe OP coils print this out and give it to HV

rotten this may be a REALLY stupid thing to say, but I just want to ask about your comment about the last few weeks of breastfeeding.

Do you mean you want to stop BFing at around 6 months, or you need to for some reason? Which is fine, obviously. If you don't want to - you don't have to? Sorry if it sounds like a stupid thing to say?

Goes away to BF 18 month old... :)

No i wasn't very clear I meant enjoy the ease of it being the sole food source before weaning kicks in and I have to think about carrying food around and cleaning it off the highchair, walls and floor. Every day three times a day.
I have an older dd and she bf until 2 years (just a couple of times a year for the last year). I don't know whether we'll get that far but no plans to stop yet.

That would be couple of times a day.

Aahh yes, I see now :)

OK, well, if it's of interest, my personal experience was puree weaning with DS1 which was a bloody hassle. As you say, having to go out with food etc.

DS2 we did baby led weaning. Easy as pie. The closest I've ever got to taking food out with me was the odd baby muesli bar in my handbag. We went to Kenya when he was 8 months and still no problem with food, compared to DS1 who came to Greece with us at a year old, still on mushy food, and the only baby food available was Nestle, which I wouldn't buy.

DS2, in contrast, was helping himself to our buffet breakfast in the hotels in Kenya, as well as happily tucking into the maize and beans mix at the children's homes that we were there to work at. Not fazed by anything and eating chunks of meat with just 4 front teeth.

Just my experience but I highly recommend looking into it, if you haven't :)

Anything has got to be easier than weaning dd1 who would not eat a thing. We sort of ended up doing BLW as she certainly wasn't going to let me feed her. I tried not to stress about it but looking back I was very stressed about it which did not help.
Am hoping dd2 will just go with the flow and I will be calmer having experienced one child who got there in the end.
Out of interest were you worried about your ds2 getting 'holiday tummy' whilst in Kenya? We were considering a holiday in Egypt and I was wondering whether I need to be concerned about food hygiene.

My experience if Egypt was it wasn't the food but how some people and their stomachs dealt with the change. I'm sure there are safer foods to stick to, i.e. no salads but more fried goods (it's only for holiday) and carbs etc.

On our travels we took some flapjack type things with us for DD and at the red sea there were loads of kids (DD didn't do Egypt but she has travelled a lot, although mostly throughout the US)

DD did her lowest centile dip after weaning although if corresponded with walking. She was weighed at 6 and 9 months, at 9 months down to 0.4th and had only gained a lb over the whole three months. Made me happy I waited weaning and proved to all the naysayers that weaning was the magical (in both weight and sleep) solution they insisted it was.

For me, rotten, I wasn't worried. His only drinks came from me, which cuts out a lot of the problems. I tried to only offer him low risk food (like penguin said really, or stuff that was casseroled, etc), and watch out for uncovered food and so on. I was more concerned about malaria as he was too young for prophylactic anti-ms and so we had to avoid high risk areas (we travelled a lot).

We went into the Kibera slum in Nairobi with raw sewage running through the dirt streets, so I think a bit of holiday tum was the least of our worries .

The closest we came to a problem was lunch in a nice restaurant in Nairobi. I had a curry with what looked like a side order of tomato relish. I gave him some relish which he loved, with some bread, and it was only when I finished the curry and started on it myself that I found that it wasn't tomato, it was red chillies!!!

We got stuck on the runway leaving the UK for FIVE (count them, FIVE) hours with NO food, NO drinks and NO aircon. Made me very grateful for my boobs.

WRT BLW, you do have to hang on and keep the faith. While some babies will dig in immediately, others will not eat much for AGES and that's ok, too.