So apparantly you can overfeed a breastfed baby..

[Belmo]

I just got dd weighed at 42 weeks and she is 28lb 7oz. She's always been a big girl, popped off the top of the centile chart at 7 months, but she is now a clear 2cm over the top line. Even I was surprised, and the HV was she's put on 2 an a half pounds in a month!
HV was nice but has made it very clear that I must reduce her feeds, and I'm to go back in 2 weeks and see how she's doing. Dd currently has about 8 feeds a day, I'm to try to get her down to 3, 4 at the most.
How???! Controlled crying was mentioned and she offered to send round a nursery nurse. I am not going to leave her to cry, they can fuck right off with that one. Didn't tell her we still cosleep, she'd probably have called the police there and then!
Has anyone successfully persuaded a baby to cut down feeds without any crying? She's allergic to dairy as well so I'm nervous about calcium etc if she gets less milk.
:(

I really don't think the breastfeeding is the problem (unless it's expressed milk, which they may take more of than when feeding directly). What else are you feeding her, and is it spoonfed or BLW? Although it could still be normal variation, someone has to be the biggest.

I would ask for another opinion TBH. And a weight on some different scales. That age they often seem podgy then slim right down as they get more mobile.

DS would have gone nuts if I try to cut him down to 3-4 feeds a day at, what 9/10months is it?

Don't babies self regulate food? I would be tempted to check they are weaned on the right foods then ignore it and take a look again at about age five! Centiles are averages, they can't operate outside the norm so as pp says someone's got to top them!

I was still feeding on demand with mine at that age - how on earth are you supposed to cut down?! How do you feel her weight is? Is she in proportion?

At 42 weeks she is surely eating solids. I doubt it is BM. My DS had about 8 feeds a day until he was 3 and he was always average weight. Why are you bothering with HV anyway?

Assuming you have introduced solids, what is her feeding like with those?

Ignore ignore ignore. If she's happy afaff healthy why on earth would you starve her?!

Are you blw or pureeing alongside? Is she an active or passive baby?

*and, not afaff! Daft phone :)

We're doing BLW and she was quite slow to start but is eating more now.

Very roughly:
About half a weetabix and some raisins for breakfast
About half a pitta pocket with houmous or tuna and some sticks of veg for lunch
About half a baby bowl of tomatoey pasta and veg for tea
She'll sometimes have some fruit or wee rice cakes for snacks.

HV said it sounded okay food wise, and it must be the milk. She's my first so I've got no idea how much a baby normally eats - had been a bit worried she wasn't having enough solids tbh but maybe that's far too much? She feeds to sleep for literally every nap, she very rarely falls asleep in buggy/sling unless she's totally shattered.

I think she is talking rubbish and actually you should complain about her. Nothing wrong with that extra food, and definitely nothing wrong with feeding on demand at any age.

If there was a genuine concern about her weight (rather than just normal variation) it would be a medical issue, not milk IMO.

Loads of xposts! I felt pretty confident about her feeding until today! She's only started crawling this week and is speeding about all over the place now, before that she mostly just cheerily sat. She's obviously pretty big, but I don't think she looks really fat. V chubby thighs but she's quite in proportion. I should have asked to get her length done.
:( I don't really want to stop feeding her. Do you think I can just not go back now that they've asked me?

Thanks, that's cheered me up a bit! :)

The only bit that is concerning is that she feeds to sleep.

This can become a habit for both mum and baby - could you explore ways of getting her to sleep without feeding her ?

The up-side of feed-to-sleep is that it is useful in the early days to help predict the daily routine, the down-side is that carried on too long the babe will need the sucking for comfort in order to get themself off to sleep.
This doesn't sound too big a deal at the moment, but when child needs to be in their own bed you may find alternative comforting tatics appear.

Totally normal for a baby this age to feed to sleep though, why wouldn't you?

DS was fed to sleep until he was 2, he doesn't now. Babies have lots of 'habits', most of them are normal baby behaviour though.

Course you can just not go back, it isn't compulsory You might just 'forget'.

She sounds just like my DD. I'm pregnant again and I do wonder about this a lot. I BF on demand and was repeatedly told I couldn't overfeed her - she sailed above the charts. She was BLW as well, and an excellent eater. I did a lot of comparing of her portion size with the other mums in my NCT class and concluded I was feeding her exactly what they were feeding their babies - but their babies would pick at it - while she'd hoover it all up! Now, at nearly 3, she's still big for her age (although back on the charts again thankfully!) As a bigger baby she wasn't as mobile as other babies - she walked at a bog-standard 13 months but it took her a while to really get going with running, jumping etc.

But - is this a reason not to BF on demand? I'm not sure it is, really. The whole mechanics of formula feeding are very different, and you can't really compare the two. A BF baby can have a little snackette of milk here, another there, and then a proper feed. Don't make yourself miserable. That said - at 42 weeks she probably could get through the night without a feed - how many times is she feeding at night?

I fed DD to sleep until she was just over a year. We broke the habit in 48 hours. I do think people worry too much about that one.

This happened to me with my dd when she was about 9 months too. Basically I smiled and nodded and carried on doing exactly as I have always done. SHe is now 12 years old, is in no way fat and is healthy active and absolutely fine.

I remember at the time being really worried until a GP friend of mine said to me that the best way to stop worrying about what the HV said was to stop seeing the HV He said that since both I and my dh were chubby babies we should expect our dd to be the same.

I'm glad I listened to my friend and not the HV at the time!

Belmo, breastfeeding a baby of 10 mths to sleep, or for comfort, or at any time is normal and healthy. She is likely to slim down when she gets on the move properly but meantime, if the HV really thinks she is taking too many calories in, the things to look at would be the solids - she is taking a variety of healthy foods, but I suppose looking at your list, it is quite 'carb heavy' - prob more than most babies have at this age, so maybe you can discuss that with the HV?

You're probably all right about the sleeping. That is totally my fault - I'm lazy, and it's the easiest way to get her to sleep (rocking her is no joke, she's blooming heavy!)
Night feeds vary, we've had a rubbish month with 4 new teeth appearing but she seem to be sleeping better the last week or so.
Feeds to sleep at 8ish, then 10.30, midnight, 3.30, 6ish and half 7. The last 3 nights she seems to have dropped the 3.30 feed though

That's far too much isn't it? I really don't want her to cry. She goes mental if her dad tries to settle her (loves him most of the time). I'd been vaguely hoping she'd grow out of it herself.

Have you actually worked out how much (in proportion) she's over the centile chart for weight and height? If she's over for height, its not really surprising if she's over for weight too.

DS was enormously fat as a baby, rolls and rolls of it. He was ebf. I was a little touchy about it, especially when he had his 9 month check, and you guessed it, the HV advised me to cut down on his milk, made comments about him being 'too heavy' etc.

Luckily I had friends and my mum to tell me what I knew really, that he was fine. Particularly as at the time he was eating some solid food but not a huge amount, no wonder he was so keen on bf.

I went on to bf him until 2 yrs, he slimmed down a bit when he started to walk but was still fairly chubby. He is now nearly 6yrs and is tall and broad-shouldered but slim with it. Definitely not overweight in any way.

The no. of feeds she has is normal and it is normal for her to feed during the night....don't let this worry derail you!