Those centile charts in the red book

[SoupDragon]

If they are really based on formula fed infants, why has my excl. bf DD jumped from 75th centile for weight at birth to 91st in 3 weeks?? wtf would she be on if plotted on a breast fed chart?? DSs were similar so it's not inaccurate scales.

Can you over feed a breast fed baby??

I'm not worried as such, it just made me think. Having dug out DSs red books, DS1 was the same weight as DD at 3 weeks (alhough he started out much bigger and lost nearly 2lbs after birth) and DS2 although lighter at birth was heavier at 3 weeks. Both DSs used to pile on at least 1/2 a pound a week, even managing a pound some weeks. I guess I just do this bit "well".

HOwever, given that she's so well fed, why won't she sleep more often?!

I read somewhere that the WHO (ok, not the band, the health org !) are working on a new world-wide chart on a large sample of excl. bf babies.

If anyone is interested, the old WHO chart (I think it dates from 1992) can be found on kellymom.com. I used it throughout DS's first year and sure enough he was higher up on the centiles on the WHO chart then he ever was on the Red Book one.

It is true also that excl. bf babies slow down in weight gain past 6 months. My DS put on masses of weight in the first 5.5 months and then slowly began to put very little on after 6 months.

So who said that solids help with weight gain ? Load of rubbish if you ask me. Despite starting solids at 6 months he stopped putting on the sort of weight he had gained when he was on bm alone.

It gave me a real boost to my confidence to find out that I was right all along, my milk is FULL FAT not skimmed

I spoke to a bf counsellor about the charts for the opposite reason - ds2 dropped from 50th% at birth to 9th% at 5 months.

The charts are based on predominently bottle-fed babies, but the curves are comparable up to about 3months after which bf babies tend to fall behind. So at 3 weeks it just shows what a pro you are at bfeeding! Well done.

:) Thanks