Feeling utterly deflated tonight

[everybodywalkthedinosaur]

I had a visit this morning from my health visitor, she is not breastfeeding friendly! I've been exclusively bfing DD (now 17 weeks) am a milk bank donor (1400 mls in 13 days for them!) so have been feeling pretty good, confident and relaxed about the whole thing. She weighed DD today and she's "dropped her weight" down a centile. I was told to start weaning her, after saying that I wanted to do baby led weaning, and to force her to stay on longer and get her to feed more often.

I feel absolutely rubbish, I've been in tears today thinking that I'm not doing enough for her, that I'm not producing enough milk. However when I express I can get 140mls in 5 mins, so DD should be getting enough!

I don't stop her from feeding, and she's fed on demand. I don't want to wean her yet I don't want to give her pureed food.

When she's awake she's more than alert, she watches everything, follows the dog around the room, 'talks' to her reflection, me and her toys/anything that has taken her fancy; she has lots of wees is regular with poos, in short a happy, healthy (or so I thought) baby.

She's a very long baby, she has supermodel legs! So I don't know if that's why she's gone down to nearly the 25th centile.

I've worked out that she's put on an average of 149g a week. I don't know if this is ok or not? I thought that I was doing well with her, she's in 3-6 month clothes which fit perfectly.

I'm sorry this is so long, I guess that I'm offloading. She hasn't actually lost any weight, she's heavier than when she was last weighed.

That weight gain sounds spot-on - see this from KellyMom.

I think you should a) stick to doing just what you're doing and b) disregard this HV's advice.

Really sorry you have been made to feel crap when you're clearly doing a good job for your DD as well as others via the milk bank. Just smile and nod and don't even think about weaning unless there are other reasons to do so!

You are doing amazing and your daughter sounds more than healthy! Bloody health visitors are idiots who insist on reading from a bloody book! Ignore her advice, my daughter dropped centiles for a while and is now on the 98th!!! They don't stay on centiles all the time sometimes they go up other times they go down. Next time they try and visit I'd arrange to be out!

Thank you, she's really shaken my confidence! This is my first time at motherhood so the slightest thing and I'm trembling like a leaf! DD has her jabs next week so I'll ask them what they think.

I wonder however mums managed before bloody charts?! Stupid hv, she's your baby and you can listen to the advice and then completely disregard if you so wish.

Personally I think you sound like you are doing a superb job and I think it's awesome you're a donor. I am sure your dd is doing and growing just fine. My dd1 was always low on weight centile and high on height. She's 8 now and perfectly healthy (and tall)

A decent hv can see past the charts and also doesn't make a perfectly good mum feel like crap for no reason.

Stick to your guns, my twins are the same age as your dd and I'm weaning one (greedy bugger), the other is smaller and not anywhere near ready. No 2 babies are the same

YOU ARE DOING GREAT

HV is talking crap. You're doing fantastically.

How dare she undermine your confidence and upset you when you sound like you're doing FANTASTICALLY?!

I also got told to wean at 17 weeks for similar reasons. I argued my case and they looked all flummoxed and then did a fish open mouth gape thing like no mother had ever dared to question them before!

Our clinic was only once a month, I missed the next one because me and DS were unfortunately involved in a very minor car accident and I'd taken him to A&E to get checked over. I didn't know then that HVs automatically get notified of any A&E visits and will call just to check things are okay, when the HV called I was petrified thinking she was going to tell me off for not going to the weigh-in! In fact that was never mentioned and I didn't end up going again for one reason or another until DS's 9 month check.

You don't have to see the health visitors and their advice is just a suggestion - unless of course they have serious concerns, which it doesn't sound like they do (and there would be no reason to).

Stick with the original plan and forget about her :)

(PS, DS continued to stay small until he was about 2, he's now nearly 4 and everyone comments on how tall he is and asks why he isn't at school because he looks so much older!)

Thank you all. Somebody I know is a (nice) health visitor so we weighed her today, she's put on 160g since Wednesday morning. So I'm feeling a lot better about it all! My friend was horrified that I'd just been left like that. No follow up visit suggested, nothing, just left feeling like I'm failing my daughter. Now I understand why some health visitors are so disliked!

Don't listen to the stupid health visitor this exact thing happened to me when my ds was the same age. Breastfed babies often have a 'dip' at this age. U sound like u have a great supply and obviously ur dd has enough milk a few splodges of baby rice rnt going to do anything!!

My DS dropped to the 9th percentile from the 25th and bobbed around there for a buy before going up again.

Your HV has given you v poor advice there & you should complain tbh. Luckily you are sensible (& an MNer!) but lots if others would probably not question it