Dropping percentiles - does it matter?

[RichInBunlyGoodness]

Hi,

I'm sure this has been done to death but just looking for a bit of reassurance really. DS was 91st percentile at birth and the same at 4 weeks, I weighed him at 8 weeks and he was on the 75th and now at 9 weeks he is between the 50th and 75th.

He is gaining wait and seems happy and healthy. Is this just him finding his natural wait (he was 2 weeks overdue which is maybe why he was so big at birth)?

I am EBF and have no intention of changing this. He has always fed well and we've not had any problems but DD always followed the 50th exactly and so this has got me fretting a little.

My EBF DC did this. All over the place on the charts. Not sure the research figures were done when there were many EBF children. So the charts may reflect differing growth patterns for FF fed or mixed fed children IYSWIM.

If he's feeding and growing wouldn't worry.

I think the advice is to only weigh monthly - weighing weekly gives too much variation which can unnecessarily worry parents.

Weighing at the clinic on proper scales. I would normally only go once a month but when he had dropped percentiles at 8 weeks i thought it might be a variation thing and was hoping that this week he might be back up again and put my mind at rest. Had the opposite effect though!

The HV seemed unconcerned and said he seems fine which should have reassured me really but she read the chart wrong and thought he'd been on the 75th at 4 weeks. I didn't realise until after I'd left so couldn't correct her. Not sure if this would have altered her opinion or not.

Just to reassure you, my ds was almost 2 weeks overdue and was 9lbs 13 when born so was 90-something centile. He drifted down the centiles until he was at about the 40th where he has tracked roughly since then. He is breastfed as well. The HV was not concerned at any point as he has always been active and sociable, and never looked too skinny. She actually advised me not to weigh him too often precisely to stop me getting het up about it.