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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

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Original poster

Hv says I am in for '10 days of hell'?!

30 replies

louloutheshamed · 23/09/2013 19:54

Met my Hv for ds2 today, he is 16 days old. He was 8lb 10 at birth and now 9lb 13, so ebf going well, he seems quite efficient and can go 4 hrs at night, I have a lot of milk and am leaking everywhere but hoping this will settle.

Anyway, Hv says he is between 75th and 91st centile for weight, but his head circumference is nearer 98th, so his real weight centile is prob also 98th so I'm in for a rough 10 days of constant feeding to get him there.

Is this right? I've never heard this logic before? Can't he just have a big head? just seemed a bit negative?

OP posts:

Poppet45 · 23/09/2013 20:02

Total tosh! Dd on 25/50th centile for weight 9th for height and her heads 91st (yes she looks like a pencil topper), DS 91st height, 75th weight, head on the 50th. Not the most helpful hv comment!!

NotQuiteCockney · 23/09/2013 20:04

She's talking nonsense. And being not very supportive of your feeding choice, besides.

AnneUulmelmahay · 23/09/2013 20:06

my youngest had an enormo head, he was bald so was v much like a boiled egg til a year or so old

he didn't grow into his head size till ooh prob past toddlerdom

your HV is talking bollox

poocatcherchampion · 23/09/2013 20:08

Bizarre.

18mo dd1 must be heading for her "rough 10 days" a bit late!

3MenAndMe · 23/09/2013 20:11

I found HV advice total tosh anyway, so avoid and close your ears...
If you need proper advice go to GP or MN ;)
My LO is 12 wo and at 6 weeks was told to give him an orange juice sometime instead of feed as he was gaining 1lb a week...she said he is too fat ...

mrsmartin1984 · 23/09/2013 20:25

HV talking out of backside. Yes the first 6 weeks are hard going. But you seem to be doing ok by the sound of it. Not all babies are the same shape and size. Your baby sounds like it's got a massive head to accommodate his massive brain which clearly the HV doesn't have

legallyblond · 23/09/2013 20:25

Eh? DD was 91st for height, 98th for head and 50-75th for weight. She's three now and her weight hasn't caught up with her head!!!

Trying2bMindful · 23/09/2013 21:23

Nonsense.
DS was 25th/50th/91st at birth..... Now at 16mo he is 50th/50th/95th. (Weight/height/head)
Don't fret & just go with the flow. Follow baby's lead.
Congratulations & enjoy hanging out with your LO.

KatAndKit · 23/09/2013 23:11

I agree it is tosh. My DS just has a big head. As do I. Perhaps we are super brainy. Perhaps not. But anyway his head is on a bigger centile than his body yet he is a picture of good health at 17 months.

EllaMenOhPea · 23/09/2013 23:18

Another one here saying its rubbish - DS was born 75th/75th/98th - his weight went up to 91st, but was always a well contented baby, who did feed a lot admittedly, but generally settled well after feeds. I also knew other big babies, whose heads were not as big as DS's who had similar feeding patterns.

At his 2 yr check, weight & height were back to 75th, but head still at 98th (it's cos it's full of brains you know )

Topseyt · 23/09/2013 23:28

Twaddle. Just keep going as you are and you'll both be fine.

I by and large gave up on health visitors pretty quickly after I had my first baby (I have 3 children). So many of them just came out with such utter drivel, so I just went to the milestone/developmental checks and hardly bothered beyond that.

TheTruffleHunter · 23/09/2013 23:31

Utter crap. My DD has consistently tracked around 50th for weight (ebf) but 95th for head circumference.

My HV was similarly full of crap but as I was prewarned by MN I checked out anything she said which seemed bizarre and guess what?

How is this 'service' so awful??

BlackberrySeason · 23/09/2013 23:32

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

mrsmartin1984 · 23/09/2013 23:32

I have heard HV give such terrible advice. It's their opinion on how things should be done. If you stray from it they make you feel bad. IMO you as a mother know what is best for your child. As long as they aren't broken and you're not giving them gin it's ok

DoubleLifeIsALifeHalved · 23/09/2013 23:46

Twaddle!!!

She's making up a correlation where is is none. Even worse she's attached her own little behaviour pattern to it.

You know when you go to selfridges make up counters, and some of the sales assistants are enthusiastically telling you how the product works in the most creative manner... 'the special serum actually goes into your cells and it stops them ageing, right into your DNA...'

Well, this kind of description is about as accurate as what you got told today :)

AuntySib · 23/09/2013 23:49

Never heard that before. However, you are likely to be in for some days of constant feeding, that's how it works with bf, upping the milk supply. Whether you consider it hell or not is another thing. I found I'd have a day or 2 of constant feeding, then 4 or 5 days of less full-on. If you are prepared ( with cakes in stock, TV remote at your hand, some frozen dinners organised) then you can just zone out and enjoy it!

DoubleLifeIsALifeHalved · 24/09/2013 00:01

Ps I actually interviewed the guy that created the growth charts as they are today. He was a lovely man and had put a huge amount of thought into presenting the charts in a way that was accessible for people to understand and designed to minimize untrained people using then wrong. I didn't like to tell him the way some people use them, he would have been very offended :)

My hv told me that I needed to watch my new borns weight and be prepared to limit weight... At under two weeks! he was 98 percentile for weight, 98 for height and 54 for head circ... She also said his head being small was a concern which totally freaked me out. Asked why and she said it should be in the 90s to fit with the rest of him and it cluld mean his brain wasn't growing fast enough!!! Caused some urgent internetting and calling round friends for reassurance and actual facts. My fat small skulled baby... Ahhh, he was still cute :)

Twattybollocks · 24/09/2013 06:49

Bollocks. Dd was 25th Centile at birth, weight length and head circ. by 6 weeks she was 50th Centile length and head but still 25th for weight. Now at 8 months she's 98th Centile head and length but 50th for weight. She's just tall and has a big bonce that's all.
Babies come in all shapes and sizes, yours is totally normal and likely will carry on feeding just fine so ignore the mad bat and don't become a self fulfilling prophecy.

tiktok · 24/09/2013 11:03

Oh dear...whatever the quality of her info and advice (and it sounds uterly bizarre, honestly), to confront you with such undermining comments is just poor practice.

She seems to think feeding a baby according to his needs has to be 'rough' and 'hell' and 'constant', and I have never heard of the head size being some sort of target the baby has to match in this way.

You will know to be sceptical of everything she says now.

bigbrick · 24/09/2013 11:08

what rubbish was said to you. The baby needs to get the milk supply going and will bf a lot to do this plus it's normal.

MikeOxard · 24/09/2013 11:21

My two both have big heads and little bodies. They fed fine - well, dd was a pita about it, but ds was an absolute milk monster. Nothing to do with the size of their heads though. I think HVs sometimes just get either pressured into, or carried away with, coming out with pearls of wisdom all the time. Sometimes it really is bullshit - same as the rest of us I suppose, except that their job means that people are more likely to believe the bullshit.

Original poster

louloutheshamed · 24/09/2013 12:34

I fed ds 1 for 18m so I am prepared for the relentlessness of the early weeks, it just seemed a v negative way to put it!

You could tell when she was saying it that it was her own little theory she was just making up. It's at times like these I'm so grateful for mn!!

OP posts:

MoaningMingeWhingesAgain · 24/09/2013 12:37

If you can bear to, please feedback to the practice about this 'advice' she has given you, it's so undermining of breastfeeding.

BTW DS is average-ish height, very skinny, with massive head past the end of the chart (I guesstimated him at 105th centile, if that's even possible )

edam · 24/09/2013 12:39

It astounds me that there are health professionals out there who are so ignorant and ready to dish out made-up crap as actual official advice. WTF?

leedy · 25/09/2013 08:45

That is mind-bogglingly weird. Both my boys have big heads. So have I, for that matter - seems I never '"grew into it"...

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