This is long so thanks in advance for anyone who bothers to read it!
My son was born a whopper on the 99th centile, which came as a surprise - his brother was 8lb 3 at 38 weeks (who was between 25-50th centile after 6 weeks) but I was not expecting 10lb 11 at 40+5. Anyway, he was quite slow to regain birth weight but at two weeks was on 91st centile and days 10-14 he put on 10oz. At six weeks he was dead on the 91st centile line. However from weeks six to now his weight gain has been slow, around 100g a week such that as of today he is in the 50th centile space.
He has been EBF on demand since birth. In the early days he was sleepy and I would wake him to feed 3 hourly at a minimum. I have a very fast let down, which I had with my first son (he was EBF until 16 months) which made for a really windy baby but that seems to have calmed down a lot in the last few weeks.
At almost 10 weeks I took him to a cranial osteo who works with an ICBLC BF consultant. Someone recommended the osteo to me as he was so windy. I had of course also noted the slow weight gain combined with pulling on and off / clicking (which I initially suspected had been related to fast let down but seemed at odds with slow gain). On our second visit (on Tuesday) she diagnosed a posterior tongue tie which was snipped on Tuesday. I can very much feel the difference in the latch, and little one seems to have dealt with it generally quite well though we are going back to the ostea/BF clinic on Tuesday for a review.
He has, since about 8 weeks, had a snuffle / congestion which at 10 weeks developed into a miserable chesty cough (thanks to his older brother!) and he had a lot of mucus in his nose/throat. He seems to be through the worst of this now though.
He is very perky and well in himself (though still coughing a bit and a bit snotty still), very alert and communicative, plenty of wet nappies and poops 1-2 times over 24 hours (occasionally 3). He is very long, and has a very similar build to that of his brother at this age.
I don't know whether I should be worried at this slow gain. We have just had the TT snipped so I guess will need to wait a bit to see results from that. I will take him to baby clinic to check in with HV, but I just am not sure if there is something else I should / could be doing.
I am pretty sure I have plenty of milk - he doesn't seem frustrated at the breast (though does pull on and off esp if they are full, and has been more fussy last couple days though I guess to be expected post snip) and I can see milk in his mouth / it dribbles out when he comes off, when he is sick sometimes quite a lot of milk comes out etc. Everyone always talks about fast let down = good weight gain, but I am certain about the let down being mental (though def much better last couple weeks).
I am feeding him on demand, which is usually every 2-2.5 hrs in the day (and I have been making a conscious effort to offer every two hours the last few days since I really started freaking out) but cluster feeds from 5-7pm (bedtime). At night he has done stretches of 8/9 hours occasionally in the last couple of weeks, but an initial stretch of 5/6hrs more common followed by further stretches of 3 hrs then 2. Tried a couple of times to give him a 'dream feed' of expressed milk but has not been very successful as generally VERY sleepy at 11ish.
Any advice??