Any bf experts about? Dropping centiles at 22 weeks

[suntodayplease]

DS is 22 weeks and since 16 weeks he's started to slowly drop down centiles. Now just below 9th (born almost on 50th). HV are suggesting early weening next week if weight gain doesn't pick up. Does this sound sensible?

In terms of background...
We have ebf from birth, posterior tt snipped twice and failed to get any formula in via bottle, cup etc. latch is still poor but I'm not longer in pain feeding (only took 4 months!). Plenty of wet nappies but poo is now quite mucusy and green - but I think teething at the same time. Feeding every 3 hours during the day and 4 ish feeds at night. Yawn.
Any thoughts?

My thoughts are that milk is more calorific than apple puree so not sure how useful early weaning would be. However by the time you get to that point he will not be far short of 26 weeks so might be ready anyway.
You could try offering more frequent feeds during the day and see if that helps. Does the tongue tie need to be looked at again? In any case my DS was born just above 50th centile and he dropped down below 25th at about 4 months and was never the less perfectly healthy. He did go back up to the 50th eventually.

DD2 did this, point blank refused bottles, fell off the graph completely.

In the end she was weaned at just over 5 months, strait into baby yoghurts and apple puree (with the consultants blessing)

Instantly started gaining weight and reached 50% line at a year old and hasn't moved off it in 12 years.

I think it's both calories in the food and giving your body a rest from continuous feeding and worry about feeding that helps. I'm certain I made more and better milk when not worrying about the HV's scales.

I'm with KatAndKit on this one - as a first resort do try offering more frequent feeds during the day. A breastfed baby won't take more than he needs, so it's worth at least offering. As a bonus, it forces you to sit down and get more rest!

FWIW, DD was EBF for the first six months and I noticed a wide variation in poo colour and consistency over that time. HV advised me to look at the baby, not the contents of the nappy, in judging whether she was healthy. It's great that your DS has plenty of wet nappies though.

Disclaimer: not a BF expert

Can you get him to feed more on each side to get to the richer hind milk? Some babies get distracted as they get control of their heads so you might be mistaking "finished" for "ooh what's that over there?" and moving him over too soon (that's not a criticism, I just can't think of a better way to put it, sorry)

Try using one boob for a couple of hours before you change over, alongside offering more frequently

www.kellymom.com has been invaluable to me all the way through breastfeeding (ds self weaned at 15 months and I was worried it was too early) as it has loads of properly researched information and advice.

My own experience is that ds started jumping centiles when he weaned - he tracked the 0.4th (dp and I are both small so I didn't consider this a concern despite looks from the hv) for the first 6 months then climbed steadily to the 50th by a year, he's still there now. But I think that's pretty unusual. FWIW i started him on tastes of things like sweet potato at 23.5 weeks and it wasn't considered early by anyone though, so you might just have a baby who's ready. I think the NHS website has a guide to signs your baby is ready?

Nocomet sounds like ds isn't as unusual as I thought then! :o

OP,do ask your HV more about this .

Your baby's drop down the centiles is within normal.

Weaning may not increase his calorie intake - it could reduce it, as solid food could replace his appetite for breastmilk, because he may feed less, and of course milk is still the most nutritious food for him.

There's no way of being sure of this, of course.

Usually, the easiest way to increase intake of a baby of this age is to breastfeed more often.

Ask her what she thinks.

Can you get to a breastfeeding group nearby? In my area they're in the children's centres and I know larger towns have La Leche League etc meetings as well. There's loads of us at mine that are feeding older babies, I was all set to stop going when ds stopped but asked by the mw who runs it to keep going to support other mums. So it's not all teeny new babies iyswim.