Slow weight gain -- any thoughts?

[frogs]

Dd2 is 15 weeks, and fully bf. She weighed 9lb 5oz at birth, but was slow to regain her birth weight (3 and a half weeks) and has now drifted down to the 25th centile, at 12lb 10oz.

She looks fine, feeds well, sleeps through from her late evening feed till 6.30 or 7am, lots of wet nappies and very cheerful and happy.

HV not overly concerned by slow weight gain, and neither am I, but I am slightly perplexed by it. I'm not doing anything differently to my first two, who were similar sizes (9lb and 10lb respectively), but they followed their centile lines pretty much exactly. I did wean them at 4 months, tho', following advice at the time.

I want to keep fully bf till 6 months, HV seems to think this is a bit of a tall order, which annoyed me.

My immediate reaction is to give up weighing and forget about charts. What do other MNers think?

Give up the charts. I had similar situation with dd and stopped getting her weighed as she was so healthy. She is now 6 months and has tasted her first solids today. She's full of life, has been wearing 6-12 months clothes for 2 months.

Give up weighing and forget about charts!

hth

frogs, snap! ds2 was 9lb2oz at birth and at last weigh-in (16 weeks) he was well below the 25th centile at 13lb8oz. He seems to be doing fine (not sleeping through mind!) so I am just putting it out of my head and will wait for signs of hunger before I start solids.

Another vote for give up weighing and forget about charts. Works for me!!

I'd give up the charts! Your bub sounds like she is doing great. I had a similar situation where my DD didn't put on weight for 6 weeks! The paediatrician basically said I needed to put her on formula but I wanted to exclusively b'feed. I went to another paediatrician who said that she was prob fine and it was just genetic (I'm tall and not very fat). However DD became quite unsettled and only then did I supplement with the dreaded formula. If she had been happy like your bub, the charts would have gone out the window!

It is totally possible to bf until 6 months and HV that think this will be difficult need to go on a course or something.

I agree with you to give up weighing and look at the baby not the chart. If the charts for breastfed babies were correct they would be the same in every country up until 6 months and they are not. I would like to see a chart compiled just from exclusively breastfed infants up to 6 months and see how different it is to the existing ones.

What a consensus -- and so quickly! Thanks guys!

Forgetting about the charts seems good to me -- she seems fine and has nice chunky little thighs, so it's not as if she's fading away or anything.

I was just slightly puzzled as to why this one should be so different to the other two, who both weighed a good 3lb more by this stage, but I expect it's just one of those things. I'll keep feeding, maybe try to feed a little more often -- as long as she's happy and not obviously hungry I guess we can't go too far wrong.

Thanks for the support!

It's not the charts that are the problem - weight charts 'for breastfed babies' are not very different from 'ordinary' charts (which actually reflect data from a mix of babies) exceot for a plateauing at 3-4 mths.

It's the reliance on them, to make clinical and nutritional decisions, like supplementing with formula, or starting solids early.

They are only one aspect of health, and should always be seen in context.

Your HV's job, for heavens sake, is to support you and to enable you to bf exclusively to about six months.

My dd had and still has slow weight gain, at 17 mth she is 16lbs 90z, she sleeps and is happy developing ok! Has had supplements at times after illness.
I breastfed her til 6 mths, depite MASSIVE pressure from HV to wean early and formula feed.
I continued feeding her til she was 15 mths, stopping has made no difference either way!
I advise give up frequent weighing, lie to HV's a lot and look at your baby not at charts and scales, the centiles are crapola anway for b/f babes

Ignore the charts they are based on an average taken about 10 years ago and should only be used as a guideline. I did some reseaach 2 yrs ago into this cos My HV made me feel v.inadequate because dd was "unweight and shorter than average" but she looks absolutely fine, has lots of energy and appears to be intelligent and is rarely ill. In the end my mum basically said look at her she's in proportion you can't see bones sticking out and stop worrying. good old mum because I really felt very upset and a crap mum. think I'm trying to say if everything looks ok then don't worry.

Thank you for all your thoughts!

FWIW, I'm going to make doubly sure I let her feed for as long as she wants each time, rather than whisk her off as soon as she stops sucking at 90 miles an hour.

Other than that I'm going to assume that if she looks fine, she is fine, and keep bf till 6 months -- if only because I can't face the disgusting post-weaning nappies. Yup, I am that shallow...

Isn't it depressing, though, that so many HV assume that feeding for 6 months is practically unachievable. Maybe we should get together and produce a mumsnet 'I breastfed exclusively for 6 months' booklet and wave it under their noses to show it can be done.

Thanks for all your support.