Dropped a centile at 3 months - normal?

[Heatherbell1978]

DS1 was born on 50th centile (7lb 8) and has never budged, even in the days post birth. Took him to get weighed yesterday after a month (HV wasn't worried last time so told me to wait a month before getting him weighed again) and despite asking me his age (13.5 wks/3 months), she put him down as 12 weeks which would mean he is still on the 50th, so she just said 'he's fine' and rushed me on. I didn't actually notice this error until this morning which means he's actually just above the 25th centile. He's been really fussy with feeding recently, sometimes I just have to put him down for a nap and feed him when he wakes which seems to work so HV just said 'maybe he's not hungry'. But now I'm feeling annoyed as this might be affecting his weight gain. I'm definitely taking him back next week now but can't believe the HV could make this error, I should have checked the book before I left the clinic...

If he's above 25th then he hasn't dropped one. He has to cross a line to drop a centile. It's also not a concern unless they cross two. Sounds normal :) They will dip up and down, because the curves just show an average of all babies, they don't grow at the same rate so sometimes they'll be above and sometimes below. It's nothing to worry about unless they are diving or climbing sharply.

Annoying that the HV was not accurate, but Bertie is right....this fluctuation is well within normal, as his behaviour :)

DS dropped from the 91st centile to the 9th when he was that age, he righted himself within a month. Still no idea what caused it!

Bathsheba whew! Im fretting over a mid centile drop myself; great to hear these things can right themselves even with a big change!
I fret every time she does a milky burp or feeds a but less.

They don't need to track the exact same line the whole time.

Remember that the line is just an average distribution of baby weights. It is not saying that a given baby will gain weight at a precisely that rate throughout babyhood. Just because a baby is born at 90 doesn't mean that they will stay at 90 every single time, etc. If you think about it, wouldn't that be a little weird? A bit like expecting all babies to be born the same size. Most babies will, at some point, drift up a bit or down a bit. All that means is that they are gaining weight slightly slower/faster than average at that point. As Bertie says, it's two centile lines that is an issue.

DD2 was born at somewhere over 50 and settled closer to 25. DS was born at 75 and quickly tracked down to 50. They're both perfectly happy and healthy.