Why don't my big ebf babies thrive?!

[YouMaySayImADreamer]

I am ebf my second ds. BF my first DS who is now 2.5 to 14mo and now ebf my 5mo. DS1 was 9lb 13oz at birth, and DS2 was 9lb 2oz but 1.5 week before edd so probably wouldve weighed the same. Both born on 75th centile.

I have taken time to educate myself on the ins and outs of bf on demand and have always been very baby led. I have always gone with the flow of cluster feeding and night feeds (which DS2 does a lot). I feed to sleep and DS2 doesn't have a dummy (DS1 did) so I offer a feed at every whimper practically.

However DS1 stopped gaining weight for 2 months from 3-5 months and then it was a slog to get him to even gain a few ounces before he started solids at 6mo. DS2 hasnt been quite as bad, he has always gained but has slowly dropped two centiles since birth and is now on 25th centile. He has gained 7.5ounces only in the past 19 days.

I was so disappointed getting him weighed today. I am exhausted from not having more than 2 hours sleep in a row in 5 months and not having a break and I feel that it isnt even paying off.

I honestly think ny breasts just must be crap! I never got engorged or felt my milk noticably come in either time, never leaked, and only one of my breasts becomes engorged if I miss a feed (which is worrying).

I have these lovely big healthy babies and I cant sustain them. I have taken every bit of advice for successful bf and feel a bit angry and frustrated that my babies don't thrive. I wonder how much more effort I have to put in to make it work. I could express between feeds, I could spend hours trying to get a perfect latch, I could spend lots of time trying to get ds to stay on the breast longer...but I am already spending way more time and headspace on feeding than if I was bottle feeding. I just want to enjoy my baby for once. I also have a toddler I want to enjoy time with.

Is there something obvious I am missing and doing wrong?? I desperately want to make bf work well and I want to feed well into toddlerhood, rather than limping to a halt like I did last time...

Haha mamab33 cake sounds like the most appealing option!!

My ds was 11lbs at birth. He was ebf until 6 months and then I carried on breastfeeding on demand, day and night until 16 months.

He slowly dropped through the chart until at his 2 yr check he settled on the 50th, the same as his height. He is now 5 yrs old and is still on the 50th.

He was my 4th dc, and he was the biggest. My dd2 was 9.7 at birth and was bottle fed. She dropped through the chart and is now a very very skinny 11 yr old.

My 5th dc was 7lbs at birth. She was induced at 38 weeks because of her small (for me) size. She has been ebf and has slowly gained but is now 2yrs old and still very petite, but perfect.

All I mean to say is, don't worry. Mine have all been different sizes, fed differently, although always on demand, and they all have settled at their 'right' weight eventually.

Can I just clarify a misconception on here. What you eat does not affect your milk in the way described above. You may feel crap and run down and lose weight but your milk does NOT go from full fat to semi-skimmed or skimmed or whatever. The quality of your milk remains pretty constant. It is made from sugar, fat and protein in your blood. Eating cake, likewise, might make you feel happier but will have bugger all effect on your milk.

Eat well, drink well and take care of yourself for YOU. Don't worry that you have poor quality milk somehow. It doesn't work like that.

Thanks happy it is really interesting to hear other people'sh experiences especiallt as you have ff too as I always presumed that ff babies will just put weight on.

Thanks saul it wasn't actually me, but another poster who made these comments. I know that my diet will have no impact unless I was severley malnourished. I think the cake comment was just meant to be light hearted.

I'm in a very similar situation OP. DC1 born average and ended up in single figures before weaning. Same thing is happening to DC2 right now. I know how tempting it is to go and get them weighed. Whoever I go I'm always so sure something has changed and the trend is on the up. Never is. He is a happy happy little boy though so I know there is really nothing serious going on. He was weighed as recently as last week and a new HV (to me) suggested that I shouldn't feed on demand. That I was in fact offering far to often. Feeding him, as I do, meant that he isn't getting the fatty hind milk but only the thirst quenching fore milk. Now I'm really sleep deprived but i didn't think that's really how is works??? Need to do some more reading on this I think.

bonbon I think that's really old-fashioned advice!! Pretty sure they know now that that isn't how it works. If I were you I would seek a second opinion (maybe ring the national breastfeeding helpline?) from someone you're confident they know what they are talking about.
OP - am sure I read on the bf support group I'm part of that the percentile charts are based on formula fed babies, and that it is normal for be babies to go through a growth 'plateau' at around 3m. This sounds like you maybe? I don't have links to the information, sorry because I never bothered getting my dd weighed (I went for a 'she looks alright to me' approach) but might be worth a bit of research. I think maybe I heard it from La Leche League?

The red book charts are based on breastfed babies and have been for a while. This is the page:

www.rcpch.ac.uk/system/files/protected/page/A5 UKWHO0foldout.pdf

The advice from the HV about feeding "too frequently" seems very old fashioned and to have a poor understanding of how milk production works. Feeding frequently does not mean that your baby is missing out on fattier milk. Have a google of "foremilk/hindmilk myth" as there are lots of sites that explain this well.

No, I know it wasn't you op. When I say 'you' I mean it generically. It's good to be mindful of the fact that you get a LOT of lurkers on MN and they might not be so sure of how breast feeding works. My cake reply was meant to be light hearted too.

bonbon as confirmed by the others, you are right, that is very poor advice and I would ask to see a breastfeeding counsellor. Do you have the helpline numbers to hand?

OP I could have written your post! Both mine were born on 50th and slowly but surely dropped their ways down the centiles. DC1 shot back up the curves once weaned and at 3 is now on 95th for height and weight. Am taking DC2 16 weeks to the HV this afternoon as she has now hit the 9th centile and seems to be putting on less that 100g/week so will probably have slipped further down. Like you, I have done everything possible to keep BFing but I think now is the time to start supplementing with some formula. I appreciate that the centiles are only a guide and obesity, overfeeding etc are to be avoided but I think being underweight is worse.
Am also deeply fed up with agonising about what I am doing wrong and would like to enjoy them both a bit more rather than constantly trying to stuff my boob into DC2!

i dont know, i think overweight is worse. even high birth weight is sometimes associated with longer term health problems, as it often (not always!) reflects maternal (pre) diabetes or obesity.

Overall it really does sound like younare getting hung up on the figures and getting lost and anxious in the detail...percentages, centiles, rates..... I had big babies. But i am 5ft 4, size 10 (nearer 8 now but that's a whole other story) and their father is very average - 5ft 9, slim. So they started off big, but in all reality were never going to stay that way. Step back and look at the bigger picture. They are not going to starve to death, they aren't malnourished, you are doing an excellent job but are getting bound and tied in figures and it's fuelling your anxiety and lessening your enjoyment of your babies.

I now have a 14 yr old who is taller than me with a beautiful normal figure, and a ten yr old who is all ribs and knees and eats CONSTANTLY. Please, step away from the scales and stats, give yourself permission to stop fretting xx

Sorry saul lost in translation there! I wish cake was the answer though

Sounds like im not alone bonbon my hv told me he was having too many snacky feeds (even though he feeds every 3 hours ish in the day) and not getting enough of a good feed. She also told me to wean early but I dont see this as a real solution.

cosima im sorry its happening to you too, it is so disheartening isn't it? I resisted supplementing and early weaning with ds1 but I always wondered if I did the right thing as he is now back on the 75th, eats loads and is very active and I wonder if I deprived him of calories at a vital time in his development?

I have actually read A LOT of research on bf and actively promote and am very pro breastfeeding. I could quote so much information to myself, but sometimes I wonder if I believe what I am saying myself...at what point when my dc is falling down the charts but I am following every bit of bf advice do I decide it isn't in his best interests? And believe me, it goes against everything I "know" about bf to say that. It seems such a grey area. BF is "working" as he is getting milk and putting some weight on, but not at the rate youd expect despite my best efforts, so perhaps is only working to an extent?

Thanks wallaby I have exactly the same build as you it sounds like. People often describe me as petite so you wouldnt expect thay I would produce huge babies, and I don't fall into the obese Mum, big baby category. But that makes me think the opposite, that my babies are meant to be big genetically (both also arrived before their edd) but that my body can't sustain them.

why would your babies have a genetic code for height if you are petite? honestly, as long as they are happy/healthy, dont worry
perhaps you think 'big is better' because your babies were born large?

Can I just add that weaning early sounds really over the top to me? I don't have any medical knowledge but personally I'd be happier with a bit of formula prior to 6m rather than weaning. Weaning sounds quite dramatic to me given all the 'Virgin gut' research

Because my partner is tall and comes from a tall family sanfairy. I suppose we never know what is in our genetics either do we? I don't think big is better and have never said that...I just worry that they should maintain the size they are supposed to be.

I think weaning is bad advice to be honest, but I think it might have been because she knew I didn't want to top up with formula as it can be conducive to premature end to bf

I reLly think you can't see the wood for the trees, and i do mean this kindly, but it sounds like you have got a little fixated and are giving yourself and your abilities a hard time. Just because you had a big baby (as did i) does not therefore mean they are "genetically" bound to be huge......it just doesn't follow. Seriously, i would consider just weighing every couple of months - and if that prospect sends your anxiety up, there's your answer. Stop over reading, you are fuelling your anxiety.....your children are not, i repeat not, going to waste away to scraps of nothing. They will simply take what they need, and end up roughly like you or your dh.

My daughter was a chubby little newborn. 8lb 13oz on a short frame. She looked like a big red tomato. She didn't put on much weight in the first few months but was happy and very alert. We just came to the conclusion that she had done very, very well in the womb and body was primed to burn off some of the weight. She fed well and the health visitor kept an eye on us.

Another way of looking at it, instead of analyzing "why" you had a big baby.....maybe just cos?! I have no idea why mine were, no diabetes involved. They just.....were!! I know someone who was 11lbs at birth - very ordinary sized man now.

I'm an anxious person by nature but it does sound to me that you're worrying too much about this. I know you said the health visitor as agrees but there have been lots of threads on here in the past where health visitors have worried mumsnetters unnecessarily because their babies haven't followed an exact line of growth. As pp mentioned, an average must include babies who are higher and those who are lower than the average line.

I think as a general rule, as long as your baby is still gaining weight (which he is, just not as much as you'd like) and still producing wet nappies, then there isn't a problem.

Your first DS was ebf for 6 months and you haven't mentioned that he was malnourished or suffered any ill effects. Now your second DS sounds as though he is coming along well and actually gaining more weight than his older brother - who you know was and is healthy despite being a lower weight as a baby.

I think if you want to start spacing out his feeds more for your own benefit, 5 months old is old enough to start doing so. Otherwise I really would try not to worry so much.

Thanks all appreciate the advice and experiences.

I do think into things a lot and am a bit of a perfectionist...I suppose what I am most worried about is that they have a lot of development going on in this first year and I dont want to unwittingly deprive them of calories they need to do this and damage them.

Both of mine have had faltering weight, DS2 was far worse (fallen from 91st to second centile) but he has severe reflux. We excluded CMPI (and I cut out soya as well as dairy as there are a lot of babies who are intolerant to both) It is so frustrating, especially when you put so much effort into feeding them then you watch the scales barely change from weigh-in to weigh-in. He's now following the centile line, after mixed feeding and getting his medication right. DS1 was EBF and came back up to the 50th centile by the time he turned 2. We weaned DS2 at about 20 weeks (on advice of paeds) and that does seem to have helped. I asked my HV about increasing my calorie intake to 'improve' my breast milk, but she told me that there is no evidence that it helps.

Paeds did suggest that DS2 could be catching down to his natural weight but that it was too big a drop to explain away his cruise across the centile lines. He's very long so is quite the bean pole. Is your wee one in proportion if you look at weight and length together?

Do try to step back and look at your children not at their stats.

Are they happy, perky, alert, active?

Weight is only one factor, they aren't necessarily meant to follow centiles religiously.

I was completely thrown by my ebf son being weighed at three months. He'd fallen from the 50th centile to the 9th/25th. He was weighed two weeks later and was tracking the new centile. Hv was happy - if was the last time he was weighed - now 28 weeks. He was alert, happy at 3 months but I had two weeks worry that he wasn't gaining enough; he was just settling down.

The thing is, in years to come, you (and they) won't even remember this!

I think you need to put those charts away and try to enjoy more, analyse less.

Some babies just have crazy metabolism I reckon.

I thought my slow gainer was my fault till she started on solids ... and it was the same old story. She's a very active baby, I can now see her eating full fat milk and porridge etc as well as my milk ... but she's still wee!

Mind you she is very normal development wise, you'd think she'd read the book! So I'm reassured her bones and brain work fine.

Also I found the adult height chart in the red book a comfort. DD was born 25th and is now close to 2nd. I am the same place in adult height! So maybe it is just dna.