17 month old dropped 2 centiles, would weaning help?

[Sugarandsalt]

My DD gained weight beautifully and was on around the 75th centile line until around 7 months. She was an early crawler and dropped down to 50th centile or so by 10 months, and a bit below this by 12months. She's on a weight adjusted medication so DH her to be weighed yesterday and she's now dipped to just under the 25th (9.3kg). She's very picky, has a tiny appetite and was an absolute nightmare to start on solids in the first place. She still breastfeeds 2-3times a day (before/after work) and I've been reluctant to stop as she eats almost no dairy and will not touch milk from a cup. However I'm concerned that it's now impacting her appetite to the point that her weight gain is stalling. She loves to breastfeed, and would happily feed every few hours so I do limit it.

Has anyone been through similar/have any advice?

I think toddlers can have up to 500ml of milk a day which is quite a lot, especially if they have very little other dairy. Obviously you can't measure the milk she's getting but when you say 2/3 bf a day is that in 24 hours? My 21 month old still has 240mls at bedtime (won't have it during the day-he'll only have water) and lots of dairy foods. What kind of amounts of food does she eat now?
TBH you're her mum and if you think that bf is affecting her appetite you're probably right.

Sounds like it would be helpful to have a professional opinion, OP. There is a risk that if you stop breastfeeding, she will actually have less to eat. There's plenty of ways to increase a toddler's intake, and a dietitian specialising in children would help.

Thanks Nicky, she would have 2-3 feeds from morning til evening, often one overnight but not always. What she eats from day to day is completely inconsistent, there's no single food she will always eat. Yesterday (at home) was a good day- breastfeed 7am, refused breakfast (porridge) 8, had a slice of toast with banana at 10, lunch of m+s Mac and cheese kids meal with extra cream stirred in (DH was home with her and has a flu so wasn't up to cooking), refused yoghurt (always does), refused afternoon snack (rice cakes with nut butter), had half an avocado, a little bit of tomato and about a quarter tortilla wrap for tea, refused any late supper, breastfeed when I got in at 6, another pre bed at 8, and another at 4am.

Today (nursery 10-430) bad day- no morning feed (she was sleeping), refused breakfast, had a mid morning snack of a little slice of malt loaf, had some fish pie at lunch (about half portion), refused dessert, had some raisins mid afternoon, refused her evening meal both at nursery and at home. Breastfeed at 630 when I got home and will have another pre bed I'm sure.

Tiktok- that's my fear, but anytime I bring it up with HV she just says that she's holding out for breastmilk so I need to cut back, and that she looks fine anyway. I'm not sure about this, as she doesn't eat more the weeks I'm on night shifts and breastfeed less often. I had bad oversupply in the early days, was leaking constantly til about 7 months and could easily express 10oz-12oz in one sitting straight after a feed so was wondering if maybe she gained excess weight early on due to this and now she's just finding her true centile (both my DH and I are narrow build and pretty short).

I spoke to a dietician at work (I'm a HCP) and tbh she wasn't very helpful. Just advised I give her calorie dense foods which I do already, but it's no good if she won't eat them. She runs around all day, plays, never sits still and sleeps pretty well (never wakes more than once overnight). She has about 3 dirty nappies most days still so obviously she eats something! Sorry about the essay, I just don't know how I can get her to eat more.