Breastfeeding & Baby's Weight Gain

[GeorginaA]

Midwife just left. Ds2 has lost quite a bit of weight from birth - I know this is fairly normal, but it's got me terrified of the whole weighing rigmarole again.

He was born at 3.335kg and today (7 days later) he's at 2.990kg. His older brother did much the same (although he was heavier to start with) but didn't regain his birth weight until a just over 3 weeks old. In the meantime, the amount of weighings in by the midwives and pressure to "top him up" with formula was almost overwhelming and having to go through all that again is terrifying me.

I didn't think it'd be this way with no. 2. Unlike no. 1 he's been alert and feeding well right from the word go. Plenty of wees, only one poo a day though. Had slight jaundice and that is fading well, so I'm fairly certain he's getting enough. Expressed 2.5 oz of milk from my boobs this morning so I'm certain that there's plenty available for him.

Next weigh-in booked for Friday. Feel like I ought to be "feeding myself up" or something - did this last time which resulted in the weight gain but made me feel like I was constantly force-feeding myself. Harder to do when you don't want your toddler snacking on high calorie foods as well.

This has really got me very upset - I know it's silly, and it's still early days, but they can't force me to supplement can they?!!

no they can't Georgina. you are doing v well, please don't feel you have to 'give in' as supplementing him with formula will affect your supply. there's been some more research published just this week about how breastfed babies grow more slowly & somehow have a lower risk of developing heart disease. weighing a lot especially at the beginning distorts the overall picture, imo.

Oh Georgina, how well I know this feeling, its AWFUL! Resist, you DO NOT need to top him up with formula, as you probably know, your breast milk will decrease proportionately.
My DS gained weight very very slowly, dropping thru all the percentiles - I was frantic. Then he started to lose weight and I nearly went out of my mind with worry. Then he started to gain a bit and now at 6 months, he weighs 20lbs and is on the top percentile for height (and they are muttering about how fast he is putting weight on).
If - and its a big if - you were eating really poorly, then I think it might reduce the quality of your milk, but I think generally, the baby gets what he needs and it would be your nutrition that suffers. As long as you are eating healthily, your baby is getting everything he needs from your breast milk and needs nothing else. Please try not to worry, he will be gaining weight like a trooper before you know it, HV's can be real paragons about weight gain and their blasted charts

this thread might help

Unless you are starving yourself atm I don't think feeding yourself up will really make much difference, apart from perhaps psychologically. He's only lost about 10 % and that is I believe within the normal parameters. The jaundice may have slowed his progress but by the sounds of it he is now doing well. You don't have to do the weigh-ins to their timetable and they cannot force you to supplement. Stick to your guns, you've had a difficult start, please don't let this undermine your confidence.

Hopefully Tiktok or Mears will see this and give you the more professional answer.

Congrats on ds
You're doing great. The nappy output equals input and I think it is around 6-8 wet nappies per day. He's feeding fine, he's alert and you feel everything is ok. Don't let this midwife shatter your confidence Don't have to feed yourself up (good excuse for some choc though!) -just eat & drink to hunger and thirst as usual. Good luck with this

Georgina, I went through something similar with my dd (now 21 months). She was born on 75th centile and dropped to under 9th after about 12 weeks. I exclusively breast fed her and the HV was concerned that her weight gain wasn't great enough. She wouldn't take a bottle at all so in the end I just ran with it and let her have what she wanted. I stopped going to the baby clinic too which I think helped . dd is still petite but not underweight. She was obviously overfed in the womb .

Personally, I would stick to my guns if I were you. He's still only a few days old. Usually midwives give 4 weeks for birthweight to be regained, so you have a while to go yet. Maybe if they are being insistant with you, you could sit down with your midwife and ask her to explain the benefits of topping up with formula and see what she says, although I'm fairly sure that this would only result in your own supply fading which is really not want you want at all. Lastly, my original HV (really nice and helpful but retired) said that weigh ins should not be as regular with breasfed babies as they don't put weight on as quickly as bottle fed babes do so maybe that could be a tack you could take.

Sorry I don't feel I've been much help but I really wanted to offer you some support and I hope you feel better about this soon

Georgina they can't force you to supplement.

Ds was born 3 months ago and lost way too much weight after his 1st week from 5lb 14oz to 4lb 10oz.

He took 1 month to regain his birthweight was jaundiced and for a while was listless, had no wet or dirty nappies etc, all the signs that something was wrong.

Despite all this at no time was I told to supplement him. Instead whilst we worked on breastfeeding, it was refusal then inefficient latch that was causing it all, I expressed and cup fed him milk.

So long as your baby is getting milk it doesn't matter what sort or how he gets it. Your ds doesn't sound like he has the problems mine did so ignore the weight charts (my brilliant HV told me to) and keep feeding him.

Georgina, guess what...mine did too. Bit later on, at about four months (on the other hand I hardly ever took her to the baby clinic!) so I had a wrangle over whether to wean or not.

Nobody can force you, honey. You don't even have to go to the clinic if you don't want (I'm not trying to give you irresponsible advice but seriously, dd2 has been twice I think).

If snacking 'helps', though, one thing I would say is don't worry about your toddler and calories. They need them, honestly.

Bron - can't believe your baby is 10 months already - I remember your thread so well

Georgina - please do not be diheartened - this is so common. I really wish we would stop weighing babies all the time. Some babies take 3 weeks or more till they rehain their birthweight - be reassured that your last baby did the same. Perhaps it is genetic.

You seem reassured by your baby's behaviour feeding wise. Didn't you have sore nipples initially? That is asign that the baby has not been fixed as well as he could be therefore he may have got less milk than he might have. However, as the days go by they become more effective at feeding and the nipples improve. He will make up for lost time and I am sure you will find that he will have gained next week. I would be inclined not to have him weighed on Friday (if he is feeding well and peeing) but I don't know how you feel about that.

You cannot be made to supplement and there is absolutely no need to do so just now. Make sure he is feeding at least 3 hourly during the day. More feeds = more milk. Only need to eat more if you are hungry. He will be fine

Georgina, my ds lost lots of weight too - I had to really push to be 'let' out of hospital after my section - I was great, but they said ds hadn't regained his birth weight - he was only five days old!!! Anyway, he is now - as anyone who has seen him will testify, a right little chubster. Please don't panic. You are doing brilliantly. And Bundle is right, there is evidence that breastfed babies do gain weight more slowly and this has huge and lasting health benefits all through their lives. You DO NOT need to eat more yourself - breastmilk is breastmilk and all of the most perfect quality and ideal for your baby - eating more makes no difference to the composition of your milk. Stick to your guns, keep feeding and if you don't want to go on Friday, then don't. I think you are the expert on your baby. If as you say he is healthy, happy and has wet nappies, you can bet your life he is fine.
It drives me insane! Babies are SUPPOSED to lose weight after being born - that's why they are born with fat on board. And gaining weight slowly is a GOOD thing. I cannot believe this country is so full of awful witchy HVs. I came under huge pressure to supplement at a few days old and I caved in and rather regret it. I would still probably have mixed fed (so no, I don't think formula is poison )but I would have preferred to make it to six weeks at least so without any formula involved.

If health profs want to weigh and draw conclusions from weights, then they are duty bound to do it properly. You have two weights, done on different scales by different people ....you cannot assess anything on this. It's well dodgy! But even if we are fairly confident that it is a rough guide to the baby' weight, without an interim weight, who can tell if this is a baby who lost a lot, and has started to gain again? It would be worrying if your baby was still actively losing weight at a week old, but we don't know that, do we? And the fact he is alert and now feeding well would indicate he is doing fine. One poo a day is on the low side, but of itself, that's nothing to be concerned about - it's the babies who aren't pooing at all at 7 days who should worry us.

He may be gaining slowly, and this may be confirmed at the next weigh in (which , as mears says, mightbe useful to have, just to reassure you), but slow weight gain of itself is nothing to worry about - it is on the normal spectrum, and if the baby is basically happy, feeding well (and often, including at night) and shows signs of good milk transfer, and good positioning and attachment (can't remember if you are sore or not - hope not), then all is well.

Don't force feed yourself. It won't make a scrap of difference. If it appeared to result in weight gain last time, then that's coincidence.

HTH

Thank you all, I feel so much better after all your responses. Had a good cry too which has helped!

I feel I ought to to redress my much maligned midwife though - she was telling me not to worry and we'll see how he does Friday. It's really the horrors of last time around that are haunting me - the midwives where I used to live seemed to be really pro bottle. So I'm probably being unfair that it'll be the same again... I'm just rather battle fatigued and want to make sure that I have facts at my side to avoid supplements. We have allergies in our family and I really don't want any formula to pass ds2's lips until at least 6 months old at the very earliest.

GeorginaA, I don't know if this would work for you but with ds (2nd child) I just didn't get him weighed. I knew he was growing gradually (he's 8 1/2 months now) and I couldn't face the tension I had with dd, who is now a smallish but normal 2 1/2 year old.

It sounds as if you are doing really well. x

Hi GeorginaA, my cheeky monkey didn't regain his birth weight until 4 weeks but is a real whoppa now. It seems so long ago that I was going through the same thing as you but it's only 5 months!!! Hang in there, take the great advice from the "girls" and trust your own mummy instinct. Good luck.

You know mine has the opposite problem! He's 5 months old and weighs over a stone now. He breasfeeds for 45 minutes at a time, but can then last 4 hours before his next feed. He's on 5 feeds a day, but we're trying to get him down to 4 now that we've introduced solids to him. Trouble is that I'm rapidly shrinking, I'm now 8 stone and pre-pregnancy I was 8.5, which is still skinny but bearable. Everyone I tell this too has little sympathy for me, you can tell they just think 'cow!', but it's worrying me as I know I'm getting really bony and thin. I do try to eat more, but I've never been a big eater at the best of times.
To make matters worse, family and friends are now suggesting that I'm over-feeding him! I thought you could never over-feed a breastfed baby! But they watch me feed him for 45 mins and they tut and shake their heads saying that no wonder he's the weight he is if I'm feeding him so much.

Sorry, I know this is of no use to you whatsoever, and I've probably made you feel worse! But I had to rant somewhere!

Do what I did... lie and tell them you're doing blah blah blah... thats if...
if you cannot face telling them to piss off... They have NO right to tell you to formula top up, that is so irresponsible, what they should be doing is asking if you;re ok, how you;re finding it and is there any problems you need help with.

Rhubarb, tell them to bog off - you are doing a grand job. My DS2 used to feed for 1 to 1.5 hours every 3 hours, greedy little beggar!
Cheese on toast for breakfast, pasta for supper - you'll be 17 stone in no time

Rhubarb - don't worry, i can sympathise with the self-weight thing. I'm 7.5 stone pre-pregnancy, however I'd like to stop "reducing" at 8 stone but if this is anything like last time around then I won't get to.

I'm not a huge eater anyway, so the thought of having to force myself to eat huge amounts doesn't particularly appeal!

So, reverse problem, similar angle...

GA ... those weight police ... don't you just hate them?
It is so refreshing here in NZ ... yes, weight gain is important but so far (apart from one) everyone is so pro b/f that the fact I am b/fing outweighs the baby's weight - Pardon the pun!
My DD lost well over a pound in weight by the time she was 5 days old ... but she started putting it back on when she was 2 weeks old and hasn't stopped since ...
Rhubarb ... my DD is a fatty too ... totally breastfed ... she is now over a stone at 15 weeks! Tell everyone to bugger off ... I don't think it is possible to over feed a b/f baby??
Can't help you on your weight front ... only feeling jealous ...

Meant to say ...
In the UK DS was weighed every week until he was about 4 months old ...
In NZ DD was weighed once a week for 6 weeks ... then no one wanted to see her until 3 months and now no one wants to see her until 5 months ... Ok ... I guess if she wasn't putting on weight then they would want to see her more often but DS was a big baby too and they kept asking me to come in to have him weighed? No idea why ...

Update: baby hasn't poo'd now for 2 days... should I be concerned?! I haven't been exactly regular either, am I passing something down to him via the milk that's making him a bit bunged up?

Feeds in the day are three hours apart (from start of feed to start of next), night time (10pm-7am) he's waking up by himself 2-3 times and feeding well, nappies are nice and wet each change (change before each feed to make sure he's nice and awake). Has some awake periods. Otherwise seems perfectly "happy" and ... well ... the usual newbornish stuff really.

Just worried that this lack of pooing means a) something's wrong and b) may affect his weight gain.

Oh, also meant to say, otherwise breastfeeding is going really well. All healed up. Managing to express approx 5oz a day (half gets given to ds2 as a 10pm bottle, half gets frozen). Getting tingling sensations just before a feed and feeling the let down during a feed. If it wasn't for this pooing and weight worries I'd be able to relax a bit more!

GA, I think it's quite common for bf babies not to poo for a few days - someone said this on another thread I think.

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