Mum said I should give my slow growing BF 7 month old a bottle of formula a day to help her grow. Thoughts on this anyone?

[HumphreysCorner]

Took my 7 month old DD2 for her 7 month development review and her head circumference has dropped off the scale and her length has dropped too. Her weight is still following between the 2nd and 9th centile lines. Told my mum about it today so she immediately said that she knew I wouldn't agree with her but she thought I should be giving her a bottle of follow-on milk a day to help her grow. She is weaned and eats 3 good meals and desserts a day. I still BF and admittedly she doesn't have much milk but the Dr wasn't too worried about this (he is worried about her head size though). DD2 doesn't cry very much so I tend to think that she can't need any milk. DD1 was bottle fed from birth and moved on to hungrier baby SMA as she was always screaming for food and was far more active at this stage by rolling everywhere. DD2 sits and plays with her toys for hours-hasn't rolled yet. She is 100% more content than DD1 ever was. DD1 is still hyper now she is 3 yrs 7 months-never sits still!

My mum said that my Grandma nearly starved my dad as she was BF but obviously didn't have enough goodness in her milk. So, she thinks the same could be happening with me. I said that feeding formula might make DD2 chubbier but it wasn't going to make her head or legs grow but mum disagreed. Really don't know what to think-perhaps I should take some vitamins?

Any thoughts much appreciated. Dr said her head would be measured again at her MMR jab but am going to go to the clinic before then.

I know I will be shouted down but I don't see anything wrong with giving a seven month old baby formula if there are concerns about their growth.
I breast fed my ds for five months and he dropped down the centiles. He screamed all the time and looking back I realise he was hungry and my breast milk was not adequate for him.
My mil and dh tried to persuade me to bottle feed but I refused.
He began to look very ill and haggard-so reluctantly and full of guilt I 'succumbered' to formula.
He then thrived.
I would follow your own instincts but if you choose to use formula please don't beat yourself up about it.

Arctic, you may not have had the greatest support though, when you were in that situation. Did you have a BFC that adviced you...sometimes it can be lil things that can effect bf, forinstance, I soooo often notice that one of the simplest rule is not passed on....tummy to tummy, i.e. that the Baby lies with their face to your boob, not has to turn their head to get to the nipple, as it is very difficult to eat/swallow with your head turned...or that maybe you should not switch breast after a certain time, but keep them on the same one until they come off, and if they demand more in a short space of tiem, to put them back on teh same breast rather then switching....really basic, simple stuff, that sadly a lot of HP's don't know about or choose to ignore.
Obviously I don't know your situation and there possibly were reasons why you had problems, possibly beyond your control, and I am not saying that for you it wasn't the right decision....just that often mums are far to easily encouraged to give formula feeds instead of the support they need to continoue breastfeeding succesfully.

I breastfed my three children exclusively for 5.5 months, 6.5 months, and 8.5 months respectively (notice the pattern? longer and longer each time)

My son grew half a pound a week from his 8lb12oz birthweight. My two daughters grew 2oz a week from their 7lb8-9oz birthweights. All three were equally healthy. All three told us when they wanted to start solids, apart from an awful month when my stupid effing HV bullied me into force-feeding my first daughter solids on the grounds that she wasn't growing very fast. Luckily, my daughter is more bloody minded than I am even, and steadfastly refused to swallow anything but my milk until nearly 8 months.

The advantages of starting solids later are multiple, apart from the immunological advantage of sole breastfeeding for longer. We never had to liquidise anything much except at first for my son. My daughters went straight too chewing little lumps, or had it mashed roughly with a fork, leaving lumps. While my friends' "weaned at 3 months cos desperate to get onto next stage" babies were still gagging on the slightest lump at over a year, ours were snarfing down the same stuff we were eating, chopped up. And they were more independent about eating than friends' babies, as they'd always taken the initiative.

We only weaned them when they reached out and grabbed what we were eating from our plates and put it in their mouths. We took that as a sign. Good luck with all the "advice". People always have an opinion about how to bring up babies. It's just a question of sifting...

I would echo what others have said about the charts. Try downloading the new WHO charts, which are based on optimally nourished exclusively b/f babies with optimally nourished mothers, and are meant to represent a more accurate picture of "normal" infant growth than the current charts.

belgo- my first daughter weighed 20 lb at 24 months. Mot people would think that was light for a 12 month old. She is now nearly 12 and still slender and quite small for her age, but that is normal for our families- we tend to hit puberty much later than average; my 6ft ma in law was tiny until 16. I'm not sure that infant is any indicator for adult size in teh abesence of malnutrition (although 6lb at 6 months for your dad does sound rather tiny...)

Hi Humpheyscorner. It took me a while to track these down; the WHO website is a bit of a nightmare to find anything on. I had to find them for a friend anyway, so I thought I'd leave the link here just in case anybody wanted them. I suggest using the percentile charts since they are comparable to the ones in the red book.

WHO Infant growth charts