should i change my bf strategy?

[Kif]

Looong post - but these things need all the details to make sense - and I'd very much appreciate some wiser heads giving me some advice.

My ds is 12 weeks tomorrow. Weigh in at the begining of the week he'd put on 400g over 3 weeks (now 4.65kg). I didn't have my red book, but I plotted it when I got home. A bit gutted he'd slipped from his 9th centile (which needed him to be just under 5kg), and looked like he was almost in that dreaded shaded area at the bottom.

Do I need to take some action to address this? He's been feeding every 4 hours pretty comfortably for a few weeks (some of you may remember that I've already had grief from hv that that is not often enough - gulp - was she right?). He's recently started taking much longer to feed (over an hour, vs about 20 min at one point). Apart from the odd grizzly patch he's a content l'il munchkin.

My confidence is crashing today - thinking I need to feed much more frequently, but that seems to mean blowing up his whole cosy little routine. Fed him early today to make a 3hr gap rather than 4. He took it - but now it's 4 hours since he fed and he's napping (as he always does at this time)... so I guess I don't wake him... so I guess that's undermined the idea of pushing more frequent feeds.

his routine:

feed in bed with me 5am-7am
up at 7; naps at 8.30 and 10.00
feed 11
nap 12.15 - 2.30
feed 2.45
nap 3.30-3.45; 4.30-5
play-bath-massage
feed 5.45 for an hour
sleep 7 ish
dream feed 10.15 - an hour
...
then for a while he was sleeping til 5.. recently woken at 2/3 occassionally, but seems kinda satisfied with a dummy and holding my hand. Do I need to bring this feed back?

Sorry to go on and on! Pls advise - proceed blithely on, cos babys not crying and mummys not crying? Or change things?

Think this talk of giant babies is getting me down!

bump...

Those charts are pretty evil in my opinion......none of my 5 have ever ' followed ' the centile thing in a conventional manner.Try to relax and do what your baby is ' telling ' you, he seems to have a lovely routine, lucky you. If he's happy and healthy you are doing the right thing.Just an idea but perhaps consider weighing him less often, after all he is 12 weeks now.

Those centile lines in the red book seem to cause no end of worry for so many parents!

Let's try to get your situation into perspective (btw, not claiming to be an expert here)

What was his birth weight to start with? Has he always been around the 9th centile, or did he start off a lot higher?
Is he happy, lots of wet/dirty nappies?
Were you at all concerned before he was weighed?

In my heart i just want to tell everyone to sod off, and get on with our cosy little groove...

... but you can't help but be scared, can you? That spectre of the selfish mother who is so caught up in her own concerns she ignores her hungry little boy shrinking before her eyes.

Dh does point out that 400g gain isn't exactly starving him...

I feel I need a little boosting from knowledgeable people that I'm doing things right.

Cross post lucy.

he started off 3.45 kg (25th centile), but has been on 9th ever since.

before he got weighed i had no concerns, other than that i felt the hvs were on my case, since supplementing with formula kept coming into the conversation without reason.

plenty of wets. sufficient poos - every other day ish.

Will hapilly chill out in his chair/on his mat for 30 minutes or so between feeds and sleeps. Often 'cries down' to sleep, but i really think it is tension not hunger.

He is putting weight on, and I assume he is happy and healthy...I really don't think you have anyhting to worry about. Try to offer more where you can and see if it makes a difference!
Do you feed from one breast or two at each feed?

both breasts...

I guess I'm wondering if anyone is going to tell me
"they don't weigh babies just for the fun of it;
it is irresponsible to carry on as you are (inc 4 hr feeds, occasional dummy, odd drink in the evening) - something is obviously not working;
it is arrogant to not go to hv for weekly advice and weighings;
such poor weight gain could potentially be a serious situation."

Anyone think this?

Or shall I put the whole weight thing totally out of my mind?

My original idea was in line with the baby whisperer EASY eat-activity-sleep rhythm. I'd feed him, then I'd engage him in something (even a nappy change), then when I spot two yawns I 'put' him to sleep (cot/swing/jiggle in arms/sling/car - whatever).

After he's had a good feed, I anticipate him needing a nap before he eats again.

I find that if i do feed, he takes a very short feed, then drop off into quite a restless sleep, then ends up frustrated at the next feed because he's hungry and tired at the same time.

In particular, I tried to replace the 7pm-with-grumble bedtime with just continuing to feed through the evening. Each time i tried this he ended up purple screaming inconsolable at about 10pm (colic like).

Weight concerns aside, it's working easy as pie. He seems to have a pocket watch.

oh, and he never cries himself actually to sleep iyswim. He'll cry, then he'll give a little sigh, then he'll grab my hand in his little fist (&take dummy/fist if he's in cot) and drop off quite peacefully.

ump...

Kif- if he seems happy, healthy and has the right number of wet/dirty nappies a day, do not worry. My experience only covers breastfed babies, who grow so differently from bottle-fed ones that I believe there are different growth charts (refer to the WHO ones if in doubt- they are compiled using breastfed babies only).

My HV kicked up a huge fuss when my older daughter continued her post birth growth pattern of 2 oz a week, and made my life very difficult from 5 months onwards. She was a silly cow, and I was too inexperienced to put up much fight. Accordingly I tried to introduce solids to my daughter every day, her spitting them back at me, every day until my HV colleague came back from her extended holiday with her husbands family in the Gambia, asked me the questions above, and told me absolutely not to worry about her growth pattern. Said she looked fine, and was evidently just a slow grower (a pattern she has continued to her present age of nearly 12).

Number HV had failed to appreciate that those growth charts are not a survey of the growth patterns of individual children, merely a statistical tool produced by surveying the head size/weight/height of a number of children at each age, and drawing between the dots. Any child on the 95th or 5th centile is just as "normal" as any child on the 50th. They should only worry when a child who'd been growing along a particular line, dips appreciably and for a sustained period below or swoops above their own established growth pattern. Newborns tend to start to follow genetic growth patterns as soon as they're born and grow differently from the way they grew in the womb. Some babies may have had slightly less than optimal conditions in utero, and tend to grow fast once they're out. Others are born large, and spend the first 3-4 months heading back to their natural size. It's a very crude, very misleading reference.

Accordingly, when my third child (second daughter) was born, I did not worry at all when she began to grow exactly the same way as her sister. She did not start solids until nearly 9 months, and is as fine, hale and hearty a 9 year old now as you could hope to find.

her colleague.