OK who can answer this question for me - what does it REALLY matter if your baby doesn't "follow the centiles" or put on weight according to the averages....

[harpsichordcarrier]

because it seems we are obsessed with it and I don't really understand why.
If your baby doesn't follow the centiles in the first few months, then what effect would this have on development?
how can you know this isn't normal for your baby?
will s/he catch up later?
even if s/he doesn't, who cares? why does it matter? and why do we all get so uptight about weight gain?

it is because people associate good health in children with podginess - quite the reverse in adults - doesn't make sense - when we see a skinny woman we admire her - when we see a skinny baby/child we pity it thinking it is sick when in fact a skinny child is far healthier than an overweight one

i think it is cultural conditioning

That's awful Aitch!

We ended up rushing off to hospital too. When it's you're first baby you think they must know best and in my case I blamed my rubbish BF.

well that sort of knee jerk stoooopid advice from some hv's isnt the point is it..... such growth pattern can be a sign of non organic failure to thrive (neglect) and in a baby will be a cause for concern... particularly if there are other factors in the family that give rise to concern (past parenting / dv / addiction issues for instance). this of course is the extreme end of the scale. most paeds would say if growth pattern were the only the situation should simply be monitored...... sometimes further investigations would be considered. i have come across families where babies are simply not fed (no money / no consistent carer / ignorance etc). not for a minute saying this is common or why some babies just dont fololow th charts..... i'm not a medic. but have come across these issues in the context of child protection.

i'd agree about the falling through centilees, however, but again i'd say that is something that a mother would spot first, not a chart, iykwim? i have a pal whose son is being checked for malabsorption since he's dropped through some centiles.

excuse typos.

There's a massive difference between dropping through the centiles by slow weight gain as opposed to true weight loss (other than that in the first week).

Aitch for your experience.

yes controlfreaky good points
of course a mother would notice before a chart

yes exactly Mike
(who are you??)

Sorry its Saggar lol!

Must get rid of this Dave/Mike thing.

that's one of the reasons why our GPs practica has been okay with not seeing us, i think. they've decided as a practice to concentrate HV resources on families perceived as 'in need'. as long as they make that initial assessment correctly (hem hem) i think that's not a bad idea.

My HV tried to bully me into giving formula too - I did actually get some & try it, but DS hated it & I didn't keep trying - when DD did exactly the same thing (ie 50th centile to 3 months, then dropped right off) I just told the HV I didn't want to formula feed. In fact, the HV didn't seem anything like as concerned with DD as she had been with DS - was it because she was a girl & it's 'OK' for girls to be 'petite' (or maybe it was because I was a lot more confident [trans: stroppy]with my second child...)

agreed. let them hassle the needy with their early weaning / top up feeding / hungry baby nonsense..... they've obviously done something wrong to attract professional attention so they deserve the "help".

harpsi - we needed to with dd1 as a huge weight gain ( prior to her cardiac surgery) would be an indicator of fluid retention amongst other things.

However with dd2 - no real problem - she jsut got weighed every few months when she had her vaccinations. ALthough her head was off the chart so we checked that for a while to make sure all was okay - her head stayed off the chart but followed the shape iyswim. But her parents have huge heads so just inherited.

I guess dramatic drops through the centiles could flag up issues but liek my dd1 - huge baby at birth but ditty in reality and she settled into her own 'growth' pattern.

weeeeeelllll, if you put it like that...

the "needy" are exactly the sort of people they should be helping to bf

my theory about gp's and hv's is that they don't know their a* from christmas and so centile charts are handed out because they have no other means of making sense of a baby's health - the charts are a sort of safety net so they can wave it at you and say "i told you so"

Rusty - my ds wasn't keen on formula either, when I eventually caved in and gave it becasue I kept being told that my breastmilk was clearly starving him. of course nobody told him, and he just spluttered and looked at me as if to say "what is this? I know what food is and it is not like this...". So I was persuaded to try him on solids at 21 weeks or so, when he really wasn't ready. He didn't eat food with any real enthusiasm until he was about 10 months. And he toppled off the bottom of the charts in the meantime. latest news is that the paed thinks he's just small... Which is the case I have been making for the last 8 months...

lol at don't know their a* from Christmas...

sorry - no insult to devoute christians who DO know the difference

the poster who said you should actually look at the baby was spot on!

Same here Aitch - HV could not be less interested in seeing us. I actually tried to make an appointment to get ds weighed for the first time since 8 weeks (now 14 weeks) - couldn't be fitted in this week so made one for next week and then was phoned to say they were having fire training so the clinic was cancelled, make an appointment for the following week if I wanted.

They've obviously decided I'm "ok"...

I'm not exactly losing sleep over it, I know he's well but it's just to shut up all the people who ask me how much he weighs now and then look slightly askance when I say I don't know.

youcould just stand on the scales and then drop him, shonaspurtle.

dave - i think i picked up the "look at the baby" theory from Dr Jack Newman, a leading world expert on bf - i like it too and quote it often

gosh, this is interesting - I honestly thought everyone would come on here and say oh it really matters because bla bla bla... it is so well accepted, WHAT'S going on here

i had to bf my ds and then weigh and then bf, talk about stress inducing. no weght gain, formula given .. still upsets me.

I was told my baby was close to failing to thrive as she was slow putting on weight. She was on FF chart although she is BF, and was born just below the bottom line, went up to second line quickly then peetered out and went back to just above first line. Went to see GP who said she is fine, dont worry.
I do worry a lot, however, reassure myself that if she was not getting enough nutrients, she would not be almost walking at 7 months!
Like everyone else's (most), she is just small like her mummy.