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?

shona - stand on adult scales with baby in arms and then deduct your weight from total ! it works quite well even with a wiggly baby like ds used to be !

lol have actually done the weighing myself and then weighing myself holding him... much the same as I did with the cat when the vet said she was overweight (racing up the centiles courtsey of Iams)... not sure how accurate the woolies cheapo scales were with either.

DS1 was pretty big born at 8 10lbs. Then he lost weight and gained it very slowly. I bf him and he was a fractious baby. I didn't give a toss what people said, his eyes were bright and he seemed healthy. My HV was brill too and very down to earth. He's now the tallest boy in his class and strong.
My niece is a mother of 2 now but she was really under the low line for most of her first year. My sis just ignored everyone and niece is healthy and normal height etc..

pavlov - bloody hell a baby walking at 7 months - she is doing fine my darling !

I never took dd to be weighed other than for the development checks. She was always around the 9th or 25th centile - didn't bother me as dh and I are small, and to eb fair no-one has ever commented.

ds has been weighed once, maybe twice in his life.

Aitch - sympathise, sadly. A midwife did a home visit when ds was 3 days old, another came to visit the next day. She was convinced that she had done the first visit/weigh-in and had got a different result.

I then had a daily visit from 4 different MW for 10 days, each giving me conflicting stories as to ds' weight blah, blah. The last one who turned up, I refused to let her in - but then I recognised her from dd's baby days and let her in becasuse she was very nice.

And the ironic thing is that ds had no problem with weight gain or feeding - it was me they were meant to be monitoring (abnormally high blood pressure)

lol at weighing overweight cat ! my tom cats always put on masses of weight after having goolies done ! it's a hormone thing !

so WHY then don't hv's say:
oh well he is gaining weight more slowly than average, that's REALLY NORMAL let's just keep an eye on it??

aah, yes, the continuity of care issue. never need medical care at christmas is all i can say... never saw the same Midwife, BFC or HV twice. dearie me.

harpsi - that would require too much intelligence

WHY on earth if an HV wants you to BF are they there to do anything other than make you a cuppa and help you with your latch? as long as the baby looks fine, stop fiddling with it.

Lovely looking son, by the way, whehter I know you or not.

because the vast majority of the health profession don't really have any confidence in bf or a woman's ability to bf
and it is easier and cheaper and quicker to advise formula
imho

e.g. a GP yesterday a clever woman with two children of her own saying well it doesn't really matter does it, there's nothing really wrong with formula
NOT THE POINT SOOOOO NOT THE POINT

but WHYeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee?

pmsl firepile and shonaspurtle... you know that's siobhan redmond don't you?

Oooooh I am off on a rant now, I still get angry about when the MW came to visit dd for the first time at home (not the one we were expecting as she was ill).

Had just got dd to sleep after god knows how long. MW turned up and I explained I/she was struggling with BF. She told me to wake her up - which I did. Then she did a very tight swaddle on her and told me lift up my top and she jammed dd on my boob.

We asked her to leave in the end as she was so unhelpful (and dare I say, very young). It took me 5 hours to get dd to sleep as she was so upset. Yes I had to use formula because I was so upset too.

Poor dd had had a bad time with bad jaundice, nsasl feeding and phototherapy as
it was . She was 3 days old ffs.

sorry, I'm just ranting now!

I was told that the size of a newborn is no guide to how big they will be. They grow to the size of the womb if growing normally, so a big baby might slow down to what his/her weight naturally is, a smaller baby might grow bigger than at the start. I agree, as long as baby is healthy, active, developing well, and bringing absolute joy, it does not matter.

I think HVs (most, but not all) put too much pressure on parents in the wrong areas. It means parents worry about things that dont need to be worried about and can put families under a lot of pressure (my DP often says, I am worried that DD is not taking enough FF top up, she should be drinking more...should we just stop BF so we can monitor how much she eats?)

Mercy - what a cow of a MW.
My midwife was fantastic, so supportive, gentle, guiding. Came to my house to see me more than she needed. Wished she had been the HV. Not that HV actually ever visit.

It wouldn't be so bad if HVs were equally vigilant about developmental problems. It's ironic that dd is the only one I have no concerns about (my 2 boys are autistic) yet she is the only one who will have been offered a referral to a Paed by the HV.

probably they think you are doing a great job, pavlov.

and bollocks to your bitch MW, you and i could swap stories...

Ooh intriguing.... are we talking hideous Glasgow-Edinburgh commutes?? If you are who I think you are would love to catch up some time - email shonaspurtle at gmail dot com

good night people

can't post long now (charlie and lola may be good surrogate parents but they can't feed dd brekkers) - but just wanted to say thanks to harpsi for kicking off a thread close to my heart!

I'm another one who ended up giving formula because of slow weight gain. DS1 hadn'y regained his birthweight at just over 3 weeks and the HV was horrified. Failure to Thrive was mentioned and I was ordered to feed him every 3 hours round the clock. He was feeding him more often that anyway so she looked at him feeding, said his latch was wrong, shoved his head at my boob a few times and left, saying she'd back to check again in 3 days. So when he still hadn't gone up then I gave him and put him on formula.

Dd also hadn't regained her birthweight by 3 weeks and my confidence in my bf was so shot that I just switched her onto formula.

By the time I was pg with ds2 I'd found MN and was much better informed. He was also slow regaining his birthweight but I pushed through (with lots of support from here) and he finally got back to it at almost 6 weeks.

Tiktok told me about a period of 'catch down' where big babies stay the same or only gain weight slowly until they reach size they are meant to be. Why on earth don't HVs know about it, and use some kind of common sense as to a baby's health, rather than being obsessed with lines on a chart?

It's terrible really, that I've only managed to bf successfully because ofan internet forum and not because of the help I've received in RL from the professiionals whose job it is.

It seems as though breast is only best if bf goes smoothly and baby follows its centile line without deviating. Anything outside of the norm means formula is best.

failure to thrive ffs that is ridiculous completely ridiculous. I am so for you