PLEASE HELP

[Garfield]

Have 3 month baby who is bf 7 times a day. Feeds hungrily for 20 mins from each side and then still takes 4 oz of formula. Was 9lb at birth but has gained very little since and sometimes loses weight. Health Visitor and Dr as confused as I am. Any similar experience or advice please? Am at wits end and am exhausted!

how much weight garfield has your baby gained exactly?

Hi Piffleoffagus - Thanks for responding. J dropped 1lb 4oz after birth, so in total has gained 3lb 11oz, but is only 2lb 7oz above birth weight (I think - maths isn't my strong point!!).

Still need more info, Garfield....is the formula given at every feed? What happens at night? Has she often lost weight? Are the weights done on digital scales with the baby naked each time, and correctly translated from imperial to metric or vice versa? What happens if you just let her feed for as long as and as often as she wants on the breast?

Wow! Okay - if J is allowed to feed for as long and as often as wants she will stay at breast all day. She feeds until falls asleep and then wakes upon any movement from me and starts again. She's a 'grazer'! However, she sleeps through night and has done since she was 4 days old. We wake her to feed at 7.30 and she is satisfied with bf; she feeds again at 9.30 and only has bf; then at 11.00 she has bf and 4oz formula followed by a sleep; 14.30 bf + 4oz f; 16.30 bf only; 18.00 bf + 4oz f; 21.30 (has to be woken) bf only. So in total she's having 12 oz a day formula. She is always weighed by the HV on the same scales, without clothes or nappy. The timing of weigh-ins doesn't match with whether she's gained or not (ie once she appeared to have lost weight even when weighed after a long feed). She lost weight after birth, and has lost weight again twice since then and sometimes stays exactly the same. Overall her growth chart shows steady progress but a bit erratic, one week she gained 18 oz!!! The strangest thing is that upon sight she doesn't look underweight or anything. She is very long and a happy, smiley baby so I can only assume that she's not hungry! If I try to increase intake any more she is very sick and the feeds just all run into each other. Going round in circles! I'm considering dropping bf now as I just don't know how much milk she is getting from me. Feel terrible about this but just don't know how else to solve the problem .

Thanks, Garfield. I don't know what the problem is you want to solve! Her weight is clearly not a problem in any way - individual weights are not significant, it's the overall pattern that counts, and this you say is steady.

She looks fine and her development is fine. You haven't given enough info to work out exactly what she is on the charts, but I guess she has fallen down the centiles...this is not an issue with a healthy, normal baby.

If she needs more calories, then she can have extra breastfeeds - but does she need them?

Why would knowing how much exactly she takes help in anyway...apart from being able to say 'she has X ounces a day'....er, and so what?

What about just accepting things the way they are and stop bothering about her weight? She sounds fine to me!

If the baby is happy, healthy, and gaining weight, just a bit slowly, it sounds like the best solution is to weigh the baby less often and the chart will look much neater. 2 lbs 7 oz above birthweight at 3 months is a little low, but not horribly so; normal is 1-2 pounds a month, so you're 9 oz below normal, surely not that shocking in a baby who was big and had a big initial weight loss? Big babies often don't gain as much initially.

If the baby were in the US, chances are nobody would be complaining, as here babies are weighed at 1 week, 2 weeks if
they were still below birthweight at 1 week, 1 month, 2 months, and 4 months. All of this week-to-week variation would have been invisible!

As tiktok says, if you know how much she's getting, but she still loses weight, is that really going to make you feel better?

In your situation, if I had to pick an annoying and time-consuming change to make, I'd choose to feed the baby on demand for a while rather than choosing to go to all formula. It's a reversible choice, unlike going to formula. But it doesn't sound like you actually have a problem.

I agree that she sounds fine. HV's can get far too hung up about centile charts. Although they too are a touch controversial it may be worth asking for a breast from birth chart. It is slightly more realistic about weight patterns for breastfed babies.

It is very common for babies not to gain weight some weeks. At this age I would say it isn't useful to weigh more ofen than every 3-4 weeks anyway. So long as the overall pattern shows a steady increase it doesn't matter what happens during one individual week.

Ifshe is the sort of baby who wold suick forever (some do becasue they like it) it is useful to know the pattern of a breastfeed so you know when it is OK to take them off. The feed should start with the fast furious sucks (to encourage letdown) moving on to slower, more rhythmical sucks, sometimes with pauses. At the end of the feed the baby will flutter suck. This canpartly be for comfort but can also be helpful in stimulating the milk supply. If the flutter sucking has gone on for 10 minutes or so thenit is usually OK to unlatch the baby.

But most of all, don't worry, it sounds like its fine.

Hi
My ds was also slow to gain weight and kept dropping down the centiles. My HV wasn't too concerned as he had healthy skin, not dehydrated and was bright and alert. She just advised me to eat a lot more protein in my diet after keeping a food diary for a couple of days - it showed I was eating too much salad and not enough meat or fish.
I am also topping up his feeds with formula if I don't think he's had a large amount from BF.
He also slept through the night from 8 till 7 and so was effectively missing a feed that other babies were getting. But I was loathe to waken him just to feed him.
One day I expressed all my milk first before feeding it to him just so I could see how much he was actually getting - and it was a struggle to fill him up with the recommended amount - so now i make sure I think he's getting enough.
Luckily/unluckily he stopped sleeping through the night when he caught the cold and so was getting that extra feed and he has almost caught up with his recommended growth.
But stick at the bf - try getting a hold of the NCT breastfeeding book - I got it just as I was thinking of giving up and it was a god send.
On the plus side - I think that my ds is so slender and active compared to the chubby dozy formula babies!

Thanks everyone - I feel greatly reassured. I think you're all right, it is too easy to get hung up on the weight issue and I wasn't worried until professionals started worrying me about it. Feel a bit silly now . It's just helpful to know what other people did. I'm reconsidering reconsidering bf!!!

TracyK - glad things are going better with you.

I feel it's a shame your HV told you such peculiar info, though - increasing the protein in your diet would have had no effect on your milk or your baby's weight. Expressing, too, gives no indication of anything much - except what you can get out by expressing! What matters is what the baby takes in.

I think your own assessment of the situation was right - he was sleeping through and missing out on one, two or even three feeds compared to other babies...but that for him, that was ok, and he is just naturally the way he is - slim, healthy, thriving.

Please don't take any of this as criticism of you - I have bugbear about HVs who misinform mothers about their own diet and breastfeeding

Don't be embarrassed, Garfield! People told you something was wrong with your baby and you wanted the best for her, what's embarrassing about that? Be annoyed at the medical professionals who're giving you dodgy advice.

Hi Tiktok
I was sceptical about the HV advice rfe protein as I'd read quite a few bits on the internet confirming that it doesn't really matter what we eat (unless v. extreme) the baby will get what he wants. Plus my weight wasn't going down so I knew he wasn't using up my reserves (unfortunately).
I went along to my local NCT breastfeeding clinic and can't recommend them enough for anyone having problems.
They were very patient and full of advice and knowledge - fully supporting breastfeeding descisions. I think part of my problem was that I wasn't letting ds stay on the breast for long enough some of the time. I was trying to fit his feeds around my chores etc so for a week I made no plans and just basically fed him whenever he wanted for as long as he wanted.

Yep - that would do it, TracyK

Glad the NCT helped you.

Shame about HVs and duff information.....

Just to reassure you, Garfield, I had a similar situation with dd2. Having fed the first two little porkers with no problems at all, this one took nearly 4 weeks to regain her birthweight (9lb 5oz), and has dropped to well below 25th centile.

The midwives were all very supportive, in a 'let's keep an eye on it but she looks fine to me' kind of way. I did get some humphing from the HV. I came onto MN to whinge, and got a resounding chorus of "Well, stop taking her to be weighed, then!" Which I duly did. I have no idea what she weighs now, but she looks fine to me, though she is on the dinky side, considering that petite is not really part of our family gene pool. Coincidentally or not, dd2 is the only one of my babies to have consistently slept through the night from 4 weeks. Other babies born at the same time who're still feeding two or three times a night look enormous in comparison.

My very no-nonsense GP told me that the thing to check with babies is the tops of their legs. If they have little chubby folds there, they're aren't going to be wasting away any time soon. Also, babies who aren't getting enough to eat are likely to be either miserable or very lethargic, ie. not bright, alert and contented.

Agree with other posters that the whole 'knowing how much they're getting' thing is a red-herring based on a bottle-feeding culture, and not helped by the ubiquitous GF, whose regime is actually very bottle-biased, tho' she never comes out and says as much.

Hi all - thought you might appreciate an update: ddJ was weighed again and has put on an enormous 17oz. I'm beginning to see a pattern emerging here - she gains a lot, stabilises, then gains again. 'Coincidentally' she has also grown in length again! I'm beginning to recognise that weight stabilises as length grows!! Thanks frogs - J has lovely chubby folds around her legs (just like her mother!!). Am a bit cross with health professionals (although I am one!), especially those who recommended switching to bottle feeding (male HV and childless GP). I decided to persevere with bf and feel happy again. Thanks for all the advice. This was the first time I'd used m.net and I'm really impressed. Will recommend to others I know!

Great news, Garfield....now, are you going to make a complaint, even an informal one, about the advice given to you by the people whose job it is to know what to do and say to support your breastfeeding and your health!!!

Great news, Garfield!

That weight/length varying thing carries on throughout childhood as well -- they go through a phase of getting plumper and then suddenly you notice they've grown four inches and look all skinny again.

Glad you feel you can trust your own instincts again, and feel confident in your bfeeding .