12 week old breast fed baby dropped a centile- told to look at my diet?

[hettie]

Hi all,
My ds was born early and small has been in 9th centile (not corrected for early arrival) and exclusivly bf. Today at 12 wk weigh he has dropped to 2nd and they want to weigh him again in 2 weeks as a little concerned. Health visitor asked me if I am eaating 'properly' as I am (in her words) 'looking fit' (ie skinny). I eat 3 meals a day and weigh fractionaly more than when I got pregnant- this is normal right?
Should I start eatign more- or eating more protien drinking more milk..... Or is this totaly unrealted to quality of my milk? If so what else to do, really don't want to not be supporting my ds and don't want pressure if weight doesn't go up...... Feding more often is one advice I know I will get but he feeds every 3-4 hours in day don't really want to increase this if he isn't asking for it as always demand fed (btw he has started to sleep longer so goes withou a feed from 6.30/ 7.00 pm till 5.30/ am ish most nights)
Help! don't know what to do for the best

As far as I know your size and diet will not affect the quality of you milk, I'll check to see if I can find relevant info.

here you go use this as a starting point, there are a few experts on here that will come around sooner or later.

I am 4 kgs lighter than when I had ds (9 wks old and MASSIVE)
I am eating half a punnet of icecream to maintain my weight- hardly a healthy diet

So your HV is talking pants. How is your ds?
Happy? Smiling? Sleeping ok? Pooing and weeing? Developing (corrected) normally?

Look at the baby not the scales
I had a dd (4)who has skimmed the 0.4 centile after being born on the 50th, and she is fab, skinny but FAB!

hettie - I can understand your concern but at your HV for spinning you this load of rubbish.

Your diet will make no difference at all to your baby's weight and growth.

Your baby may be absolutely fine - his weight pattern may be right for him.

But if all they are worried about is his weight and they think he needs extra calories, then the only way to give him extra calories is to feed more often.

Some babies are happy not to ask for the milk they could do with, so it would not be a bad idea to offer him more often.

you could try waking him for a late night top up but his weight dip is probably due to him going longer and sleeping through more.
Ie : his natural centile

Thanks for the reassurance re my diet. It can be hard sometimes because I am one of those skinny minny types, despite having a very healthy diet ? I eat plenty (which was why I was worried about how I could actually eat more, I would have to eat when not hungry or eat very high fat food or something ). Everything else is fine with him btw
I realise that he might need more in day because of night sleeping, will start feeding on any sort of interest?. If I start feeding him every 2 hours or so will it calm down? Not sure I can go back to a newborn feeding schedule for the next 3 months?.But for the minute will just try and feed him more often.

hi hettie
one thing that immediately crossed my mind when reading your op, was that your ds just might take after you with his weight: if you are skinny minny, he might be too...

just what I was going to say! My dd was hustled (by HV) up to the hospital (where I work)sometime in her first few months due to her being "unnaturally thin" and dropping down the centile chart. The paed took one look at me and dh (both skinny) and laughed!

yeah- come from a family of skinnies and dh, remebers being in secondry school and only weighing 4 stone!

Message withdrawn

Message withdrawn

I know they say that your diet doesn't matter but I did find that lots more carbs - pasta & potatoes produced more milk, also doing less seemed to make a big difference. When I stayed with MIL and she cooked and did the washing I produced much more milk.

Tapster, even the best research can't account for individual experiences, but there is simply no physiological reason why doing less would make more milk, beyond the fact that the baby may feed longer and more often when this happens...and again with carbs, there is no reason why they would make nore milk.

I'd be inclined to explain your experience by co-incidence, or simply by feeding more often

hi jets, yeah when he was younger he was sleepy too and we didn't let him go too long- but he is far more efficient on boob know and more alert......
he used to take great big feeds just less often, I wonder if know the size of the feeds are not enough for him?

If you can, then take a day in bed with ds, the radio, lots of books and the phone and just feed and sleep all day whenever he will. Be led by him. This is a really good way of upping your milk production (if it needs it, which it probably doesn't) and, more importantly, getting him to put on a bit of weight before he's weighed again to get the "baby police" off your back! Oh, and also, it's a lovely way to spend a day - the rest will do you good, too!

if your ds seems to you to be healthy and happy then you could also think about not taking him to be weighed so often if hv comments are getting you down.