17wks, bf, failure to thrive - 'Give him solids' ?

[Pesha]

Its me again

I know I wasnt going to get him weighed but with the paed appt I have still been going to give them an accurate picture of his weight, assuming that the hvs would leave me alone as something is being done. I am only going every 2 weeks though.

Ds2 is now 5.2kg so well into the blue at the bottom of the chart (his length is around the 50th line although I know that's never very accurate). HV is going to try and bring my paed appt forwards as its not till 20th sept.

And as he is now 17 weeks today she wants me to try and give him solids. I told her that I thought solids contain less calories and fat than breastmilk but would fill him up more, so he would feed less and it wouldnt help at all. She said that wasn't always the case and it seems like he's not getting enough calories atm. She suggested giving him just a little bit of something after a feed, hardly anything just a taste really she said. Well if it is only 'just a taste' then what's the point in that anyway?

I weaned my other 2 at this age but really wanted to wait till 6 months this time and try BLW. I thought solids at 17 weeks was against recommendations and a Bad Thing. Is it necessary in these circumstances though? Could it help? And if not then how can I argue my case to the hv in 2 weeks time? Or shall I just tell her I tried him but he wouldnt take it?

magnolia you are very fortunate. However, I have seen what I have said happen on many occasions both with friends and through my work.

Tori - sometimes though I think its about priorities, realising whats really important to the mother and helping her achieve this.

I know for me I'd gladly have a little bit of back ache to have the pleasure of carrying my baby around and giving him the best possible start in life. If carying him around can help with his weight gain then that is what I will do.

There are problems caused by looking after babies the same way as there are problems caused by being pregnant, its all part of motherhood imho and something we just have to go through. So for me its not about whether I carry him or not, its about finding the best carrier to minimise any possible back damamge.

Yeah I agree its about what the mother wants. Good luck with finding the right sling. We just have very different ideals on parenting which is bound to happen on this type of site. Sorry I said it was crazy, your choice at the end of the day.

I only came to the conclusions about carrying after I was asked to look after my friends DS (as a childminder now). He had spent much time being carried round because she believes in attachment parenting, but he would not settle at 16mths. If I left his sight for any time he screamed. So I feel this is fine if you can be there until your child goes to school, but if not it presents problems if you want to go back to work after a few months.

Oh and wishingmummy - sorry didnt mean to ignore you. It has been more difficult in the summer holidays to feed him as often and for as long as he was. I find if we have a day when we're out and busy although I feed him it tends to be just the main part of the feed without the prolonged rather sleepy feeding he normally does afterwards. So the following day we try and have a lazy day at home and he will feed alot more. Hopefully when dd and ds1 return to school next week I'll be able to relax with him every morning at least and have some time just for us.
I really dont want to give him solids or formula just yet, if it was necessary for him then of course I would without question but as yet I dont believe it is. And when I've tried to give him calpol from a spoon he seems to spit it all back out again, although he obviously likes the taste!

We do only get about 1 dirty nappy a week but plenty of wet nappies. I think, how many wet nappies should he be having and what do you count as a wet nappy - is it as soon as he wees or just when they get a bit soggy so need changing iykwim? Im using disposables btw.

He is a very wriggly active baby, legs and arms always on the move, hardly sleeps at all in the day and smiles at everyone! He did seem to have stopped rolling over and wriggling quite so much but he has started up again so presumably was just a phase!

As for meeting other bfing mums I've been trying to find out about groups in the area and I have finally managed to find a number for someone who I believe was trying to start a group just down the road from me so will be ringing her on tues. There is very little about though and all the other mums I know with babies are ffing.

And want to say again thank you to everyone giving me advice and reassurance it really is helping.

PIFFLE - have received your email, thank you. Virgin has been refusing to send any of my emails but will keep trying and hopefully reply to you soon.

I can see what you're saying but I think actually there are alot of other factors and a huge amount of it depends on the child. I've carried all mine in slings and bf and co slept with them all (although dd and ds1 were both given top up bottles and weaned at 4 months - I'd not yet discovered MN and learnt that HVs dont always know best!). DD slept through from 5 weeks and has always been very independant, would happily trundle off and sit on complete strangers laps at m&b groups, never any trouble leaving her at playgroup or school or anywhere. Ds1 didnt sleep through til about 8 months and has never been great at sleeping on his own, at the moment he is upstairs in dd's bed, but fine being left at playgroup etc. And now ds2 has been sleeping around 8 hours a night since about 3 months and goes to sleep fantastically on his own with no need for comfort sucking, rocking or anything. I'm still amazed by how very different all 3 of my children are despite my methods of parenting being the same. Couldnt believe it the 1st time ds1 threw a massive tantrum as dd never did and I'd always assumed it was because of what I'd done! He's been such a wake up call!!

tori, clinginess in toddlers is common and completely normal regardless of whether or not they've been carried a lot as babies. I think any 16 month old who'd suddenly been left with a new childminder would feel anxious. And I'm sorry, but it is just not true to say that carrying a baby or child around will inevitably lead to back problems, done correctly and with the right kind of carrier it is fine. I am still carrying my almost 2 yo on a regular basis (we have no pushchair). I have a history of back problems yet I haven't had any back pain at all since getting a good carrier - less in fact than before he was born.

No pushchair??

Where do you hang all your shopping?!

I have 4 pushchairs at the moment!

If I had taken my ds to some clinics,he would have been classified as a "failure to thrive" baby, as he had dropped, what, 9 centiles?: ie 91st at birth, and for a while was following a curve just under the "standard centiles").

Fortunately, he was seen (and I made sure that he was only seen) by specialist breast feeding counsellors/maternity midwives (part of the maternity hospital staff) who had enough experience (and training) to look at the baby and not the chart, and knew that he was a non FTT baby who wasn't following the cart.

They did also refer him to the paediatrician just in case (to re-iterate mear's and aloha's ponts) there is another reason for the slow weight gain. However, in the interim, they did not put me under any pressure to feed ds with anything by breast milk: *that( is the issue we have her: the lack of [apporopaite] porefessional updating that is leading Pesha's HV to give her such poor advice.

Well, I get my weekly shopping delivered and I don't tend to do masses of other kinds of shopping. We live really out in the sticks so I tend to buy online as it's easier and if I want a clothes shopping trip out I go on my own - it wouldn't be much fun with 4 small children even with a pushchair! BTW I have no philosophical objections to pushchairs but it seems ds3 does as he has HATED them passionately ever since he was born and in the end we gave up and got rid of it to save space!

Pushing a buggy which is at the wrong height or angle can be more detrimental to your back than carrying your child in a well supported, balanced out way in a sling or carrier.

Children vary so much in their personality and needs. We do know that being responsive to a child's needs helps build confidence and happiness. Some babies and toddlers really do need to be close to their mums, and some go through phases where this happens - in fact occasional 'clinginess' is a normal part of development. It is wrong to say that keeping a baby in a sling causes this....the research we have shows this is just not the case.

I would just like to point out that I have never questioned tiktoks bf advice or abilty in that respect. Nor have I claimed to be knowledgeable regarding bf.

You didn't outrightly say that you were knowledgeable about bf but you have implied that by doing X nos of months in a paediatic unit you have gained sufficient knowledge of bf to 'diss' the advice given on this thread by other mums. Whom by and large have bf at least one child past 6 mo and even into toddlerhood and some of whom may have more extensive knowledge of bf and weaning than you may because they have taken a lot of time and energy to read evidence based papers about the topic. Mums who, when they give duff advice, will happily stand corrected by each other or by a bfc like tiktok. Since TT has not corrected any of the other advice givers on this thread, i feel safe to say she thinks their advice was good.

I do think, imho, that 18 months on a paed. ward is not enough time to be an expert in this field. Sorry. I have found that the longer I have done my job, the more there is to know about it. but that is just me. And boy, have some of my ideas changed from the 1st yr to the 10th yr of doing it.

However, what I did say was that from working for 18mths in a peadiatric clinic, where parents brought the children for various reasons, many were failure to thrive, I observed that they had been advised to change feeding methods or to wean early and also saw that the same children gained weight which they previously failed to do.

• In this case, can you point us to relevant evidence based research which we can read for ourselves where this position is supported?

"I stand by my point about advising a breast feeding mother not to carry a baby round for a large amount of time because it will eventually cause back problems. It is a fact that women have more back problems when they are pregnant than any other time in their lives. To compound the extra strain on back muscles during pregnancy because of the relaxation of pelvic muscles, there is even more risk to continue carrying a baby after the birth, especially after a cesarian. The pelvic and stomach muscles need to return to their pre pregnancy state, which takes a long time to achieve, if ever."

• Very woolly science here, i am afraid. Some women certainly experience a lot of back pain during pg. I experienced none connected with pg eventhough i tore a muscle in my back yrs ago and it still nags me if i carry a poorly balanced weight. I put having no backpain in pg, despite having a back to back baby, down to doing regular exercise before and during pg in addition to knowing safe lifting and carrying techniques which i always try to practice.

I would argue that much of the backpain women experience during pg are symptoms of weak back and stomach muscles before pg, poor posture and poor lifting techniques long before they became pg and which probably didn't improve during pg.

You really know nothing about slings which is why you have drawn such crude, out of hand conclusions on them. Sorry.

Could I just add that as a paed nurse with 15+ years experience and now lecturing in it although I knew the theory of breastfeeding it wasn't until I did it myself and read extensively as kiskidee says that I really gained any meaningful knowledge about it. Now I feel that I can support mums in practice and teach students something that may help them to support bf mums.

I would also add that ime peadiatricians do not have very good knowledge or skills re bf and their advice is often of the sort given by the op's hv ie wean early top up with formula. All our students do the unicef training the medical students do absolutely zip

Also there is a lot of evidence that attachment parenting is in fact very good for infants and helps them to develop into secure confident individuals

I'd like to think I'm good friends with Pesha and have been lurking here for that reason, but after that last comment from tori am I now so wound up I had to post.

"So I feel this is fine if you can be there until your child goes to school, but if not it presents problems if you want to go back to work after a few months."

I'm sorry but that is utter tosh (i'm trying hard to be polite). I have carried ds2 in a sling from birth in a few different kinds of sling. He has quite happily gone to nursery for one morning a week from 3 months, and from 4 months he started going every morning when I returned to work. He will happily be left with anyone, has been left overnight twice (he's now almost 5 months), and despite being breastfed, co-sleeping, and me being hs sole carer, he has never had a problem with being left. You cannot base your opinions on babywearing/attachment parenting on one incident with a friend's child.

rant over

Elliek thats a completely different matter. At 3mths they do not understand their being left or implications of it. If you did this early obviously they get used to it. By nature of saying you were the sole carer, you were not, because the nursery cared for him every morning. My comment was made regarding babies who are carried around all day long and do not leave the mothers side until they are toddlers. Then they understand relationships better and understand the implications of being left.

No Tori- you didn't say that carrying in a sling was OK as long as you "let" them out of it before they were toddlers. You seemed to be saying that attachment parenting makes for insecure clingy children.
What on earth has that to do with a 17 week ond child??? I quote you:-

"I only came to the conclusions about carrying after I was asked to look after my friends DS (as a childminder now). He had spent much time being carried round because she believes in attachment parenting, but he would not settle at 16mths. If I left his sight for any time he screamed. So I feel this is fine if you can be there until your child goes to school, but if not it presents problems if you want to go back to work after a few months"

thank you NSF, thought I was going mad for a moment there!

I was his sole carer until he was 3 months, he did not leave my side as I am a single mother, and as I have an older ds he was carried in a sling for much of those 3 months.

I think you'll find if you read back that you did say "after a few months", not 'once they are toddlers'. I have gone back to work 'after a few months' and do not have the problems you are saying will happen in those circumstances.

please don't keep saying things then trying to back-track when people point out the errors in your claims.