Mighty oaks from little acorns grow - slow weight gain support thread

[FireworksScareMossyPets]

Thread for those of us whose los are:

• Healthy
• Meeting developmental milestones
• Producing plenty of soaking wet nappies
• Producing several pooey nappies (quantity varies after first six weeks or so)
• Gaining weight...

but just much more slowly than the centile charts tell us they should.

This is a thread for help, support and understanding from other Mums who have "been there, done that".

It's where we can share links, share our stories and what if anything we have done to help our lo's weight gain - or whether we've just ditched the scales and looked at the baby.

However, we also don't want to lull other Mums into a false sense of security; if your lo is not meeting the criteria at the top then it is best to get help from a breastfeeding counsellor (or general infant feeding specialist - not all slow gaining babies are breastfed) or supportive health care professional.

Mossy xx

aberdeenhiker, welcome to the thread!
Switching is about swapping sides when baby's drinking slows right down, or he starts fussing, rather than trying to 'empty' the breast. I usually end up giving 3 or 4 sides in a feed, sometimes more.
5oz doesn't sound bad at all, and if you know that slow gain is normal for your family, you can point this out to HVs.
Good luck!

xx

By the way aberdeenhiker your ds1 is very, very cute!

thanks for the welcome (and the comment about ds1) - I thought 5 oz a week was great too so it took me by shock to have the GP suggest he wasn't getting enough milk.

wastingmyeducation - thanks for the info on switching. I might try it if DS2's gain drops off significantly (am thinking that I'll just continue with what I'm up to now as DS2 is a happy little baby and I don't want to jinx anything!).

Saw this thread and wanted to jump (glad it is still live) in as my DS1 , almost 6 weeks, is also in that 4th percentile and not showing any signs of wanting to put on weight. Trying, really trying, not to get too paranoid about it. HV being really helpful and supportive but racking my brains to think of what could be the reason for it. Am beginning to suspect reflux and hardly a feed goes by without any spitting or vomit but again the question for me is what is normal spitting and what is not?

Just found this thread, although think i may be behond help.

DS is 14wo and weighs about 8lb 14oz. Have just lost sevices of my BFC so am back to HV only. She weighed him monday and he'd lost an oz. I was trying to feed him and he just fights with me at every feed, so HV said your gonna have to make him a bottle. So i did. She then said, ooh he's like a different child, he was starving!!!!!

Anyway, because of her making me feel pretty shitty i felt i had no chioce but to continue with mostly bottle feeds, and whatever BF i could get him to take.

So have any of you wise people on this thread got any bright ideas on, who i could get practical RL help from. I also have the use of an electric pump till the 23rd, and because he is really hard to feed it may be easier for me to use that, what do you think.

To anybody who has read my other threads i know i'm repeating myself but i can't give up hope.

Hiya!

jordtyler who was the BFC you have lost? have you tried the helplines on the right hand side here

They all vary in provision depending on volunteers in your area, but if someone can't meet up with you they will tell you where nearest support group is!

My maternity unit has a lactation consultant which I didn't find out about until we were mid-struggle - she saw us once a week and was fab

has anyone heard from ILD recently? I wanted to ask him something ... if you are reading this CAT me!

Hello all
been absent for quite some time. DD is 10 months now, looks about 5 months but punches above her weight iyswim. Sometimes she eats loads sometimes, like last 2 days, she eats hardly anything. She is strong as an ox, feisty, vocal, smiley and v communicative she is just small and stubborn. She's LOST weight again - which made my heart sink at first, but she's been cruising the furniture desperate to walk, so she's probably been expending more energy. I can't force her to eat. She likes sweetcorn and raisins which seem to go straight through her without leaving any calories behind. Hates protein. I love her so much, and I know she is mine because she was born at home, I just don't know where she's come from! oh - and have decided to tell people that she's a 5 month old, so that I don't have to deal with the comments - she's a 5 month old, crawling genius who can stand up and say "daddy".....awwwww

Is this thread still active or should I start another one?

Just looking for a bit of support as I have a dd (almost 14 months) who has been labelled chronically failing to thrive (now just above the 0.4th centile for weight and height). Currently getting top-ups via an NG tube to get her back on track after coming off the charts at 5 months and then suffering a winter of constant viruses.

Would love to hear (hopefully positive) updates on how everyone is getting on, or from others who have been in/ are in a similar position. Finding it quite hard to deal with and I worry about her future development as she's spent about 9 months of her life failing to thrive and I worry about the long-term effect of that...especially her height, I keep thinking she's been stunted for life .

just saw this thread, have just started one about my concerns.

Me too - ds is little and gaining 2 oz per week. I am very worried and under pressure from dh and in-laws to give top-ups, but ds is not the best of feeders now and i don't want to discourage him.

Hv is bugger all use but keeps recommending fenugreek - anyone tried it?

I've heard good things about Fenugreek from the ladies at my bf support group. Though you should avoid it if it you have any diabetic tendencies or thyroid imbalance. Instead I'm trying pumping after feeds, Goat's Rue and Porridge oats. My DS is gaining most weeks now, about 4.5 ounces now after a three week stand-still but I still have the terror of his next weigh-in looming.

Reassuringly my MIL found DH's weight chart from when he was small and he was weighed fortnightly as a baby. He lost some weeks and gained others. As a teenager he lived through septicaemia and as an adult is 6ft 7 and otherwise healthy.

Thnaks sprinkles - I'm now trying to track some down!

Elkie and katy - hope you hang out here as I could do with others to sound off to - I am desperate to contiue breast feeding but dispirited at how slow it is to get going this time and my little man looks so tiny and frail (although he cries like a big babe!) For what it's worth katy I don't your lo is has been stunted, she is just growing the way that suits her. let's support each other...

How old is your ds, downbutnotout?

Also, the postnatal threads are good ones to find support from those with babies the same age - I have several as I joined mn with ds1 in 2007, and both my babies were due at the end of one month and born early the next so I ended up talking to April/May then Jan/Feb!

ds is five weeks. I know it's early days, but times seems to have slowed down since his birth. Also I really struggled with bf my dd five years ago but it was a walk in the park compared to this! Thanks for tip about postnatal threads.

Hi, I'd like to join you please?
DD is 15 weeks on Thursday, and just hit 10lb last week, from 8lb 3oz born in November.
Very glad we've got to 10lb as she had stayed around 9lb 7oz since 6 weeks old.
She's on the way up although still in between 0.4th and 2nd centile on the chart.

We had a difficult start to breastfeeding but stuck with it, eventually using nipple shields, which I finally weaned her off two weeks ago. Since then she seems to be heading in the right direction. She's still the littlest out of our baby group, although she's the eldest.

She feeds about every 2 hours, exclusively BF, and is VERY unsettled at night, having a longer sleep at first, a feed, then only sleeping about 45 minutes at a time after that. Very tired mummy and baby but that's a different story!

Down, I'll look out for you on Feb 2009, shall I? - what date was he born on? My ds was 5 weeks yesterday (born early hours of 3 Feb).

Pookamoo, well done for sticking with it. How are you finding the health professionals?

Well, the GP told me to top her up because she was hungry, which I don't want to do. A friend who is a midwife suggested losing the nipple shields, which seems to have helped. I just BF her more instead of topping up.

To be honest, I am more concerned about the lack of sleep than her weight. She looks so tiny and pale next to her little friends . Do you think that as she grows, she will find it easier to settle? The only way we can get her to settle at all is to feed her. But I'm sure she isn't hungry every time in the night, given she goes 2-3 hours in the day between feeds.

She is generally happy, cooing, smiling, wriggling about etc. She seems healthy enough, lots of poo and wet nappies.

DH is trying to get her to go down now and I am trying not to listen to the sobbing.
Actually,
I can't take it anymore! Got to go and feed her! Again.

Thanks downbutnotout but I really wish I could turn back the clock . At least you are at a point where you can do something about it whereas I feel I let it go on at a crucial time in her development and it might be too late to rectify completely. When I look at her red book the drop off in her height is parallel to the drop off in her weight, yet I didn't notice! I'm constantly beating myself up for not doing anything about it sooner.

Like many on here I was quite resistant to being sent to paeds etc as she was happy and broadly meeting her milestones. We only came to their attention when she was admitted with bronchiolitis and it became apparent that they were much more concerned about her size so kept us in for a week! She's still undergoing lots of investigations and I'm finding it hard to see the light at the end of the tunnel.

I'm not sure I have much advice for anyone else as I'm probably an example of how not to handle things! However, with the benefit of hindsight I would say that if HVs and GPs are concerned enough to refer on then don't be as resistant as me. After all it can't do any harm to err on the side of caution.

Stick in there, it's still very early days for you

Sprinkles, how old is your DS?

Gorgeous baby btw Elkie!

Katy, no advice for you but hope someone else can offer some. It may be that given her age and presumably stage of feeding, there's another part of the feeding forums where there'll be parents with more experience of older babies with growing issues.

Katy, my ds2 is 10 months and has just made it back to between the 2nd and 0.4th centile. He started on the 9th (6 lb 13oz) at birth, followed that fine (in fact even started to leave it upwards towards the 25th) and then at 16 weeks just stopped gaining weight. He had 8 weeks where he gained nothing, after which I couldn't stand it any longer and tried to give him formula only to find he had a milk allergy so then I started weaning (avocados and more avocados), anyway that seemed to kick start his weight gain again, but still he now only follows the very bottom of the chart. He's a dinky little 16 lb 8 oz at 10 months and every time he gets ill he falls off the charts completely!

I know the feeling of guilt and helplessness. On the other hand, ds2 is tiny for his age but he is so lively, sociable and has just started to take his first few steps so I have absolutely no concerns about his development. The paed actually seems less concerned about his growth than I am and seems to think he's just never going to be one of life's big eaters.

Hi Academic,

it's good to know I'm not alone!

It sounds doubly hard for you though as at least I can give her cheese, cream etc. We tried to go dairy free to see if it helped but only lasted a week!

I wish I could stop worrying but it seems like all my worries are amplified by the HPs. For example, I mentioned her height to the consultant and half-jokingly (in a neurotic mother kind of way) asked whether she could have some form of dwarfism. Instead of dismissing my fear we're being referred to a geneticist! She's also being tested for cystic fibrosis on Monday.

I suppose what I'm saying is that when the medical profession behave as though something may be seriously wrong with your child then it's hard to think otherwise . However, it's good to read this thread and the experiences of others and see that she's not that unusual. I think I just need to regain some perspective.

Is your DS still being seen by the paeds?

DS is 16 or 17 weeks old now and weighs 11lb 8ozs a few weeks ago. I don't even look at the chart now. My HV weighs him regularly and all I need to hear is that he has gained some weight.

Pookamoo - At night you produce more hormones that build milk supply. Maybe the fussy night phase is just your baby trying to build up your supply. Do you ever take baby into bed with you? I found when mine wasn't sleeping I could prop up on pillows and doze as they fed. Remember that top-ups don't necessarily need to be formula. You could try bringing baby to the breast more frequently or expressing an extra feed for baby during her fussy period?

Katy, my ds is still being seen by the paed but she has now reduced the frequency of appointments so we don't have another for 3 months now. This was mainly because she said she didn't want him coming into hospital and potentially picking bugs etc. We also went through the CF tests, x-rays, checks for heart murmours, tests for further allergies but there doesn't appear to be anything medical that they can find. He just doesn't seem to be all that bothered with eating, is very resistant to being weaned off BF and onto a bottle/cup (I'm not surprised when I smell the hypoallergenic formula) and I'm pretty sure I don't produce enough milk any more. It is very difficult not to get worried every time he refuses to eat and some days can involve a large amount of time trying to convince him to eat something. This makes me really nervous about putting him in childcare to go back to work and at the moment I'm only going in 1 day per week (which dp takes off to look after ds1 and 2), but obviously that can't go on forever.

I must admit though the HV was getting me going to baby clinic every week to have him weighed and I was scared not to go in case they would say he is being neglected, but then the paed said that he shouldn't be weighed more often than once every 2-4 weeks. Now I don't go to baby clinic but I bought a set of baby scales and weigh him at home. It has taken away a lot of anxiety and I don't miss the HV's nasty comments! Once she even had a go at me for ds2 being on the 0.4th centile and then congratulated another mum for her big, healthy baby on the 99.6th centile!!! I mean, come on is that really any better?

Thanks pretty that's just what I've been doing. Lots of extra breastfeeding plus cosleeping.

academic if it is of any reassurance, I never made it onto the centile chart myself, and was only 16lb at 16 months and I turned out ok in the end!