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

Glad he is on the mend. 17lb at 10 months is great particularly as he can't eat all the "fatty food. Just checked & my daughter was 16lb 8 oz at 10 1/2 months so you are doing a great job.

We moved from the UK to the Middle East about a year ago and I had such a rough time trying to find a doctor who would look at my daughter as a whole & not just the chart. At 8 months I took her to see one doctor as she had a fever. The nurse weighted her ( 16lb). He insisted she had made a mistake, then he said the scales must be faulty. When I persuaded him this was her weight he asked if I was actually feeding her, cue justifying myself for 20 mins. To top it all off he said she must be 22lbs by 12 months to be deemed healthy. I left in floods of tears. If I have to take my daughter to a doctor apart from her usual one, ( I found a gem in the end), I tend to be very much on the offensive from the start. Just can't help it.

22 lbs by 12 months??? That would make the majority of babies in my family "unhealthy". I think we've all been around the 20 lb mark. DS1 was less than this (just) but is now 4 years and on the 50th centile for weight and the 75th for height (though he was on the 75th for length/height from birth). He towers over most of his friends and is really healthy - not heading for obesity like many of his age.

It is really petty though, but I was really hoping that ds2 would make it out of the shaded area in the red book graph by his 1st birthday (5 weeks time). It's just I want to be able to take him to baby clinic to be weighed on his birthday, get a point on his graph which is off the bottom and I can stick two fingers up at the HV who has been as much help as a chocolate fireguard.

Academicmum - Glad he's on the mend. So annoying when people assume they're a lot younger than they are . Ds was last weighed at 16 months and was just over 18lb! Have weighed him at home today (on bathroom scales so not accurate) and it saud he was 8.9kg, not sure what that is in lbs... So just thought that might put your mind at rest a bit. At 10 months he was just under 16lbs, as you can see, his weight gain has been VERY slow!

MonkeyPuzzule2 - That must have been awful having to 'explain' yourself to the doc when you've done nothing wrong . Glad you have found a nice one now

OK, well ds2 is now eating again at least . Today he pretty much finished off everything he was given, so I'm hoping the weight he lost whilst ill will come back again soon. He has though now decided he doesn't want to drink from a cup anymore, but I'm hoping that this is only temporary (fingers crossed).

Academicmum - So glad eh's on the mend, sure that weight will be back on in no time. Fingers crossed on the cup thing

Hello ladies - how are you all doing? Wanted to post because I weighed ds2 today and he is back up to 17 lb 3 oz . Hooray! He has even developed a teeny, tiny little belly.

Hooray academicmum, may it long continue . Dylan has his next weigh in with the paed on tues so fingers crossed. It'd be great if he was nearer to 9kg, was about 8.2kg last time...

Good luck for tuesday. How long is it since your last appointment?

Hmm, well not sure when he saw the paed, at least a couple of months. He saw the dietician at 16months though, he'll be 18 months in 2 weeks.

Hope all goes well on Tuesday.

Academicmum - Excellent news its great he has bounced back.

I have been trying to wean my little one off breast milk onto the soya formula. I hasn't been going well. I weighted her and she had lost 8 ozs. Cue panic, guilt and a u -turn back to breast feeding. Oh well..

Hi MonkeyPuzzle, which brand of soy formula have you been trying? I just ask because we tried SMA Wysoy and ds2 wouldn't touch it. Might be a case of trying a few until you find one she will accept the taste of? I've managed to drop ds2's late afternoon feed OK now so we're down to 4 per day and I even left him with dp today whilst I went to work from 9-5 for the first time in ages and he actually drank quite a bit of the Pepti Junior he was left with (though I believe dp did have to resort to a pipette to get it in, but if that's what it takes then by now I'm not going to be fussy). Does your lo like soya yoghurt? Might be a way to get some "dairy" into her? It's tough though isn't it? I really thought when I started breastfeeding that I'd do it till ds2 was 5 months max then wean him onto bottles over a month and then introduce solids at 6 months. It all seemed so straightforward...

Academicmum - That's great news on the feeds, gives me hope.

We are trying Wysoy, its the only brand I have seen on sale here. I will be coming back to the UK in the summer so if I've had no luck by then I will experiment with some other brands. My daughter does eat Soya yoghurt but never more than 1/4 of a pot also a lot of the brands they sell here have no added calcium I do know that Neocate will be launching a type of yoghurt late this year which will be fantastic and another option.

I had the same feeding expectations as you, best laid plans & all ...

That's really interesting about the Neocate yoghurt. I was actually just talking to dp this morning about trying to make yoghurt out of Pepti with soy yoghurt starter but actually it seems like lots of work. It would be great to just be able to buy one. Speaking of Neocate though, have you tried Neocate Advance which comes in different flavours? I haven't tried it but I heard it tastes pretty good and has more calories than standard Neocate. I was thinking about asking my GP if we could try it when ds2 is over 1. I think it's quite a bit more expensive than standard Neocate though (which is already bad enough).

We haven't tried the advance as the dietician recommended the neocate active ( again for over 1's). It has more fat & calcium, from memory, than the advance or infant and you only need to get them to drink 300mls a day. I have heard you can buy the flavoured sachets to add to the active milk. I haven't done this yet as I just went down the nesquik route. It is very expensive about 90 pounds for a box containing 14 sachets. Crazy!!

Yay - we made it over the 8kg mark !

Academicmum - That's great!

Can't believe we forgot to update you on our check up with the paed. I hoped he'd be about 8.8/8.9kg but he was 8.6. Not bad though and still a gain since last time, he was 8.2 about 2 months ago. He's stil following the bottom line on the chart. The paed was happy with him though and said he thought this was just the way ds is and that he's probablt going to carry on pretty much on that line.

He said he thought ds is doing well and doesn't want to see him till he's 2 now (18 mo at the mo)

Dalrymps - its good that he's still following a line and the bottom line is just as good as any other line (and might even be healthier than one near the top). Our paed was certainly of the opinion that the charts were skewed by the tendancy of many babies to be overweight these days and I'm happy to believe that as ds2 doesn't look unhealthy to me. I'm currently reading "My Child won't Eat! How to Prevent and Solve the Problem" by Carlos Gonalez, which is quite interesting and I'm trying (not very successfully it has to be said) to relax about ds2's intake.

Thanks academicmum for the reassurance, sounds a good book, will look it up

That's great news both.

My daughter has had rotavirus for the past week so vomiting & diarrhea galore. It's horrible. She seems better today & has started to eat. They weighted her at the docs and she has lost 0.7kg bless her, back to the weight she was 2 1/2 months ago. I'm just glad she is on the mend and hopefully she will be able to put it back on quickly to break the 9kg mark again, fingers crossed.

MonkeyPuzzle, I hope she starts eating again soon.

Oh monkeypuzzle, horrible when that happens, 2 and a 1/2 months gain lost in a week . You can bet now she is on the mend the weight will come back on quickly though, glad she has started to eat again

Hello everyone,

sorry for being incommunicado. Been trying to stop obsessing about dd's weight so taken a bit of a break.

Monkeypuzzle so sorry to hear that your dd has rotavirus. My dd had it in January and it was incredible how quickly the weight dropped off her. On the plus side she did gain it again very quickly (I think a lot of it is fluid loss) so I hope you see her regain some of it soon

Academicmum congrats on making the 8kg mark! Has your ds had his 1st birthday yet? I've got my fingers crossed for you that he's made it into the shaded area of the chart!

Dalrymps great news re the paediatrician! You seem to have such a great attitude to it all and have been quite an inspiration.

I think I have finally regained some perspective and have now accepted that dd is perfectly healthy and so I refuse to worry anymore!! I don't know whether it's coincidence or not but dd seems to be eating okay since I stopped stressing. We've inadvertantly opted for baby led weaning as she now refuses to be spoon fed, so I am leaving her to it and trusting that she won't starve herself to death (as everyone keeps telling me!). I've also gone back to work and it turns out that when she's at nursery she eats loads (even when being spoon fed) so I feel positively liberated! She was meant to be weighed today and I didn't bother going...gasp! I think she is only just on the chart but surely someone has to be there? They all seem so obsessed with kids being above the 3rd centile I don't know why they don't just make it the 0 centile.

Hope you and all the little acorns are okay.

KatyH - Glad that you're resolved to stop worrying so much. They really will be ok . I do have to say though I swing between being ok about it and occasionally panicking. The periods of panick are getting smaller as time goes on though, I can see he is doing wonderfully

Oh thanks for the compliment by the way, not sure I'd say I was inspirational !

Katy, its really reassuring to hear that your dd is eating at nursery. DS2 is due to start nursery at the end of next month (mornings only, but still...) and I am of course freaking out that he won't eat and his weight will simply plateau out again. I'm hoping that since he likes the social side of meals, but is not fussed about the eatng bit (meaning I always have to sit ds1 down for something to eat at the same time as ds2) he might also take to meals at nursery better than at home (when he sees other babies eating too). I'm just hoping the nursery will accept me proving my own lovely dairy-free high-calorie food for him to avoid him being filled up on stuff with zero calories. I had completely the opposite with ds1 who didn't even taste chocolate until he was gone 2.5 years old .

Also still struggling with dropping the breastfeeds. Was really hoping to do away with them before his 1st birthday (but I've set sooo many deadlines on this it's untrue e.g. I'll stop before 5 months, I'll stop at the latest by Christmas, I'll stop absolute latest by Easter.... ho hum).

Hi all - OK, ds2 is 1 this week and this is the last post I'm going to leave on this thread . I took him to baby clinic today and he has finally come out of the blue shaded area on the chart, being a whole 18 lb at 1 year . However, going back to baby clinic after so many months of not going really made me realise that 1. my HV and her side-kick are complete bitches and 2. I can safely attribute almost all of my stress etc down to the nasty comments of the HV, which although I sort of knew that they were being nasty before I only managed to really see the extent of this when returning to baby clinic feeling much more confident again.

I've therefore decided that I'm not going to weigh him any more - he is absolutely fine, I'm not going to get stressed about how much he eats any more and so what if he is small? Someone has to be. Best of all though- he can't possibly be "failure to thrive" as he let go of the furniture today and took his first 10 wobbly steps all on his own .

Katy is right, our babies are all going to be fine and sooo much time is wasted worrying instead of enjoying them.

Good luck to all. x