"failing to thrive" - please help!

[Caz10]

DD is between 5-6wks just now and put on 1lb in the first 3wks. (5lbs 15 at birth to 6lbs 15 at 3wks).

Now at 5wks + 4 she has dropped to 6lbs 11oz.

HV told me she was failing to thrive, said i HAD to top up with formula and basically scared the life out of me.

I have been working with a bfc to improve my latch as i know it has not been great - it is improving.

dd is alert, lots of wet nappies, 2-3 dirty nappies a day and has gone up a centile in length. they did her 6wk check this week for some reason and all was fine. surely she is not failing to thrive?

boxes of formula in the kitchen, not given yet, lots of tears from me. have to get her weighed again tomorrow and feel like i will be in trouble for not topping up.

i know all the things to try to get supply up, but HV has put such a sense of urgency round this that i feel i have to do something quickly.

i think my most urgent concern is, will i harm dd by NOT topping up for a few days while i think this through?

i am aware there are lots of similar threads to this, so off to have a look. thanks

I have not had any experience of this but don't panic, I think most on here will tell you 'failing to thrive' is a lot of bollocks in most cases.

caz get on to bfc NOW. you need proper assessment of what is going on and whether or not it is a problem.

what the hell good is weighing tomorrow going to do even if you gave dd the whole sodding box of formula overnight.

Is it possible to take to your bed with her and feed her everytime she demands? Fwiw my 1si dd was 4lb at birth and was only 13lb at a year but she was happy,healthy,doing everything she should and i didn't give her any formula. Trust your instincts,every baby is different. I have since had 3 more,dd1 was 8.6 at birth but only on the 25th by 6mths and ds2 who was 9.6 at birth but down to below the 9th by 6mths. I don't weigh dd2!

You are perfectly entitled to tell the hv to sod off and not weigh her you know.

thanks. went to see bfc last night, sorry, should have said that, and also to group today. bfc suggested "superswitching" - moving her to 2nd breast after she stops active feeding, and then back again, ie 4 breasts each feed.

should also say my only other concern is that she is quite sleepy? but also has v alert spells

Are you absolutely certain that the 3-week weight was correct? It just seems rather odd to have initially put on so much and then go on to lose weight, particularly if you're getting plenty of wet and dirty nappies.

How frequently are you feeding? If she needs more milk then it can come from you by feeding more frequently! Also worth phoning a breastfeeding counsellor if you can.

are they digital scales, are they the same set? if not it is meaningless.

Is she your first ?

How many times a day would you say you are feeding her ?

How long does she feed for ?

Just take a small step back from the box for now whilst we things in perspective.

no different scales and different states of dress each time so i feel it;s a pile of crap - BUT i am scared 1st time mummy! don't want to co-sleep for various reasons but she is feeding at least every 3hrs

Hang on, based on two weighs, your HV has diagnosed your DD as failure to thrive (a term that I think has fallen out of favour in itself) and not given you any further advice?

Speak to a bf counsellor now. Not sure I have a profile on here any more with the numbers on, but all the numbers are on my blog - www.howbreastfeedingworks.com on the right hand side.

Was she weighed naked on the same scales each time?

Her alert/nappies/centile in length sounds unlike FTT.

Don't worry about the sleepyness if she is alert in between - thats what little babies do.How about a quick trip to the docs and get her checked over,just to put your mind at rest and then shut the door and just feed her as much as she wants.Not sure about the super switching - generally bettetr to let them finnish one side at a time so you know they are geting the hind milk too.

normally, before "superswitching" -

• every 3hrs
• 20-30 mins 1st breast, 10-20 mins 2nd breast
• not all of that time active feeding, some breast compressions

Ah, crossed posts - then the weights mean arse-all and you must go by how your baby seems. If you didn't know how much she weighed, would you be worried about her?

Tell your HV that the weights that have been recorded aren't accurate enough to base a decision like this on.

sorry that was in reply to kat!

hunker she has been weighed 7 times sinvce birth! bfc was horrified

see below hunker, hv is talking shit.

caz if i were you i'd leave a message for hv saying sorry you had to go out, what a shame she can't come round to see you today. and just carry on, sounds like its all fine and she is harrassing you.

no, i don't think i would be worried - but then i wouldn't know she'd lost weight either.

no experience of babies prior to this but everyone remarks on how alert she is

Just looking in the dreaded red book - ds2 was just above the 50th at birth,on the 75th at 3ks til he was 7 wks then dropped back to the 50th,then the 25th at 11wks and by 8mths he was on the 9th. I know they are all different but i hope that helps explain that not all babies stay on one centile. My other 3 were similar apart from dd1 who never got above the 2nd until she was 8 and a half!

Caz, she hasn't lost weight, necessarily.

The scales are very unlikely to be ounce-perfect replicas of each other.

What sort of scales have been used each time she's been weighed? Spring balance ones or digital ones? Even different digital ones can vary. And seven times since birth - wtf is this HV on, you don't get weighed that much as Weightwatchers!

And you say different states of undress each time - again, not necessarily her losing weight, more that a nappy was fullish one time and empty the next, or she was wearing a sleepsuit one time and naked the next, then a vest, then naked.

She sounds lovely ( baby that is not HV LOL !)

Just carry on how you are, as long as she's alert and feeding regularly you'll be fine.

caz from your other thread i have the impression that this hv comes round and brings teh scales?

really, i'd hide in the loo when she rings the bell.

how is your latch, still very painful?

You can't compare weights between different scales and different states of dress each time; you just can't. Basically HV can't be arsed to weigh her properly but feels qualified to tell you on the basis of her own half-arsedness that you must top up?

Caz, change your HV if you can. This is really pretty shoddy postnatal 'care' - weights are likely to be all over the shop when they are done as badly and inconsistently as this.

Superswitching is an excellent suggestion.

I think it might help you to go to a clinic where there are some decent scales and an HV you can trust, weigh your baby naked, and then go home and superswitch for a week, and then go back and have the same scales with the baby naked again....that's the only way weights can tell you anything at all.

precisely p&l. it might as well be another baby!

hi there

my dd is 16months now ... and reading your op brings it all back to me ... HV put so much pressure on me to supplement with a feed a day saying dd was also 'failing to thrive' ... she actually went further and said i was putting her at risk of cot death

i kid you not

infact, dd had never lost weight but just was a slow gainer ... like you i had a weigh-in deadline imposed on us where if she hadn't gained at least 4oz in 2 days then they were going to insist on switching (given that she had always gained 2/3 oz each week the 4 oz in days was highly unlikely ... I realise that now)

it put me under so much pressure and made me so upset

I was also told i had to have high fat everything and milk ... and given that I have a dairy intolerance ... one night saw me with a whacking migraine, trying to feed dd, in tears with dh holding baby cos i was worried i would drop her with the accompanying pins and needles

it took my mother to say .. .this is rubbish ... that child is alert, happy, thriving ... and then I got a bf counsellor in to watch me who basically said everything was fine and as for the high fat things ... she reminded me that the most prolific of milk producers eat grass in a field all day!

I wrote it all down in the red book and made a formal complaint to my gp, whereupon the hv did apologise and say she had misunderstood things

sharing this to say ... noone but noone knows your baby as well as you

I was in exactly the same position with DD - told she was failing to thrive at 4 weeks (mainly due to crap weighing system and idiot hv). Idiot HV told me to top up. Instead I increased the feeds to two hourly - which damn near killed me, but turned my ftt baby into the 95th centile kid in just seven weeks. I remember very clearly how upset I was by the failure to thrive label (which I saw more as a failure as a mummy label). You have to believe that as her mummy you know better than the HV. Feed her whenever you get a chance and she looks like she might take it. You will BOTH be okay. Lots of support on here. You are in the right place.