MIX FEEDING, WANT TO BREASTFEED MORE BUT BABY NOT GAINING A LOT OF WEIGHT

[Dalrymps]

the story so far...
I almost gave up bf cause it was painfull, I stopped for 5 days then realised it wasn't what I wanted so got in touch with a bf councillor and tried agian, since then I used an elecric pump to get my supply up and after a few weeks was getting 4 oz a day, I then began to try and bf him again just giving it a go once or twice a day. I am now at the stage where I am bf him three times a day with a formula top up after each bf (1-2oz) and he is getting 2 ff in between the bf's of 4-5oz, so 5 feeds a day, sleeps 8hrs through the night. Anyway, for the last 5 weeks his weight gain has slowed, used to be about 6-9oz a week, in the 3 weeks over xmas he gained 8oz, week after half an oz and last week 1 and a half oz. The people at the clinic said to try fitting in another feed but he refuses any more if I try yo give it him. I want to bf him mpre of the time but don't want to mess with his feding if he's not gaining enought weight? Just spoke to bf councillor and she said to bf him more, try to fit in 2 more feeds a day if poss and not to top his feeds up in the evening and to just keep bf him on demand in the evening... any advice? I'm a bit confused as to what to do, basically I want him to gain a good amount of weight and I want to BF him more!

It's my understanding that the hours between 1am and 5am are particularly good for BF hormones. When I was trying to build up and maintain my supply for exclusive expressing I religiously expressed once between those hours.

You might be right, Nine, but I have to say I don't have a clue what night time ackcherly is in bf time!

I would guess sometime between 11 pm and 6.30 am??!!

I know there is a graph in one of My Very Big Books which shows the level in prolactin over 24 hours. If I get a mo' I will haul it down and have a look.

Thanks tiktok that would be very interesting! Left to her own devices DD will sleep 1-5 or 6ish - we currently have to wake her to feed her, but would obviously rather not!
There must be BF babies in the world who DON'T feed at 2am or so, so I'm hoping a midnight feed or thereabouts will eventually see DD through the night, and not affect my supply adversely

Well here I am a couple of weeks on and i'm getting wound up! On the breastfeeding counsellors advice i've been keeping his 2 4oz formula feeds the same and breastfeeding him as much as possible around those. Last week went well, he put on 5oz in 6 days. This week, we felt for sure he had gained weight, he looks a bigger, and everyone who knows him has commented on how he feels heavier, also my breasts feel a lot fuller before a feed and he seems to be getting more milk from me, I see it dribble down his face occasonally when he finishes a feed so know he's getting sa good amount, he feeds for 45 mins to an hour most times and he always gets offered both sides. Anyway we got him weighed this week (on different scales to last week) and he'd lost an oz ! He was hungry so I breastfed him there for 45mins and the hv commented on how well he fed, they then weighed him again, this time with his clothes on and he weighed 10 and a 1/2 oz more, obviously his clothes would have weighed a bit too though. Anyway they said they thought he was feeding well and would have probably shown a gain had he been weighed after I fed him in the first place. I feel he is doing very well, alway alert and happy and developing skills really well.
Anyway, today my normal hv called to say she'd discussed the fact he'd not really gained weight with my bf counsellor and she suggested to add another bottle of formula each day, I told her i don't want to do this at all as it will affect my supply and i didn'r feel he had lost weight anyway as he felt heavier and id feeding so well. She said to try the next teat up on his bottle to see if he'll take more, I advised we've tried this 2 weeks ago and he takes no more than before, just drinks it quicker. So then she suggested to try THE NEXT teat size up again, I explained he had initially choked occasionally on the 3 month + teat so defiately wasn't ready for the 6 month + one. Plus the fact this was a solution to get him to drink more formula - NOT what I want to do! So she asked howthe bf is going, I said both the other hv and bf counsellor had watched me feed and said he was feeding great!
Any advice from the bf experts out there? I feel like i'm being backed into a corner and that no one believes me when I say he feeds fine, I know my baby and feel he is totally fine - HELP

The hv has been, she weighed him and he was 3oz heavier than yesterday. She said just to carry on as I am and we'll weigh him again on tues. She then wanted me to bf him to see if there was anything she could see that I could do better, I said i'd try but he'd just had a bottle so might not be hungry, anyway he just kept latching on then coming off agan cause as I said...he wasn't hungry. This anoyed me as it doesn't seem to matter how many times I say it or how many people have watched me feed they don't beleive me he feeds fine and keep asking for a demonstration so I had to sit there trying to force feed my baby who wasn't hungry which proved nothing cause he wasn't due a feed! She went away saying he seemed fine but why don't they don't believe me when I say so? why do they always keep asking me the same questions over and over again? ok rant finished... any advice?

I would like to just agree with many things people have already said. DD now 19months, breastfed fine, but put on little weight, she maintained a steady gain, but she was small to start with so this gain was not much, then it dropped a little. I was pressured contuniously by the healthvisitor to stop, or to top up more, mix feed, but DD refused, thankfully.

I continued to exclusively BF until 5.5months, weaned and BF until she was 9 months then moved on to cows milk, her own choice. She was always active, met her milestones early, weed and poo'd fine, and I am so glad she refused a bottle. She is still small, but thats how she is going to be, her weight and height are smilar in charts, as they always have been, and she is a perfectly healthy girl.

The thing that kept me going was once I saw a stand in health visitor, who reminded me the chart I had was a bottle feeding chart, so although she was low on it, she would not be if it was correct chart. my other health visitor conveniently could not find a breastfeeding chart for me!!!

It sounds to me like you are doing a great great job, and have perservered through some obstacles. sounds all good to me,

Only read OP, but my recollection is that bf babies do not gain weight following the normal centile charts that you are given. The charts are based on exclusively bottle fed infants and so do not reflect the different pattern that bf babies follow. My ds was exclusively bf for 7 mths and then mix fed for the last 3 mths. He had regular growth spurts followed by periods when he didn't really gain weight at all (and he was a tall, good sized baby). I stopped weighing him except for once a month after about 5 mths because it didn't really provide me with any useful info. I just made sure we had lots of wet/dirty nappies and that he was gradually growing into new sized clothes.

So not much help, I guess, but just wanted to let you know what I did and how bf and then mix feeding worked for me.

Personally darlymps, I'd tell them to stop weighing my child so often!
If you weighed yourself three times in two days there would be a huge difference too!

Are you happy with the way baby is doing about from the weight issue? Does baby seem alert? have plenty of wet nappies? happy? etc, if a baby is not getting enough food there will be symptoms.

As for adding the formula feeds, I wouldn't offer him formula, until he has finished his breastfeed, you've done really well so far, and slowly cutting out his formula feeds is tha aim yes?

Everytime he wants to feed, offer him the breast and don't offer any formula until he is refusing the breast iyswim.

Giving him a faster teat to force food down his neck at a greater speed is not the best way to do it IMO, and you know this, so stand your ground.

I appreciate when it's just you and a Hv who beleives they know what's best it can be hard to say, 'no!, I won't do that you're not giving me the best advice to enable to me breastfeed successfully, you're giving me advice on how to fatten my child up like he is a turkey' it may be easier to tell them you feel his weight gain daily is not a good indicator of his feeds though and you'd like to cut it down to a maximum of once every 7-10 days.

BTW the charts are not based on bottle fed babies, that is a common misconception, they are however based on a wide range of babies and no two babies are the same so although they are good for a rough guide they are not worth following as standard.

Thanks for your stories, makes me feel better to know others have had a similar situation, I like to get him weighed just to make sure i'm aware of how he's doing but i'm getting a bit tired of the interrogation (sp?) every time I go!

Thing is though darlymps, if you're having baby weighed so often it really isn't going to show you how well he is doing, just the opposite in fact, you will get the interrogation, and you will worry. If you want him weighed that's understandable but I'd do it no more than once a week, at the same time every week, after a feed, if the variables are the same (Time/day/feed etc) then you will be able to see a lot better.

You could always get some scales and weigh him yourself?

yes VS the aim is to gradually phase out the ff all together which is why I told her I wouldn't be giving him more formula! Baby is totally fine, actually very clever for his age, would say he's reaching some milestones early and is happy and active.

Dalrymps, is all they are going on the crappy scales? Different scales, baby weighed with clothes, without clothes, by different people, weighing often.....it all adds up to inevitable inaccuracy, and no one should be making clinical decisions or giving you clinical advice (about formula and teats) based on that alone....very, very poor.

Who is the breastfeeding counsellor saying to give a further bottle each day - or is that the HV saying that?

Honestly, Dalrymps, it is hard to be certain about anything to do with a baby's health and progress over the internet, and of course the people caring for you in person can see things and discuss, so clearly you need to take on board what they are saying. Trouble is, they seem to be a bit clueless i) about normal breastfeeding ii) about the limitations of weighing iii) about how to support you best to breastfeed.....

i know what you mean VS, it's the bloody hv's that keep suggesting getting him weighed more often, i'm happy with once a week.

He's your baby darlymps, you can tell them, you want a more accurate recording of his weight and you feel him being weighed willy-nilly is not helping so only want it every so often, and to be the same every time, ie undressed, fed, and same time of day. Even him emptying his bowels can change his weight, so if they weigh him before he does it he will weigh more than if they weigh him after!
Like TikTok says there is more to it than weight.
Is there anyone else you could take him to see regardless of his weights and measurements to get him checked over and find out how they think he is doing? A doctor or paedatrician? You could forget to take your red book so all they go on is how well the baby they see in front of them is doing, it might ease your mind if you did.

It's the actual bf counsellor telling me to add another bottle, she passed the message through the hv to me, the bfc is on holiday now so i can't ask her about it

Who does the bfc work for? Do you know?

no, she's been really nice up to know, to be honest i'm shocked she's even suggested this? She's called carolynne, i'm in northumberland area if that helps.

What organisation is she from?

To be honest, if she is with any of the vol orgs, she's overstepping what she should be doing....anything she suggests should not be advice, but discussed direct with you, and not relayed through the HV.

Of course, she may be an NHS person calling herself a breastfeeding counsellor, which some of them do

well i'm not sure, she part of a group of a few of them that are funded by the local trust or something like that, she gave me a free electric breast pump... i'll try to find her card and see what it says...

My thoughts exactly tiktokt, I'd be surprised for a proper bfc to discuss things with the HV rather than you directly.

She may be one of the women who has done a five hour course or whatever it is and uses her little information to back up the HV's as she doesn;t know anymore on the topic.

That's not saying she can't be very nce btw, I'm sure she is, and is probably tellign you what she thinks is best, unfortunately some of the courses do not cover everything and she wil then have to get advice from someone else eg your HV.

her card says shes a breastfeeding co-ordinator and it has 'sure start' berwick borough on it, her email address ends .gov.uk... I remember her saying she used to be a midwife for years and years and then thatshe'd done lots of research on how babies bf and is now doing this job.

her?

yeah thats the one

I don't know much about the surestart training, maybe tiktok will know more.
I would maybe speak to her when she comes back (you said she is on holiday didnt you??) and explain that you really dont want to top up, and would prefer her to not discuss you with your HV?