Help! excl. bf 9 week with slow weight gain - gp wants to give formula at night

[meebles]

My DD is 9 weeks old and has been gaining weight, but slowly. She started out at the 50th percentile, and is now somewhere between the 9th and 3rd. This week she only put on 60g after managing 120g last week.
I feel quite strongly that I want to continue bfing, but everyone around me is making me feel awfully guilty for not 'intervening' in any way to stop the downward plunge through the percentiles, and that I am being irresponsible for rejecting the idea of formula.
Quite apart from the faff with sterilising and making up bottles, and losing out on the lovely time together (and excuse to sit down!), I think that bfing is far desirable to FF, for me anyway.

Anyway, the gp (and MIL and DH.....)thinks that we should give a bottle of formula at night a) because of the slow weight gain, and b) because I'm quite tired.

MNers, in your experience does formula mean a better nights sleep? and is it valid to say that 'one bottle a day won't do any harm'?

but she is putting on weight ! 180 g in 2 weeks.. that is not something to be sniffed at.

your supply is decently established and meeting her needs, i presume she is happy , settled, weeing and pooing as you would expect her to

weight gain does slow down, not every baby is going to stay on the 50th centile, some have to be lighter or heavier to make an average in the first place

formula - i know plenty of fully formula and mix fed babies who don;t sleep through, especially at such a young age

also, better to breastfeed at night when there is more prolactin and your supply will meet your baby'sdemands as she had growth spurts

one bottle might well not do any harm per se, but exclusive breast feeding is not going to do any harm either.

if you love breastfeeding, then stick with it

wellmeaning relatives and gps are not necessarily experts in infant feeding

meebles, if you want to breastfeed and do what you can to max baby meebles' weight potential, then you can give extra breastmilk.

Not sure why this has not been suggested to you....squeezing in an extra breastfeed when dd isn't actively asking for it should be easy enough, and you can choose when you give it.

A bottle of formula at night may or may not make a diff to the sleep - no way of knowing, and experience is hugely variable. However, it may an effect on your breastmilk production (negative) and may even reduce the amount of c alories that get into your baby - if the formula takes longer to digest and keeps your baby asleep for longer (if), then she will breastfeed less. This in turn may impact on your supply.

Of course you can 'intervene' to tackle their concerns about her weight, but it doesn't have to be with formula

You could express, if you wanted, for a bottle, but this could also extend the gaps between bfs, which is not a good thing for supply...but it might have less of an effect than formula, and would also be better from a health point of view, of course.

And to add.....nothing you say is a sign that she actually needs more calories, either, as lulu says! Plenty of healthy babies move down the centiles like this...however, she is still quite young, and that drop is quite steep. Is she a placid baby? Sometimes, placid babies do need to be encouraged to feed a bit more....

Have you thought about co-sleeping ? This is a great way to catch up on sleep at night.

Or breastfeeding whilst lying down, can help you rest when you are really tired.

Don't forget the old adage, always sleep when the baby does. Ignore the housework it will wait, just get youe head down whenever you can.

Is there anything you can out source (i.e. Online shopping, cleaner) or ignore (loads of stuff) whilst your baby is so little and needy or dump on the MIL/DH ?

Never understood why feeding a bottle of formula, can help a mum feel less tired. As you said yourself all that faff with making, feeding and cleaning the bottle...so much easier to just feed the baby direct. And if your MIL or DH say they will do the feed for you, then they could just as easily do something else for you around the house, whilst you breastfeed.

meebles, there is some good advice and support here

tiktok and lulu have said it all really, but just to add that a friend of mine started using a bottle of formula at night from an early age and it made no difference to the amount her baby slept; he still woke up in the night for a BF.

the tiredness does get better too......or you just get used to it, I'm not sure which.

Good Luck, whatever you decide.

Thank you for your support everyone.

Of course you can 'intervene' to tackle their concerns about her weight, but it doesn't have to be with formula

That is so what I wanted to hear! FF seems to be the first and only solution that comes to mind for some people.

To answer your question tiktok, no she is not a placid baby. She is frequently demanding feeding, hates to be put down, and only goes to sleep if we go out, or if I feed her to sleep. She wakes up as soon as she is put down elsewhere. She does often drift off during feeding though, so I try and wake her up again. Oh, and she gets wind a lot which distresses her.

We've always co-slept, and I thought we'd cracked it last week when she woke up every couple of hours to feed but went off again straight away, so I woke up feeling pretty good. It's all gone downhill again though now, but you're right babieseverywhere, it was great while it lasted. Now we're just co-waking.

I've tried expressing, but hardly get anything, especially when there hasn't been a pause in bfing al day.

So, I shall increase(!) feeds, and go on laundry strike.

hurrah - she's gained 200g this week! I'm feeling so much more confident in what I'm doing, thanks everyone.

Thanks for the update, meebles! I do hope the GP and MIL and DH realise you were right and they were wrong.

Ner ner ner ner ner......

Meebles I gave my dd a bottle a day from quite early on. I started with good intentions of giving ebm but it soon seemed easier to give formula-especially as EVERYONE was telling me it would help her sleep longer. It didn't.
She started to refuse the breast at 5 months and was soon fully ff. Her sleeping didn't change a bit. I was still up at least 3 times a night except I had to make up bloody bottles! People used to say that at least dh could help with the night feeds now, he didn't!
I was even more tired than when I was breastfeeding AND dd's weight gain slowed down