Just want to get this out really.
My son is almost 3mths old and his growth has really slowed since he was 8 weeks.
He dropped 5% after birth and took just over 2 weeks to regain it, but was steadily putting weight on and ebf so I wasn't worried.
At 8 weeks the HV came and he'd dropped from 25th to 0.4th centile. Id just had a tummy bug and felt like we'd had about 10 days of not great feeding so whilst it was a surprise as he seemed content, I felt fairly confident he'd bounce back.
HV advised me to start topping up with expressed milk, and offering food more frequently. I've been doing this since and he takes 60-200ml a day after breastfeeding. He feeds every 2-3hrs during the day for 15-30mins, with both breasts offered and me doing compressions to squeeze a bit more in! If he looks remotely like he's rooting, licking his lips etc I'll be in there.
Generally his latch seems fine, my boobs are happy, he gets through plenty of nappies and his temparement is pretty relaxed. He's my second child, and I bf the eldest until he was 2. It took me ages to crack feeding with my first, but I do think now I've got a good sense of when it's working. I've also had feeds with the baby observed and no issues flagged.
A few days after seeing the HV, I saw the gp and his weight hadn't moved much so he referred him to the paediatrician. That's still a few weeks away.
In the past month despite all the above, his weight hasn't shot up. Based on my (imprecise) home measuring, he's gaining around 100g a week. Hes being weighed properly on Fri so will have a better picture then.
He has a tongue tie that was identified when he was born, but every encounter with a health professional they've said to wait and see if it causes any issues. Initially as he was feeding OK, they therefore said they couldn't refer. At 8 weeks, the HV said we should get it addressed, but the NHS waiting list would be really long as they've cut services locally so to go privately. We've arranged that, but the earliest appt we can get is next week, and that's required the surgeon to OK it as now he's over 12 weeks it's more risky due to potentially bleeding when it's cut.
I'll wait until his weigh-in on Fri and see what they recommend. But given he already has a paeds referral & tongue tie snip lined up not sure what helpful advice I'll get.
I'm fine with adding formula into the mix if that might make a difference but have been a bit wary before now as I wanted to make sure my milk was properly 'in' first. I found bf so convenient with my eldest after all the issues were resolved, and it feels like I'm at that stage again so a bit of a waste to abandon bf although I recognise it's not all or nothing.
My eldest was a covid baby and not weighed after 2 weeks, and if my baby hadn't been weighed more frequently I wouldn't be thinking about any of this!
Right that's it all out, apols for the essay. Has anyone else been through this? If you were in my shoes would you be doing anything differently now?