Is my baby hungry or am I just being paranoid?

[LDNLCN]

My baby is four months old, almost 5 months now and exclusively breastfed. She seems to be developing well however, my mother seems to think she is "starving". My mum formula-fed, both me and my brother and claims that she didn't produce enough milk. I struggled at the beginning with breastfeeding but was persistent and eventually went from mix feeding to exclusively breastfeeding after four weeks. My mum is always telling me I should still mix feed as she seems hungry, I am 99% sure DD is teething that's why she always has her hands in a mouth and gets a bit grizzly. Once my mum realised I wasn't backing down she started to say "well maybe you need to try and give her solids now because she's developing well and seems like she wants food". She won't give up and it's starting to actually make me feel really down about it. She says she thinks I may have the same issue as her and not be producing enough milk.

My baby has a kidney issue, so I went to the doctors a couple of days ago and found out thank goodness all is well. And that she is tracking well with her weight and height. She's always been a small baby, she's on the 9th percentile, when she was born she was on the 10th percentile. Height is 25th percentile and head 50th percentile.
My mother instantly saw this as an opportunity to tell me that she's really hungry, and should be going up not tracking the same. The doctor told me that she seems like a healthy happy baby so who do I believe... Ever since this appointment she watches me intensely while I feed her and says "see she looks hungry" if she's so much as lifts her head off. Whenever she looks after my baby, I allow her to give her formula just to keep her quiet but of course I get "oh, she loved the formula" and "look how happy she is now". It's getting to the point where it's all I hear about and it's starting to make me question everything.

Recently, my baby has started babbling and become a lot more vocal. When she does make grunting noises my mum is now taking that as "she's telling you she's starving". I've been googling endlessly and it seems like it's fairly normal for babies to grunt while feeding, but could also be a sign of frustration so now I'm just confused. I'd also like to mention that the grunting seems to coincide with when I'm feeding her, and she is tired. She almost always falls asleep straight away.

I don't know...

Am I just being selfish by continuing to breastfeed? I had a goal to reach six months. Or is my mum right? I have no idea what is right or wrong at this point. I should also mention she has consistently wet nappies and poos once or twice a day sometimes three or four.

I'm trying to rise above it, but the struggle is real! I would love any advice from anyone who has had similar experiences with family or with babies grunting while feeding. I'm looking for reassurance but also if she is hungry, then I'll do whatever is best for her.

Thanks in advance, and sorry for the very long read❤️

It's actually made me laugh out loud. My mum thinks she's an expert in anything medical. It drives me insane!

Sorry you're going through this as well. Being a mum is hard enough without people poking their nose in. I haven't got to the heated stage, but I think I'm not too far behind you.

This is exactly what my partner says. He is convinced she is manipulating me so she can start feeding her formula and my baby won't just rely on me.

For context, I unfortunately cannot escape the opinions as we are renovating a house are currently staying with my parents. It'll at least be another two months I reckon!

Space is not an option.

Imo dgm's like bottle fed dgc so they can take over...

In two months your baby will be weaning. If you can't escape maybe lean into the skid and ask for advice on first weaning foods ideas. Let your mum be a part of the first taste. Maybe it'll get her off your back about bf for a little bit.

Except she’ll ask why the OP is planning to wait two more months, and probably advise rusks.

Keep going with the bf, sounds like you are doing brilliantly. It sounds like your mum's maternal instincts have gone into overdrive and she is doing to your baby what she did with you - trying to feed her. Of course because you are breastfeeding, she can't. So she is doing everything she can to scratch that itch though.
It's not fair on you at all, but it will pass. Just keep calm and carry on, I guess!

@Moancup @BlowMyBubbles
She's already trying to get me to add baby rice and rusks to her milk. I will, however, let her be part of weaning her as I do think that will get her off my case. I only have 1 1/2 months to endure... 🫠

What do you mean endure?

Good grief, maybe sit in front of her and eat a box of rusks, tell her your adding it to the milk as she suggested? 🤣

How have you not, in the baby sleepless fug, just told her to back the f off?! I'm all for being polite, understanding and compromising but at some point, especially in the early months of child raising, I was less than...diplomatic. Sleep starved, snot cry, raving loony would have been more on the mark at times.

Carry on doing as you are, your milk is obviously doing your child well as they are going up percentiles. Dear mum needs to get used to her role as grandmother not mother. There's plenty of time for her to stuff pockets and cheeks but now isn't it.

Hearing my Mum go on about solids. It's less that two months until I start weaning. If the baby even takes the food 🥲

@BlowMyBubbles 🤣 I should give that a try. Honestly, I don't know how. I think I'm just a whimp and not very confrontational. It's a flaw I know I need to work on. I did say she's upsetting me and causing me an anxiety but that didn't seem to stop that barrage.

If you were not producing enough milk you would have found this out long before five months. My mum gave me a little booklet from when I was born with information about breastfeeding and how the milk runs out sometimes during a feed before the baby is full. It was a formula leaflet as it was really pushed as the 'modern' option.

I also had the, "we weaned at 3 months, give her some baby yoghurt and mashed potato".

I expect your mum, like mine was, is trying to help. I started to ignore her, just a simple response of "no, baby's fine" and love the conversation on. Remind yourself she is just trying to help and smile and nod!

Your mum needs to fuck off. Is she this controlling and critical in other areas of your life?

I think it's from a good place, although sometimes I do question it. But yeah they come from a different time (that sounds awful but you know what I mean 🤣).

Weirdly, no. She is the most supportive, loving person. She usually thinks the sun shines out of my bum. So I don't know where this has all come from.

I have you told her that it's getting you down? Maybe sit down with her and point out the baby is growing exactly as they should, and you're proud of yourself for breastfeeding and hope she's proud of you too, and that the constant referral to the baby not getting enough milk is upsetting you?

Ignore your mum, as long as your baby is gaining weight and having wet and dirty nappies all is ok.
my mum kept saying to me “it’ll get easier when you stop breastfeeding “
”when are you going to give bottles” she doesn’t say much anymore he is 8 months whereas my MIL was supportive until he got to 6 months then changed saying things like “when are you going to give him a bottle” “he needs a bit bottle of milk so he sleeps better” I just ignore it or just say me breastfeeding isn’t the reason why he doesn’t sleep through and he wouldn’t take a bottle even if I tried and certainly not large quantities.

It's generational, true, but it's ruining your confidence in your own parenting ability. Tell her very firmly that age needs to stop. And that things are dive differently now. There could also be some jealousy that she didn't breastfeed. I'm probably the age of your mum, and I did breastfeed, but you wouldn't believe how difficult it was and how unsupportive people were back them. And obviously, they all said they were unable to.

Your mum is massively overstepping and is really undermining your decisions and your confidence as a mum yourself. I think it's crazy that she's bullied you into allowing formula while she's minding your little one just to get her to stop going on. That's so out of order. She clearly has very little understanding of breast feeding, how demanding it can be. My son fed half hourly at 4 months old but at that age they are so distracted by everything else that they do take shorter more frequent feeds. I think you need to sit your mum down and say you want to hear nothing more about formula, that it's your decision on how you feed your child and that is it. If she's giving formula then presumably you're missing feeds unless you're pumping to replace them so that could affect your supply if it's happening regularly. I express milk and my mum gives that when she minds ds. She's also of that generation and thinks formula is the solution to all issues including just being a baby. But there's so much education she didn't get around bf and like your mum she formula fed all of us so it's what she's used to. I ignore her comments and do what I feel is best. It sounds like she has her own issues around breastfeeding, maybe doesn't have lots of current info on it and maybe had her own emotional baggage wrapped up with her attempt at it. I'd join your local la leche league group, they've been so supportive to me and I've learnt loads and they've helped me navigate unhelpful suggestions. You are not being selfish, bf is incredibly demanding and difficult but it is doing lots for your little ones health and wellbeing. Do not let your mum take over so much.

I used to express milk and leave it for her but every time I'd get back she said she had to top it up with formula because DD was still ravenous after my milk.. so I gave up. Felt like a pointless exercise. Now I probably only leave DD with her once a month because I just don't trust her not to give her formula or food for that matter.

I have tried speaking to her and telling her she's hurting my feelings and confidence in myself as a mother but it falls on deaf ears. I've found a local BF group I'm going to visit on Friday.

I even told her tonight I'd posted on here and got great advice, and reassurance. Her reply was "well I never said she was hungry, I just said she's acting like she's wanting real food". She's going about now like she doesn't tell me my child needs formula everyday.

No words...

The centipede are compared to a person of the same age. So being 10th febrile when born, there are, on average, 90 babies larger than yours. But the febrile at 5 months is compared to other babies who are 5 months old, so the difference between 90 and 91 babies on average being larger than her is negligible- if you went from 10th to 4th it might be an issue.

But in any 100 people on average, there always has to be a largest one and there always has to be a smallest one. So as long as you stay roughly in the same area of the chart, that is good. As some people will always stay small, some get big spurts and jump up then slide back again, some will always be big...there'll be a handful who were unwell and off their food so slide back, some who discovered sugary things and ate all they could find so jump up a bit....all sorts of perfectly explainable reasons.