Big baby dropping centiles!!

[santastolemycat]

Hi Ladies,
Just looking for some reassurance. My DS is 5 weeks old he was quite a sizeable baby at 9lb 7. He lost a bit of weight after birth but not enough to be worried but basically he’s not put any weight on in the last two weeks. He’s now 9lb 12 so overall has only gained 5oz since he was born. And has dropped 2 centiles.
He is formula fed and will only take 3oz at a time. The HV thinks it’s just because he was big to begin with he can’t eat enough to sustain that size.
He’s been checked by the GP and he found nothing wrong.
Everyone thinks he should be guzzling milk because he was so big but he just isn’t.
Has this happened to anyone else?! If he doesn’t gain any weight this week he’ll need to be seen by the paediatrician at the hospital.
Im feeding him every 3 hours but sometimes he’s not hungry and barely eats 2oz and the. will take a bit more 45 mins later.

Yeah my son dropped and took quite a while to start regaining. Was 4 weeks before he regained birthweight. However my son was born with an infection and turns out he had a cows milk protein allergy.

If you have growth concerns will you HV be continuing to measure and monitor? I think he needed to drop more then 2 centiles off them to investigate

What centile would you say you are?

I have a similar situation, baby born on 75th looking chubby, started to drop around 7 weeks and is now following a line between 9th and 25th quite happily. I am not big and my first baby was born at 9th and stayed at 9th the whole time.

recent baby was 2 weeks overdue so I guess she just needed a bit more time to be ready and had some extra reserves when she came out.

I have been seen regularly and told to weigh weekly etc but she is very happy, content, looks chubby just small, meets milestones well. I BF responsively so have no idea what she’s eating. But at this stage would rather not know as overthinking caused me more harm than good.

follow the advice and get baby checked if need be, as rarely there can be another underlying issue I believe. But in the meantime don’t worry, I believe some babies just take time to settle to their centile line.

My DS did this. The midwife said something about the size of the baby being to do with how well fed they were by the placenta rather than an indication of the size they are meant to be. So my 8lb 13oz baby dropped centiles but then found his centile and has stayed on it since. Whereas my 8lb 3oz baby put on weight like no ones business quickly climbed centiles but then has stayed on his centile more or less since.

I agree with previous. My 3 babies was born on the 50th now the are all following 2nd 5th and 7th. my 4th though was born at 9lb and just kept climbing centiles

Thank you all that’s very reassuring.
My first DS stayed on the 75th centile very consistently so this is all very unexpected.
The GP did say it sounded like he was finding his natural centile and then once he does he should follow that line.
My husband isn’t the biggest guy and his mum and sister are about 5ft and 6 stone wet through so this baby could be taking his weight from that side of the family. My side are all over 6ft and well built.
Im sure it will all work out ok eventually but just wish I had a crystal ball or something so I could stop worrying so much.

I know this is a lot easier said than done but please dont lwt this consume your thoughts. Looking back I spent a lot of DS2s babyhood and toddler hood stressing about how small he was especially since he was big at birth and becuae he is the polar opposite of his brother. Turns out I just have 1 that takes after their fathers side and 1 that takes after my side.

Ds put on 2oz this week!! Which I was hoping would be more but a gain is a gain.
The HV checked his height and he’s now on the 25th centile for that and that ties in to his current weight so hopefully that’s his natural line and he should follow it.

Similar story but my DS is 18 months now, started out on the 98th centile, at one point went as low as the 3rd but has now settled on around the 20th. Was clearly never meant to be a big baby 😊

Also a super healthy baby, they could never find anything wrong, but did crawl and walk early which wouldn't have helped the weight gain!

Wny do they insist on being so big to begin with.
My undercarriage would definitely have appreciated a 25th centile baby more. :)

So DS only gained 3oz this week and has dropped below the 25th centile so we are getting referred to the neonatal team at the hospital. :(
He also has oral thrush but the HV doesn’t think that’s what has caused his not to gain weight the last 6 weeks!

@santastolemycat Sorry I realise this thread is old but how did you get on? I've also got a big boy who is struggling to gain weight at 4 weeks.

Not great i’m afraid.
Hes gaining weight but it’s so so slow. He’s 8 months now and is 13.5lbs.
He got a virus and lost weight so that set us back a bit. He’s on high calorie milk now to see if that helps him.
He’s doing ok at weaning, there was a lot of gagging at vomiting at the start but he’s managing now to have nibbles of food so im
hoping once he can properly eat food that will help.

Have they referred your son to the peads or anything?!

@santastolemycat Sorry to hear it's been such slow progress for you, do they know what is causing his weight gain to be so challenging?

The midwives just signed us off at 28 days with no concerns, just suspecting he was a slow starter and was finding his centile. He had quite bad jaundice which really hindered things but he is gaining weight and has just managed to exceed his birth weight at over 1 month old. The health visitors meanwhile want me to take him to the GP as he's dropped two centiles. I was feeling a bit more confident it was going okay until then! So I'll make him an appointment next week and see if the GP wants to investigate further or give him a bit more time to hopefully catch up.

Thats exactly what happened to us.
Baby had a bit of jaundice to start but cleared up on it’s own.
We dropped 2 centiles and got sent to the GP who checked baby over and said that he may just be finding his natural centile and then once there he should stay there.
Our GP called peads while we we in the exam room and they said the same thing.
So when he kept dropping the HV called the peads doc and the did a blood and urine test to look for an infection at the hospital.
From my googling this is what the NICE guidelines suggest for babies who aren’t gaining weight. They both came back negative.

After that he was referred to a dietician.
We go back there next week so i’ll see what they say although my attitude now is I can only feed him what he’s willing to eat and as long as the weight is going up i’ll take it.

Hopefully your baby is on the way to his natural centile and stays there.

Don't suppose you had gestational diabetes? Catch down growth is more common in those babies. Though he should still be gaining some weight...

No I had the test and it was negative although I do wonder if maybe i developed it later on.

how did you get on at the GP @sugarplum33

@santastolemycat At our last weekly weigh in he had gained 160g so as he now seems to be gaining weight quite consistently I've decided to go against HV advice and hold off on the GP right now and just mention it during our 6-8 week check. He's dropped from the 98th to 75th centile so he's hardly falling off the bottom of the chart and with a c-section and IV fluids I do think his initial weight was inflated. I'll continue weighing him weekly though and keep a close eye on him.

How are you and your little one getting on?

That’s great glad things are going in the right direction for you.
My son got weighed again last week and he had lost an ounce and a half. Which isn’t much but i’m annoyed about it.
Hes definitely more active now and trying to go places even tho he can’t get there so I think it’s probably that. we see the dietitian tomorrow so i’ll see what they have to say but I suspect it will be the usual just carry on with what your doing.

I know this won't be much help but my son dropped to the 2nd and whatever we did he didn't seem to gain weight. Once he got to around 11 months and started eating meals (albeit less than his peers) he started to gain weight. He's now 18 months and on around the 25th percentile.

Defo continue pursuing the medical routes but hopefully when they wean they may gain weight. I think my son was just a pretty rubbish BFer and wouldn't take formula annoyingly. He loves whole milk now though!

Thanks @chocolateanddietcoke
I think i may have gotten to the bottom of my DS problem. He has a tongue tie and poor oral function because of it.
Unfortunately the tongue tie lady said it would be very difficult to cut and would most likely rejoin very quickly so she suggested some toys to encourage my DS to open his jaw more and a visit to the osteopath to release any tension from using his mouth incorrectly for 9 months.
We went to see the Osteopath on Thursday.
I went in with very low expectations mostly so I wouldn’t be disappointed but I feel like he is so much more relaxed when drinking his milk as he was allways very antsy before like he was uncomfortable.
So any future mumsnetners do not believe your HV if they say tongue ties don’t matter to bottle fed babies because that is a load of crap!!!!
I wish I had looked into this sooner but hopefully we know what the problem is now so we can start to work round it.

@santastolemycat What great news that your DS seems to be improving already but how frustrating that it took so long to identify such a 'simple' problem. I really think that properly qualified staff should be checking for TT in all babies, but at least any who have feeding difficulties. I really hope he starts to feed better now.

My little boy is still getting on okay, not piling on the pounds but we are averaging about 150g weight gain a week on breast milk alone and I'm choosing not to supplement that further with formula as long as he continues to follow the centile he is now sat on which is between the 25th and 50th. The GP, infant feeding team and health visitors who have seen him are all happy he's healthy and developing well but the constant anxiety and wanting to weigh him doesn't go away and I think I'll just always worry about his weight.

Whoops that was me @sugarplum33 under a different name.

That’s great news aswell!
I recommend not weighing them yourself because i’ve tried it and it’s not accurate and then when they get properly weighed your disappointed cos it’s less than you thought.
DS had put on 180g in 3 weeks which has been his best gain for a while. I think it’s been the double cream i’ve been adding to yogurt so i’m definitely keeping that up. And he’s definitely swallowing tiny bits of food so i’m hoping the only weigh is up now!!

I know this thread is quite old but I'm wondering how you're getting on.

My son born in May at 9lb 9oz has had much the same issues gaining weight. He had tongue tie which was corrected when he was about 6 weeks old. Still no improvement on the weight gain though. My friends son had the same issues and it turned out to be a CMPA just not such an obvious one. I've cut out dairy for the past week and a half. He is being weighed again on Friday so will see what he weighs. His weight gain seems to be consistently 3oz per week. He's now dropped 4 centiles.