Page 2 | Big baby dropping centiles!!

santastolemycat · 2023-10-07T19:43:15+00:00

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.

RandomMess · 27/08/2024 21:10

Catch down and catch up post birth is a real thing.

I produce massive babies, some stay large and some become skinny and stay skinny.

My niece was born little and soared upwards through the centiles at an alarming rate and ended up 98th centile.

Original poster

santastolemycat · 27/08/2024 23:11

@addib
Its so hard when they won’t gain weight I wish they could just tell you what’s wrong 😑

So where to start :)
After we got put on the high calorie milk my DS still didn’t gain that much weight.
We took him to see an osteopath after it was recommended by the feeding consultant and I did feel like that helped him as he was drinking a bit more milk. He gained a pound the month after we started seeing her.
However the paediatric doctor was still concerned about his slow weight gain so recommended that we get a feeding tube.
We were in hospital for a week after it was inserted as my DS also had developed a chest infection that same week.
We have since been back to hospital twice since then as he has had a few bad viruses which we are now at the tail end of hopefully.
My DS still isn’t great at eating and refuses to be spoon fed so we see speech and language for that. She thinks he may have a slight oral aversion. Which I think is probably from 2 weeks of me trying to get antibiotics into him 3 times a day. So we just do messy food play at mealtimes and the hope is he will eventually put the food in his mouth. Sometimes he does which is good.
Since having the tube my son has put on almost a kilo which is great. It made me realise how skeletal looking he was before.
We have a set amount of milk the dietician wants him to have each day which is quite high so we are sometimes a bit short.
I try and feed him as much as he will take orally and the rest I put down the tube.
I don’t like it, i’d much rather he just drank it but it is what it is.
Hopefully it’s not permanent.
We have been referred to physio alwell as he’s a bit behind with the gross motor skills which could be because he wasn’t getting calories or could be because of something else so they have done some genetic tests just to see if that shows anything up but we won’t get the results until his next appointment in October.
Sorry this is so long. Well done if you could be bothered to read it all.

OP posts:

addib · 28/08/2024 07:52

santastolemycat · 27/08/2024 23:11

@addib
Its so hard when they won’t gain weight I wish they could just tell you what’s wrong 😑

So where to start :)
After we got put on the high calorie milk my DS still didn’t gain that much weight.
We took him to see an osteopath after it was recommended by the feeding consultant and I did feel like that helped him as he was drinking a bit more milk. He gained a pound the month after we started seeing her.
However the paediatric doctor was still concerned about his slow weight gain so recommended that we get a feeding tube.
We were in hospital for a week after it was inserted as my DS also had developed a chest infection that same week.
We have since been back to hospital twice since then as he has had a few bad viruses which we are now at the tail end of hopefully.
My DS still isn’t great at eating and refuses to be spoon fed so we see speech and language for that. She thinks he may have a slight oral aversion. Which I think is probably from 2 weeks of me trying to get antibiotics into him 3 times a day. So we just do messy food play at mealtimes and the hope is he will eventually put the food in his mouth. Sometimes he does which is good.
Since having the tube my son has put on almost a kilo which is great. It made me realise how skeletal looking he was before.
We have a set amount of milk the dietician wants him to have each day which is quite high so we are sometimes a bit short.
I try and feed him as much as he will take orally and the rest I put down the tube.
I don’t like it, i’d much rather he just drank it but it is what it is.
Hopefully it’s not permanent.
We have been referred to physio alwell as he’s a bit behind with the gross motor skills which could be because he wasn’t getting calories or could be because of something else so they have done some genetic tests just to see if that shows anything up but we won’t get the results until his next appointment in October.
Sorry this is so long. Well done if you could be bothered to read it all.

Thank you for your reply. It's good to speak to other people going through the same. So we are at the point of being seen by a paediatrician who checked him over and couldn't see anything obvious causing the slow gain. He has referred us to a dietician as he wants him on high calorie milk. I am breastfeeding but do give 1 6oz bottle a day to try and help boost weight gain. The paediatrician told me to give him 3x 6oz bottles a day which I don't want to do as I want to mainly breastfeed him.. obviously if it gets really bad I will have to but at the moment he is gaining just slowly. I'm really hoping me giving up diary makes some kind of difference.

Did anyone ever mention possible allergies being the cause for your son?

Sounds like you've really been through it with him. The hospital visits must have been so stressful.

addib · 28/08/2024 07:54

RandomMess · 27/08/2024 21:10

Catch down and catch up post birth is a real thing.

I produce massive babies, some stay large and some become skinny and stay skinny.

My niece was born little and soared upwards through the centiles at an alarming rate and ended up 98th centile.

All of my babies have also been in the 9lb range. My first didn't lose an oz and just steadily gained weight and has always been big for his age. My other 2 lost a bit and then followed the 50th and 75th.. this baby has fallen and doesn't seem to have a centile yet. He seems to just gain 3oz a week.

Original poster

santastolemycat · 28/08/2024 09:04

addib · 28/08/2024 07:52

Thank you for your reply. It's good to speak to other people going through the same. So we are at the point of being seen by a paediatrician who checked him over and couldn't see anything obvious causing the slow gain. He has referred us to a dietician as he wants him on high calorie milk. I am breastfeeding but do give 1 6oz bottle a day to try and help boost weight gain. The paediatrician told me to give him 3x 6oz bottles a day which I don't want to do as I want to mainly breastfeed him.. obviously if it gets really bad I will have to but at the moment he is gaining just slowly. I'm really hoping me giving up diary makes some kind of difference.

Did anyone ever mention possible allergies being the cause for your son?

Sounds like you've really been through it with him. The hospital visits must have been so stressful.

Show quote history

Definitely CMPA was ruled out early on as he no symptoms sane with reflux.
I know one of the blood tests being ran is for coeliac but he’s been ok with bread etc so I don’t think it’s that either.
We are only just on the graph of the red book since he got his tube. Before that he was wayyyyyy off the bottom which is why I have a feeling these genetic tests will show up something but i’d rather know then we can deal with it.

OP posts: