EBF and weight gain

[DaisyHH]

Hello,

My daughter is 18 days old, she originally lost 5% of her birth weight, then lost again, put on, lost and has now put on twice in a row but it still not back up to birth weight. She was born 7lb 10 however she was very bloated from all the IV fluids I had in labour I believe and she is now 7lb 5.

The midwife is weighing her again on Monday but I'm worried about her slow weight gain. She has gained 60g over 6 days so 10g a day. She is feeding, almost constantly which worries me as well as I'm not sure she's getting enough milk but she always seems content after feeds and there is milk around her mouth etc. so could be cluster feeding.

I guess what I'm asking is, does anyone have any experience of their newborns who are EBF having slower weight gain? HV originally asked me to top her up with formula (to avoid being admitted to hospital which I felt was a scare tactic) which i did for one day but it made her so bad with wind that i stopped. I've been pumping also so i can feed her with a bottle but I feel as though we've finally got there with the breastfeeding so i want to stick at that.

Any success stories are welcome please :)

Hi op. My DD was born at 36 weeks weighing 6lb 3. She dropped to 5lb 5 because she had quite bad and prolonged jaundice. It took us a really long time to get back to birth weight (weeks) and included an admission to hospital for phototherapy and a 'feeding plan'. They had me feeding, expressing and giving formula top ups, it was intense and exhausting and to be honest miserable. Especially considering she then developed CMPA and suffered with horrible reflux with the formula top ups. In the end I just sat and breastfed her all day and all night, she cluster fed until she was over her birth weight and then it settled. It sounds like you are doing a great job xx

I had a 5lb 10oz baby lose 10.1%. jaundice was the culprit for us as they were always sleepy, we would have to strip them to wake them up and even then that didn't always work. We were on EBM top ups which they would also fall asleep on while eating. At 7 days old, after a 10 hour stint of no feeding / would not wake we ended up in hospital and close to a feeding tube. I spent a long few days of feeding, pumping after feeds to boost supply and trying to force in top ups. We got out after a few days but still had a feeding plan from the pediatric team. It was long, hard and lonely and I cried alot of the time! But like PP I rode out the long days of cluster feeding and they started to gain weight at there own pace. I was lucky that my HV team were quite happy to accept this (I think with them being relatively small at birth as well) and formula was never pushed on us. For them if the right amount was given they would rather I stick to breast milk if I could! I now have a EBF one year old who is still a bit smaller than others there age but so very happy, healthy and content.

Good luck to you and your little one and wherever your feeding journey takes you! I'm sure they will find there own growth curve and follow it but I know it's a tough waiting game to get there. Oh and you are doing a great job by the way 💖 I know how much you need to hear that in the early days!