advice please on bf 12 month old, nutrition, (non) weight-gain and hv!!!

[kittywise]

Hi, some might remember that I posted a while back on advice hv had given me about getting my then 10 month old ds3 to put on weight.

So now same health visitor has just been to do his 12 month check.

She weighs him and he is on very low centile, can't remember which, but he stated off on 91st.

He loves boob and still feeds every 1-2 hours, has 6floz of formula a day and very little solid food.

Now I don't much care about his size. What does concern me is some things that hv said and I would like advice from sage people! She said:

My milk dies not contain nearly enough iron or calories, he will become anaemic and it will affect internal organ development.

I should be feeding him milk a maximum of 3x per day, the rest should be other liquids.

His constant request for boob will affect his general development, he will not be able to develop fine motor skills because he is still acting like a little baby basically.

That I should be offering him some solid food every hour.

I said I didn't want to stop feeding him, that he had been poorly these last two weeks and had only wanted my milk, fair enough surely?

She said he should be coming to me for love and cuddles that was NOT associated with milk/food. That when he comes to me whimpering and pawing for boob that I should distract him.

Basically that I was not doing him any favours physically or developmentally and that it was up to me to change the behaviour patterns.

I feel a bit

Am I SO very wrong here? If I am I would rather hear it from those whose advice I trust, i.e wise m'netters, then from my hv who, however well meaning, I think is grossly misinformed.

I think she is talking tosh. You might want to encourage him to eat more solid food, by offering it picnic style, and maybe cut out the formula, but he's not at active harm, and I can't believe that it would affect his fine motor skills.
If she was concerned about his iron levels to that extent, then maybe Abidec or some other vitamin supplement would be worth using, but its unlikely to be a huge problem.
Lots of nursing toddlers go through stages of wanting many feeds, and in Mothering your Nursing Toddler, theres loads of good advice, if you chose to limit them a little.

But at 12 months, mine was def having 7 bfs a day, but did eat well too.

this a child who learned to walk at 11 mths with a plaster cast is it not?
Clearly his development is terrible...

Oh Finn has 5 bfs and 3 bottles in 24 hrs - he sleeps through 11-7 so thats between
8 feeds in 17 hrs so pretty muche every 2-3 hrs

Plus Finn wats like a horse
But he has not put on ANY weight in 2 mths...
Cos he never stays still

think your ds is the same Kitty? Motoring full speed 24/7?

wats? = eats

when DD went through a phase of barely eating, HV told me to write down what i was giving her, and said i was offering her food too frequently! meal times are meal times, constant snacking or offering of food is not the best thing .

of course he wants breast milk, he is a baby! has it affected his general development? or is she just scaring you

breastmilk is so wonderfully adaptable, if you can tandem feed, or breast feed twins or triplets, then why would your milk be unusuitable nutritionally for a 13 month old...

unless you are ready to wean him off the breast, then don;t.

if he has been poorly, he will want you more and he will want and need breast milk..

i think she is scaring you unnecesarily

kittywise, I am shocked with this HV's poor knowledge of infant nutrition and normal infant behaviour.

Breastmilk alone is not enough for a 12 month old, and he does need a variety of solid foods every day, including ones with iron. You are working on that one. He does not need formula. Solid food snacks on offer several times a day is fine, without pressure to have them...hourly offerings seems very prescriptive to me, but once or twice between each meal time would seem fair enough. Find things he likes and build on them.

His motor skills will be unaffected by his frequent bf, and indeed it is normal for babies to feed a lot at this age. It is very much a part of the loving relationship between a baby and his mum and responding to this builds confidence - rejecting his need for the breast does the opposite.

Kitty I knew this would be you.

"His constant request for boob will affect his general development, he will not be able to develop fine motor skills because he is still acting like a little baby basically."

You know that's a load of old tosh.

Babies learn lots at the breast. The kneeding and twiddling, the coming off and on again, the eye contact and interaction - these all teach babies fine motor control. And as Piff says is this the baby that learned to walk before he was one... with a plaster cast on... and can climb stairs... and run about...?

Saying he should be on three feeds a day just shows her complete lack of understanding of how breastfeeding works. It's a combination of lots of things that determines how often an older baby feeds including but not limited to their other calorie intake and your own "storage capacity"!

As for your milk not containing enough calories - arrrgh Kitty she is talking complete horlicks. Breast milk is very high in calories, more so per ounce than the majority of weaning foods.

There's a table somewhere (kellymom?) showing just how high in calories breast milk is; iirc there's not much higher in terms of weaning food except avacado, bizarrely! It is actually a little bit higher in calories than formula milk too, so if you want you can cut that out and replace with bf for slightly higher calories - not much in it but the bf is obviously healthier.

As for iron - it's true that breast milk doesn't have lots of iron in it, but the iron it does have is of the type that is most easily absorbed by your baby's system.

If you're really worried you could offer him some high-iron stuff (with vit C rich foods to help absorbtion) at his high chair, BLW style, every now and again, just to see what he does. If he's interested - and ready - he'll eat them.

"She said he should be coming to me for love and cuddles that was NOT associated with milk/food." I've heard this before, can't recall where but you know it's rubbish. Bf is love and cuddles. And young children have a real need to suck, hence the popularity of dummies.

So bf combines love, cuddles and sucking; and if he's not hungry he'll suck in such a way that it's for comfort rather than for nutrition, so he doesn't make the "I'm sad = comfort food" connection; it's more "I'm sad = warm cuddly mummy, suckling, comfort" and who wouldn't want a baby to make that connection?

Kitty you are the wise Mum of six children and you know so much more than this health visitor. But it just goes to show they can even get to the most experienced Mums and make them worried.

You might find this useful - from kellymom.

Thank you ladies for your time, thoughts and wise words.

He has never been very keen on solid food, he'll have a tiny lump of cheese, half a biscuit, one bit of pasta etc and pushes anything else offered away.

I do wish he had more of an appetite as I would like him to be a bit chubbier but what am I supposed to do if he rejects most of the food he's offered?.

I like the fact that he gets comfort from feeding from me. He is probably my last baby and I don't want to stop feeding him until he is ready.

He is growing fine length-wise 50th centile, his feet are growing.

It was really the way she made out that I was actually doing him a dis-service by feeding him. She said when I offer him a snack not to sit him on my lap but next to me as he will only want boob if he sits on me. No way Am I going to sit him next to me. I will cuddle him . chat and play.

She kept going on about "We like them to..."
Who is this we? Sounds creepy

Urghhhhhh....at 'we like them to....'

Mossy that Kelleymom link's great, very reassuring, thanks!

We are the borg. You will be assimilated. Resistance is futile.

Oh and Kitty ... our ds's are of a similar size and body shape (teeny tiny Pontipines!) and yet mine takes loads and loads in solids (I think he would take more milk if I wasn't working ft though); makes no difference. It's maybe genetic; you're petite aren't you?

Yes I am.
Piffle says the same of Finn
When Ron was born I couldn't believe he was over 8lb as he was SO skinny, looked like a skinned rabbit .
I guess it's just much more reassuring to have a fat baby. Excellent that Bertie is eating.
I was feeding Ron downstairs just now and he's finished and toddled of to play, I couldn't be arsed to move or put my boobs away so there there were all hanging out and Ron looks over and shrieks with delight when he sees them. Rushes over, has a second's worth of suck and toddles of again, frequently looking back over his shoulder at me and boob and grinning from ear to ear.

Nah, I shall offer them as often as he asks!!!

Good on you Kitty and if you feel bothered you could send some info to your HV that page from Kellymom for a start and tell her to put it in her pipe and smoke it!!

I think I want to kick your HV down the stairs
shame on her offering such crap advice to mums
you are doing exactly the right thing. and fwiw I remember 11-12 months as being a time of really frequent feeding, then it settled down and ds ate more solids.

DS3 lived on mainly bm until he was 14 months. He was and is absolutely fine, healthy and normal. I think its a book called "my child won't eat" or something similar you can get from LLL. I had it recommended. Its reassuring.

Sorry, that should have been DS2 or DC3 I guess. Not that it matters

DD did not get the hang of solid foods until 13 months and even now at 17 months eats very little compared to her peers but still has 5-7 BFs a day. It made me so worried she hardly ate solids my HV at 12 months told me I should cold turkey wean her over one weekend to solve the problem! However, my DD is very round and tall. I am trying to wean her but this is the third time I've tried and she has got ill again and returned to boob - think she must know . I find that it takes solids 2-4 weeks to recover from an illness so don't worry.

God,what a horrid vile creepy woman she sounds.
I am afraid that I am going to have to drive over and boot her up the arse.

Nmae?
Clinic?
Description?

You know I have known her for about 7 years and I'm sure she has got more mental and institutionalised(sp?) as time has gone on.

ds3 got a nasty cut on his tummy last week, walked into a sharp corner on something. Anyway I stuck a plaster on.
Of course today she sees healing wound and I get all sorts of questions
How did it happen? I don't know
Did I take him to the doctor? No
It could happen again: Yes it could
Put in lots of clothes to protect him: Actually he was walking round naked to air his sore bot, these things happen

Ds3 broke his arm tumbling off a low sofa a couple of months ago, falling onto cushions and now hv is suggesting the break could be down to soft bones due to the fact he is on too much boob and not enough solids
I didn't want to say "actually he has had some nasty falls, that wasn't one if them and hasn't broken anything before or since

Hv: can he climb up and down stairs on his own? yes

So you just watch him carefully? No, I don't watch him, he's fine the stairs are shallow and carpeted

Cue horrified look.

I wouldn't go near her again.
Obv. a lunatic who needs to be put out to grass.
Am assuming she is ancient?

Yes, she is older and I think she needs to bow out.