Slow weight gain and sad mum - plea for sympathy please....!

[BWMum]

I have posted on here before about my 4 month old DD who has slow weight gain.

Just got back from HV, she has put on 170g (6 oz) in 3 weeks, so she now weighs 11 lbs 6oz. That puts her between the 9th and 2nd percentiles.

I am feeling really down about it .

She is exclusively BF and I really really really don't want to start giving her formula. She feeds 7 or 8 times a day and seems to me to be a good eater, I can always hear her gulping her feeds. I just feel really demoralised that I can't manage to get her to put on sufficient weight. The HV discussed my diet - I have to follow a low fat diet as I have gall stones and have to have the gallbladder out next month, but we agreed this shouldn't make a massive difference. She was also concerned that I'm not getting much sleep so my energy levels may be low and affecting my supply - DD feeds 2 or 3 times a night and doesn't sleep much during the day, about 2 hours at most. We agreed that I'll see the gp about her weight, sleep and me generally (i.e. eating the right food etc), but the HV also agreed with me that DD looks fine and is healthy and active so there's no obvious cause for concern.

I'm going to go to our local baby cafe to talk to them about weight gain and BF. But right now I just feel so down and don't know what more I can do, so could really do with some encouraging or sympathetic words

Bump

To put it into perspective beign under the 9 percentile simply means she is one of 9 babies in every hundred of that size at any one time. Unless she was born well above the 50th it need n't be a cause for ccncern and by the sounds of it your HV is pretty sensible and relaxed so take heed of her advice. dd was and still is small, at 6 she'd just hit 15kg !

lots of support on this thread hth. Im having fun with weight gain and my 1yr old so i know how you feel

Try not to worry. My first DD was a slow feeder and despite a good birth weight she dropped centiles and the HV was concerned.

The HV suggested trying her on solids a little earlier (about 12 weeks) and she eat some but feeding time was a long job with more on me and the floor than in her.

Her weight did stablise to a lower centile and she has always been petite but healthy and active.

She is now a healthy normal sized 6 yrs and has been a picky and fussy eater until recently and she is now trying new foods and starting to clear up her plate.

Main thing is try not to worry too much as DD may pick up on anxiety and this could affect her feeding.

Is she healthy and happy? If so, then that should be enough, no? Some babies have to be at the top and bottom of these charts otherwise we'd all have identically sized babies Wanted to say that a friend of mine has very light baby (under 9th centile), and was encouraged to switch to formula by HVs. She made the switch, and is still unhappy about it, but her dd isn't gaining weight any faster on formula (2-3oz/week). So formula does not necessarily = faster weight gain.

Thank you all for the kind words!
I do keep reminding myself that she is a happy giggling girl and if that chart didn't exist I wouldn't be concerned at all. We're off to see the GP on Wednesday and the Baby Cafe after that, so I hope that will help.
Feeding her right now and she just bobbed off and gave me a big smile - beautiful girl!

BWmum - My daughter is below the 0.4th centile and at 5mths old is not quite 8lb - granted she was born 9 weeks early and at 2lb 1oz was small for dates but so long as your baby is happy , weeing and pooing okay then just enjoy her.

It's taken me until about 4 weeks ago to relax and enjoy my DD and I so wish i'd lightened up sooner!

Hi BWMum - pleeeeeeeeeeeeease read the thread soremummy linked to - lengthy but worth it!

I honestly don't think your diet has anything to do with it - hopefully someone with more knowledge than me will come along soon and confirm that! Neither do your energy levels, honestly - I mean, do you know a new mum who has any energy?!

My dd has been very slow to gain weight - after speaking to a BFC (which I would really advise you do) I got a prescription from my GP for domperidone to increase my supply - tbh it didn't make much difference, but it does work for some, I now take a fenugreek supplement and I feel the difference with that.

dd was born on the 2nd, dropped to the 0.4th and we are now hovering just below 25th! Lots of feeds, offering 3+ "boobs" per feed!

My ds was a slow weight gainer - he was born on th 99th percentile and slid down to - I think -the 10th. He was always active and happy and meeting milestones and peeing and pooing and (crucially) gaining weight, however slowly. Because he was my second child, I had the confidence to stop getting him weighed - I felt I knew enough to know that he was fine. If your baby is doing all those things, then I would say stop worrying (easier said than done, I know!)

If you want to boost her weight gain, and if you can spend a couple of days in bed with some good books, some delicious snacks, the telephone and the remote control and let your baby feed all day if she wants to. It give you a rest, boosts your supply, and is a lovely cuddly thing to do.

I don't think that 2oz a week sounds like an unreasonable weight gain at your baby's age. Both my ds2 and dd, who were exclusively breast-fed until 5 and 6 months respectively, went through weeks where they put on nothing at all. Ds1 was breast-fed until about 3 months although not exclusively because he was my first and he was hungry and I didn't know any better. But he had (and has) a completely different metabolism to the other two and always had an impressive weight gain.

But, by contrast, by the time my dd was your dd's age I'd long since given up taking her to the clinic because I didn't want to obsess about her weight-gain or lack of it. But although her and ds2's weight gain didn't fit the text book standard of 4-7oz a week, it was clear they were healthy and happy. All three of my children are small now despite being average weight at birth so I think it was just them finding their natural size iyswim. Neither me or my dh are tall so our kids weren't meant to be either. If they had put on 7oz a week they'd probably be obese by now! As it is they are slim, healthy kids of 9, 6 and 3.

In other words, to sum up this post, as long as your baby isn't losing weight, and otherwise seems healthy, don't think they have to put on the requisite amount of weight every week. Of course I'm talking having come out the other side and I absolutely remember the worry of the weigh in. It's hard to get perspective when you're in the middle of it, I know, but hold on to the fact that your baby is fine, and, as you've said yourself, if it wasn't for the damn charts you wouldn't be at all concerned. You're doing great!

What I would look out for is if the baby starts losing weight or gains no weight at all, or if she starts falling asleep after a few minutes of feeding, then wakes up unsatisfied when you put her down.

hello! I have been there with ds1. I 'gave in' and gave formula, soon after he dropped wanting to bf all together, have only just got over my feelings of failure etc now feeding ds2.

What centile was she born on? Remenber, not all babies can be above average weight, by definition half are below average. I have spent many, many hours ruminating on why I failed with ds1. I think a combination of not feeding often enough (everyone told me he should only feed every 3-4hours) and expressing too much too early and storing it, but i don't really know the answer. All i know is there is lots of support on here or from the bf cafe/groups if you want to carry on bf and not giving formula. HV get little training in bf (and GPs get none. If GP just tells you to start formual, ask them to read a big pro-bf article in the British Medical Journal last month). It is hard to resist all the pressure in RL to switch to formula. Would also recommend a babymoon.

Good luck and keep us posted.

Soremummy - thanks for the link to that thread, have read through it all. So good to see there are a good number of other babies with in same position. And compared to some, my DD is a little porker!

She is 19 weeks today so we're not too far off 26 weeks and perhaps moving to solids will help. I've already had some pressure from family to give her solids but that can be resisted. Far more annoying is that DH says if it was up to him only he'd give her a bottle of formula at night as she would then sleep through AND put on weight.... grrrr I'm sure if it was such a guarantee all those books, websites, threads etc about sleep problems wouldn't exist!

Have spent most of the afternoon on the internet and staring at my red book trying to remember what happened week by week to see if I can explain it to myself. She did have jaundice at birth so just slept and didn't demand - we had to wake her for feeds for the first few weeks - so now beating myself up about whether I didn't establish my supply properly. But she only started to drop centiles from about 8 weeks so surely that can't be it.

Anyway, enough navel gazing! Thank you all for your support! Next week we'll see both the GP and the baby cafe and hopefully start to sort it out.

bwmum i did that too, look back i mean, and i think it was a combination of things - my dd started sleeping for 5/6/7hr stretches at night- at the time i was just so tired and glad of the sleep that i just let her - now see she should have been feeding more often. she never "demanded" either and we were waking her every 3hrs - again with hindsight i'd do that more often.

we had the long weekend from hell when the HV had threatned us with hospital - I fed her every 2.5hrs then expressed and fed her the ebm, 2oz after every feed. it nearly killed me as i didn't have time to sleep in between, was like a zombie after 72hrs but she put on loads of weight after that weekend and has kept on putting it in, so i think maybe it kick started both my supply and her appetite - we certainly know when she's hungry now!

but from then her weight gain has been the most consistent when the HV butted out and i wasn't so stressed, and also (unfortunately) when she's fed more at night.

good luck, your lo will be fine! just keep feeding1

Is your baby happy and thriving? My dc3 was on the 50th centile when she was born but was 2nd centile by aged 1 and at 8 years old is still 2nd centile for weight and 25th for height. She has a great appetite and tons and tons of energy.

I have asked the HV for advice numerous times since she was a baby and they always conclude that she is healthy and thriving and perfectly fine.

BTW I am 5ft10 and dh is 6ft2

BWMum tbh I didnt find that the solids made a difference to her weight gain if anything she slowed down at that time but she didnt really get the hang of solids till 10 months at which point she was crawling and cruising around with furniture so that wont have helped either. She doesnt sleep through either and no matter which bottle/cup etc we offer she refuses she just wants mum, so despite your dh thinking a bottle will bang her weight up and she will sleep through it doesnt always happen like that.

I have 3 older children(teenagers) had solids from 12 weeks that was the norm and each one of them slept differently and 2 of them were always little and the other was average despite being raised the same way maybe i did lock them under the stairs when I fed the "average sized one"

BWMum, you've probably read mine and Caz's story on the tiny acorns thread - but just to say, been there! Our littlest one was the tiniest acorn in the tree up until a few weeks ago when she put a bit more on, but she is currently under 11 pounds at just shy of 6 months - but a happier baby you wouldn't hope to find, and developmentally hitting all the milestones that she should.

She's exclusively breastfed, and feeds All.The.Bloody.Time (according to DW, with a cheeky grin) but she isn't even on the chart (about a cm below the 0.4th at the mo). We've been lucky though, except for the family we've been surrounded by supporting health professionals who have never pushed formula or early weening, infact our paed actively warned against it - the lovely chap.

It took us ages and ages, but we finally have reached a point when her dinkiness doesn't upset us, and we are able to enjoy this wonderful phase of her life. It can happen!

Wishing you all the best!

Haven't had a chance to read the whole of this thread by my 5 month old went from 50% on the chart when born down to 20th by about 4 months ...

HVs were really unhelpful about it but then I spoke to one who explained that it is very normal for ebf babies and that a breastfeeding chart would look much flatter than the one in our books! So try not to worry ... as long as your baby is happy and seems to be feeding well I think you should not worry about this. I am very small and all the signs are my beautiful little girl is going to be just the same as her mummy!

BWmum - I'm another from the oaks/acorns thread. Please try not to worry too much, main thing is that your LO is well and meeting milestones etc.

This link is reassuring.

Over his first 5 months or so, my ds gradually went from 50% to 2%. I was stressed and worried but now, in retrospect, I'm sure his slow growth was not caused by anything I did or didn't do and it was just the way it was. And he was on formula from about 8 weeks and it didn't bring him back up the charts one bit. He's 16 months now, still skinny skinny and not a big eater at all but he is as happy and healthy and full of energy as can be.

I know it's easier said than done but try not to worry too much.

Also, try to remember that smaller does not mean unhealthy.

Quick update from us:
I am currently a very happy mum!
We saw the GP today who has referred DD to the paediatrician as she has dropped more than 2 centiles. But it was more in a "best we check" way than a "you've been starving that child" way.
After that I went to the Baby Cafe and saw the lovely bf counsellors, who actually laughed when they saw her growth chart as it is evidently typical of a bf baby in that she gained for 8 weeks and has pretty much plateaued since then. The counsellor suggested that, if the paediatrician says she's fine, I stop getting her weighed as it's just causing unnecessary anxiety. And then, because I had picked up a leaflet about weaning, she said "have you heard about baby-led weaning?" and proceeded to encourage us to try that once DD gets to 6 months!
So lovely happy day and I'm going to try to stop worrying about DD's weight and just enjoy my happy smiley girl!