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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

Original poster

Small babies = bad parents, Big babies = good parents

92 replies

ILoveDigestives · 21/05/2008 09:09

...or so it seems. Our nearly 6 month DD has been a slow-weight gainer (always gaining just slowly, and otherwise healthy, alert, nappies etc...) and is currently off the bottom of the growth chart, about a cm below 0.4th. We've been referred to a paed, copped stick from HVs and family members (who don't understand why we persevere with bf and waiting for solids). But our GP and paed are brilliant and very supportive and keep reassuring us that she is perfectally healthy, just dinky.

But it's been a hard road thus far, with lots of concerned looks when peolpe find out how old she is, as if we are somehow failing her because she is tiny. If she cries, at all then everyone assumes it's cos she is hungry.

What I don't get it is that there is another baby in our NCT group that is off the top of the growth chart (born at 50th centile), and frankly looks it. She's formula fed, and was weaned at 4 months, and at not even 5 months is now on 3 meals a day, in addition to her milk. So chubby is she that she has sores around her knees and elbows. But the comments she gets are all positive! What a happy baby, etc...

Why is that? Surely her chubbiness is more of a potential risk going forward than our little one's dinkiness - especially in this culture of the "obesity timebomb" - so why is fat good, and dinky bad?

Just kinda interested, and needed to vent a bit!

OP posts:
TillyScoutsmum · 21/05/2008 10:48

ILove

In your friend's case (i.e formula fed and weaned very early), I don't think it would be out of order for someone to question whether she's getting too much but when I breastfeeding (3 hourly with 6 hours at night), I couldn't see how I was supposed to be overfeeding. My dd is just destined to be a bit of a chunky monkey

StarlightMcKenzie · 21/05/2008 10:56

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Jello39 · 21/05/2008 10:58

I get similar comments. dd 6 weeks old is small compared to a lot of babies I've seen recently who seem sometimes to be too large. He is fit and healthy, exclusively bf. however peope do comment and ask if he is getting enough. I just ignore them now rather than getting upset. me and dh were both slim when babes so proabbly no surprise lo is too.

MrsTittleMouse · 21/05/2008 11:02

Starlight - my DD did that as well.
I was glad that I could at least be a bit less crap about myself as she was feeding well; I certainly couldn't feel good about the whole sleep issue as she was a useless sleeper (and still is).

It does make me annoyed though, when all the books (and the parents of babies who eat/sleep well) all assume that it's 100% down to the parents. As though babies were born as blank slates with identical physical characteristics and no personality!

merryberry · 21/05/2008 11:04

ha, i've noticed this, ds1 was 6lb13 at birth and very long and always looked slim apart from two months around his 1st birthday before he really got going fast. he used to get, what a sweet boy, what long legs (ie he's a beanpole)

ds2 was 11lb11oz and whacking on the weight now and it is endless the stream of my what a wonderful bouncy baby (ie chubby all over)

agree it is probably evolutionary. i once worked with a group of people in south america with staggering high infant mortality rates. they didn't name their kids until they reached about 2 years and seemed likely to survive longer. a proper chubby baby was rare, but absolutely their ideal (not malnourished belly type chubby). the skinnier ones the adults were less concerned with, which was a bit of a vicious circle, god love the poor babies.

MrsBadger · 21/05/2008 11:11

unfortunately that makes evolutionary sense, merryberry - save your love and attention for the chubsters who are more likely to survive, and don't waste too much time on the skinnymalinks who are less likely to make it...

harsh but efficient

blueshoes · 21/05/2008 11:20

on the evolutionary point, also makes sense to invest in porkers, because they will grow up to adulthood and in turn pass on their superior survival genes to the next generation.

All the more to be grateful we don't have to live like that here.

merryberry · 21/05/2008 11:29

yes, it was efficient of the group resourse, sadly. these poor people were quite an extreme example. they are hunter gatherers in the tropical rain forest bordering the ocean at the foot of the andes. the whole group were in a doomsday frame of mind, having first lost loads of forest to sugar cane plantations and illnesses from european and african people coming in. then they lost even more autonmy when oil was discovered. public health missions like ours were a woeful attempt to help, but removed yet more autonomy.

silverfrog · 21/05/2008 11:29

I've had one of each.

dd1 started out on the 9th centile, and just gained weight. And then some. By 10 weeks she was 75th centile, and by 20 weeks she was 98t+.

dd2 otoh, was born 50th centile, rwadjusted to the 25th, and has slowly dropped ever since. currently, at 15 month (and 16lb) she is languishing a good cm below the centiles.

I've had comments both ways, too.

I have a dietician's appt tomorrow for dd2 (having seen the same woman a couple of months ago for dd1)so wonder what pearls of wisdom she will come up with as to why dd2 isn't gaining when dd1 does and they have the same diet...

misdee · 21/05/2008 11:35

am at this thread regarding comments like porker.

[goes to look at baby pics of chubbly bubbly dd2 again]

StealthPolarBear · 21/05/2008 11:40

I think we (should) all agree that babies, as long as they are healthy are all beautiful. As long as your baby isn't skinny because you are only feeding him twice a day or fat because you are shovelling pureed McD's in, there's unlikely to be anything wrong (medical conditions excepted of course).
It just seems that people in general (older generation?) think that a healthy baby has to be chubby, and thin ones are underfed.
Waiting for the backlash of the "well I fed my DD pureed McD's and it never did her any harm" variety

Greedygirl · 21/05/2008 11:43

People are compelled to comment on size (big or small) of babies IME experience in the same way that feel compelled to comment on the size of your pregnancy bump. We are all different shapes and sizes so why does everyone think babies all come in uniform sizes? My baby is "huge, enormous, gigantic, weighs a ton, chunky, massive" etc etc (They have a point, he is 20lbs 8 at 26 weeks !) He is exclusively breastfed and my HVs have been really supportive at some of the stories on here.

Ilovedigestives - I would be annoyed and upset if people implied that I wasn't feeding my LO enough (my FIL once implied I was over-feeding my DS, the twat twit). Can you just say "the paed says that she is perfect" and give them the evil eye?

blueshoes · 21/05/2008 11:43

misdee, you are right, 'porker' is uncalled for.

Original poster
ILoveDigestives · 21/05/2008 11:44

Apologies misdee, no offense intended. We actually use the "porker" as a term of affection for our little one when she occasionally surprises us by putting on my weight than we expect! Never stopped to think about how it might come across...

OP posts:
msappropriate · 21/05/2008 11:45

I overheard some mother explaining percentile charts to her father and she said that if you were over the 90th percentile it meant you were overweight. I had to stop myself wading in to the conversation to say it relly depends on how long the baby is.

The HVs were concerned when my 98th percentile baby fell to below 50th and were obsessed by me starting to give solids. Which I did and it made it worse! Occassionally they do get it right. Someone in my antenatal class had a baby that dropped off the scale and was being bf. But never on demand (and never in the early evening, she would put her to bed at 7pm and stand over her for 4 hours shussing her to sleep) and the mother had a very poor supply so was given advice to feed more often.

StealthPolarBear · 21/05/2008 11:47

No wonder she had a poor supply
My DS is affectionally called stick insect - now he's receoved from an illness and is finally eating, we call him chubby chops

edam · 21/05/2008 11:47

well, I fed my dd pureed MaccyD's...

StealthPolarBear · 21/05/2008 11:48

It's OK as long as she had a fruit shoot as well to ensure a balanced diet

misdee · 21/05/2008 11:50

i had an 'oversized' dd. she was born weighing 9lb. but a year old she was well over 30lb. The HV told me to put her on a diet. i refused as dd2 was very tall for her age, and it was onvious she was taller than other one year olds and closer in height to her 3year old sister at the time. i got told i must be overfeeding her. but dd2 had reflux and would throw up almost every day. she didnt eat much. i suffered backache and was told by my gp not to lift her but how can you not lift a one year old? i thought it must be my fault that she was so big but dd1 was tiny and short. the hv asked how tall dh was, i said over 6ft and she said 'well thats not that tall,' i am 5ft 2. i didnt know if i had done something wrong or if it was a genetic problem, i just kept getting told to put her onto skimmed milk and to put her on a diet.

Now at age 5, she is tall and slim. she now back on the 98th percentile instead of above it, but is taller than dd1 who is age 8. she overtaken her by about an inch.

she wear jeans for 8year old with the waist pulled in as far as possible, her t-shirts and age 8-9 to make sure they are long enoug hto cover her rather flat belly.

having a big baby is not easy.

misdee · 21/05/2008 11:50

i had an 'oversized' dd. she was born weighing 9lb. but a year old she was well over 30lb. The HV told me to put her on a diet. i refused as dd2 was very tall for her age, and it was onvious she was taller than other one year olds and closer in height to her 3year old sister at the time. i got told i must be overfeeding her. but dd2 had reflux and would throw up almost every day. she didnt eat much. i suffered backache and was told by my gp not to lift her but how can you not lift a one year old? i thought it must be my fault that she was so big but dd1 was tiny and short. the hv asked how tall dh was, i said over 6ft and she said 'well thats not that tall,' i am 5ft 2. i didnt know if i had done something wrong or if it was a genetic problem, i just kept getting told to put her onto skimmed milk and to put her on a diet.

Now at age 5, she is tall and slim. she now back on the 98th percentile instead of above it, but is taller than dd1 who is age 8. she overtaken her by about an inch.

she wear jeans for 8year old with the waist pulled in as far as possible, her t-shirts and age 8-9 to make sure they are long enoug hto cover her rather flat belly.

having a big baby is not easy.

soremummy · 21/05/2008 11:51

Im considering doing the mc d's just to help her along imagine the shock if she ate it and gained weight!!

StarlightMcKenzie · 21/05/2008 11:52

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StealthPolarBear · 21/05/2008 11:56

A diet for a 1yo
The world has gone mad!

soremummy · 21/05/2008 11:57

Ok kfc is nearer to me can walk so i will get exercise, she wont need it pureed though as she devoured a philadelphia sandwich this morning those few teeth really help. Washed down with bf shouuld help the balance

StarlightMcKenzie · 21/05/2008 12:00

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