My little boy, A, is 5 weeks tomorrow. He is gorgeous (IMHO) but his weight fell from 3.53 kg to 3.2 kg in the first 10 days. Since then, he has been putting on 5oz a week, approx, in a fairly steady way. He was 3.6kg on Monday (4 and a half weks).
We had been told that I was expecting a whopping babe, over the 95th centile and off the chart, by scan, so it has been a bit of a shock that he's been trailing along the 9th centile or a bit below. He's a long baby - we're both tall - which makes him even skinnier for his weight, though evidently he is getting enough nutrition to grow, and he has chunky hands and feet.
I had gestational diabetes so it could be that he is "finding his centile". Though it does seem a bit odd for 2 fairly tall and well built parents to have such a little baby.
I had a visit from a nursery nurse to weigh him, last week. She suggested that a top up of formula milk, to supplement the bf, would be a good idea () . She also thought I shouldn't be feeding for such a long time at night - he cluster feeds in the evening and sometimes cluster feeds in the early morning. She thought that he might be feeding for comfort as well as for food and that this would be bad, though I'm not sure why. She suggested I should limit the amount of time he fed overall.
I think that limiting the time he feeds might not help us increase his wt gain but the opposite & that frequent feeding might even increase my milk supply. I still don't know what would be wrong with him feeding for comfort as well as food, that seems normal to me. And I would have to listen to him crying and have no way of stopping it, if he wants to feed & I don't let him, which seems pointless to me. Also, introducing formula seems likely to decrease my milk supply. So I haven't done that
Thing is, I'm not sure how to help things along for the best. It's not impossible that there's a problem with either the milk supply or quality or with how he suckles (although various midwives have said that his latch is good). He does feed frequently in the evening, but the early morning feed pattern is a bit variable. I wonder whether having more of a routine would set us up better for an increase in milk supply perhaps. Not sure how to get him to feed if he's not asking for food though, so am not erm implementing a routine very effectively.
He is capable of going from 2 or 3am till 9am without feeding so that's great from the point of view of sleeping through but not so great for getting his weight up. He's in a cosleeper cot which I got so as not to have to keep getting out of bed, but this also means I am feeding him in bed and it might be that our position is a bit awkward, with me feeding him lying down. Also, I have quite big boobs, and I wonder if that is affecting the latch adversely.
Sorry for the long OP, but does anyone have any other ideas or advice?