How much weight should a 7wk old breast fed baby be putting on per week? (hv giving me a hard time)

[damewashalot]

Quick run down as i may not get long on here.

DS4 was born 3wks early at 6lb 10oz wasn't gaining weight due to trouble feeding caused by tongue tie, went slowly down to 6lb but started gaining as soon as it was snipped plus very sore nipples stopped hurting.
The last 3 wks he has put on 8oz, 5 1/2oz and 4 1/2oz now weighs 7lb8oz at 7wks. He feeds a lot, some days it feels constant but I feel he is making up for lost time, I have successfully breast fed 3 babies so think I know pretty much what I'm doing. He is alert, smiles and seems fine to me.
HV is very concerned about his slow weight gain and wants me to top up because she says I can't have enough milk if he feeds this much and isn't gaining lots.

So, is 4 1/2oz in a week that bad? If I gave him formula how would my milk supply ever catch up with his needs?

She has managed to fill me with self doubt and now I'm wondering if I'm just being stroppy and stubborn because I don't want to give formula, I want to do what's best for him but I really believe that my milk is best for him.

So basiclly, help please

Sorry that was a bit of a waffle, trying to think and deal with my big boys doesn't work too well and sorry if my spelling is bad, need to go feed no time to read and check.

foxy, what you did helped you. That's fine. It is unlikely to help as a general piece of advice - and I explained, pretty clearly, why.

I passed on my experience for precisely that reason - it helped me.

Having been in almost the exact same situation as the OP I feel that it could be of some use. However, you have deemed it as of no consequence. I am really quite upset by this as having BF all four of my children, and I continue to do so at 1 yr with DC4 having been through the same as the OP so I do have something to offer I believe. It may not be text book but it is practical, and I may be able to offer the OP some understanding of her situation and perhaps state of mind.

I am really quite upset. Granted Tiktok, you are indeed the BF guru of the site, but sometimes other people may like to help with the situations they feel they understand.

Foxy I would say its a very personal thing, what one Mum finds reassuring would not help another.

From my persective, I tried to give a bottle n advice of GP and hated it (fortunately Baby hted it too). It made me far more parasnoid- there are complex reasons why DS4 needs to bf (allergies, sn in family etc( and even attempting a bottle made me fel a failure and reduced me to tears. Strangely baby statred to maintain regular growth then anyway.

As Tiktok also ays- and again a personal experience just as valid or indeed invalid as any other- getting little milk when expressing with ds1 / ds2 helped convince me my output was non-existent (along with other things such as MIL being funny about bf). I refuse to express now, and rely on my baby to let me know how he is doing.

foxy, I am really sorry you are upset I don't deem your experience of 'no consequence' (as if....) but as something that can be generalised, it's unlikely to be helpful....this is the difficulty with personal experience, because the same resolution of an issue can actually make some people's situation worse. I explained this - the baby glugging down the bottle may still appear hungry (and there is no way of knowing if this is because the baby needs the calories or the sucking), and/or some women cannot get much milk out by expressing.

You generalised out of your own personal experience, and I explained why the solution you offered (not even saying at that time it was based on personal experience) was highly misleading, and could make some situations worse.

I stand by doing that - and I wish you had not interpreted this as suggesting I was somehow belittling your experience. You didn't say it was your experience at first, anyway!

Shared experience is part of what a talkboard does really well. But people need to be aware of the limitations - one person's experience is not always generalisable.
Hope you understand what I mean, and sorry for sounding a bit brusque towards you

Damewashalot - I think thats ok, my DD2 is very slow to gain weight, she is now 4 months and just over 11lbs. She is on the second centile but following her line well.

How is your little boy, happy, alert etc. My little girl is just small, she was 7lbs 2 when born so not overly small then, just a petite baby, maybe your DS is the same.

foxy i know exactly where you are coming from. Nobody has been able to help me solve my problem with dd, that although she started feeding beautifully she stopped breastfeeding that well from about ten days old, and i resorted to expressing and bottle feeding her [granted due to bad doc and HV advice but no one offered an alternative] The renowned breastfeeding guru at our local hospital does not believe nipple confusion even exists, so didn't really get very far with help there. And i cant just baby moon all day every day with a demanding nearly 4 year old who needs me too. Sometimes you just have to do your best, and at least expressing and bottle feeding is one's own milk.
hope your situation improves damewashalot

In my very first post I clearly said it was my experience and may not be deemed suitable for everyone, but as I found it helpful it has some value here.

There is no one-size fits all solution to this, which is why I shared my experience and understanding.

I wish you the very best of luck Damewashalot, and hope you crack it. I am quite sure you will.

Foxy, you're right that in your post last night you explained what you did as personal experience....I missed that, sorry. I still stand by my explanation of why this might not be applicable generally, and don't retract any of it. I've offended you, inadvertently, and I apologise

I also gave ds EBM when he was failing to gain weight. He wolfed down loads - and it made no difference to his rate of weight gain. It helped me to see that his growth curve was just that - his growth curve and that he would gain weight in his own sweet (slow ) time. He was manifestly not failing to thrive: happy, healthy and alert at all times.

I was fortunate in that I was able to express quite a bit. It was also useful to me as I was going back to work when ds was 4 months old (that was all the maternity leave availalbe back then ) and I got used to the discipline of expressing - and once I stopped bothering giving him EBM, continued to express and stored it in the freezer for when I was back at work.

Thank you Tiktok, and of course you should stand by your advice as I stand by my experience. What we need to do is offer the OP a wealth of knowledge, experience and information so that she can make an informed choice. I appreciate that there are women who find expressing difficult, but there are those who do not have problems with it.

There is no general advice which will fit in every situation. It is for the OP to decide what will work for her, but what she, and anyone else in the situation must know, is that there are options other than formula. And support. Lots of support for that self-doubt which creeps in.

As Ruty said, you do your best, and at the end of the day, it is your own milk. That has to count for something.

And I promise this is my last post here ...

how about co-sleeping?

Damewashalot, it may be that your DS's growth is normal for him and you are doing everything just right, but what about simply putting him to the breast more? My DD was not a demanding baby at first so I had to make sure she had lots of time at the breast even if she wasn't crying for food (she is a twin so it was easy to think she had fed well just cos her twin had fed well).

Do you feed every three hours or just when he cries? He shouldn't go more than three hours without feeding (except at night).

Well there are no worries about him not demanding food, he certainly lets me know I'm not sure I could fit in more feeding, it feels fairly constant as it is and when he does go down for a long sleep which happens maybe once in the day and once early evening, I don't let him go more than 3 hrs from the start of last feed. Although I say it feels constant, he does have periods of being awake and not feeding and happy, he spent 20 mins under his gym yesterday without a grumble

We don't quite co sleep as he does about 12 to 4 in his crib then comes in our bed and as a feed then stays and feeds on and off until morning.

He does have some of my milk from a bottle as I leak when full and it seems a shame to waste good milk(collected 2oz from right boob when feeding from left this morning) He will have this tonight if needed and I wat him to be happy with a bottle as we are going to see hamlet in a few weeks so need to be able to leave ebm then.

slow weight gain?? 8oz!! 5oz!! 4oz!!?? My DS2 gained 1-2oz a week, sometimes none!! IGNORE HER!!

You (and ds) are doing brilliantly

4oz was one of ds' big weeks for weight gain! Most weeks he trundled on at about 1 to 2 oz per week - some weeks - none, as he dropped from the 91st to just underneath the growth charts and thne running parallel with them for ages. He did evetnually start to to creep back into the charts (not sute exactly when as I stopped getting him weighed ) and now he is a happy, healthy nearly 8 year old who is around the middle of the chart for everythng - despite the fact that he appararentyl lives on air

A quick update and a huge thanks to all who encouraged me on here

He had a 9wk check and had put on 7oz in 2 wks which was even lower that previous wks but the GP spotted a heart murmer so refered him to a paediatrician (she was quite happy for me to stick with bfeeding and saw no need for formula).

He's now 12wks saw the paed yesterday and had put on a huge 24oz in just less than 3wks He just has t o have more tests to find out which sort of murmer it is now but I'm trying not to worry until I know what I'm worrying about.

So thanks for helping me trust myself that it wasn't my milk that was the problem.