Help! I don't want to stop, but it's all gone wrong.

[JordTyler]

Please help me.

DS has always been hard to feed, and has had far to many top ups, most of which were not needed.

We have just had a weigh in yesterday and he has lost again, only 20gr i think.

Any who, HV basicly forced me to give him a bottle, then said

1. I'm glad you came to the decision yourself.
2. Ooh look, he's like a different child.
3. He was starving, bless him

!!!!!!!!!!!

Due to this campain to make me feel shitty, i felt i had no choice but to give 2 further bottles yester day, and 2 quick BF(they've never been long)

What do i now do?
I DO NOT want to stop feeding but i have to make this work.
I ahve access to a good electric pump till the 23rd so what is best way to use it. Do i have to top him up because of his continued weight loss?

Stinky HV is coming back tommorrow to check weight again and is expecting a 2oz gain! If it makes more sense to any one his weight has gone like this....

BW. 2.93
2 wo. 2.95
9 wo. 3.94
10 wo. 3.87
11 wo. 4.04
12 wo.3.98
13 wo. 4.06
14 wo. 4.03 (yesterday)

Thanks for reading all that, any advice or anything at all. Still feeling really shitty about this.

My advice would be to speak to a bf expert not a HV who is clearly a bully and a bit ignorant to boot. Ring the nct or LLL (I can dig out their numbers if you haven't got them): talk it over with them and see what they say. If you want to stop giving formula they can help you do it; if you want to continue mix-feeding they will hep with that too.
You do not have to see that HV or any other if you do not wish to. You are perfectly within your rights to ring and cancel the appointment. (Though of course I appreciate that you are worried.)
Remember also that 20 grams is nothing, not even the weight of a nappy! What if he had a full tummy one day then had just done a big poo the next? You should absolutely not be weighing more often than every couple of weeks. Babies do not grow in a nice smooth curve (the curves are an average of lots of babies), they plateau and spurt. Please make sure, too, that all those weights you quote above were from the same set of scales, as they can vary too.

Jord - your baby seems to have lost an ounce. This is a tiny amount, and one it would be hard to be confident about (that is, scales and humans are really not that accurate). However, the overall trend of your baby's weight is upwards, which is good (though it is a slow gain). Your HV's attitude and comments are unprofessional.

On paper, it looks like he would benefit from the chance to have more calories - but they do not have to come from formula.

If you think he needs topping up for the moment, then he can be topped up with EBM. You already know that giving more formula will reduce your milk supply, so giving EBM protects your milk supply. At the same time, he needs lots of frequent feeds on at least both breasts - length of time on breast is less important than the frequency.

Does this help?

Boogeek. the weights may well be wrong, 4 of those nubers came from different scales each time. There's had broke so they borrowed different ones, 3 TIMES!!

Tiktok. I did spend a week feeding him at every op, and no top ups and that was his first loss. Since then i have had good and bad days.

My theory is that if i get her off my back tommorrow with a gain(which i think he will due to few bottles) then i can get on with sorting this out. Think one of my problems is i do something for a day, then need to go shopping, or something else. Neglect my routine(pumping, or whatever) so never give anything a chance.

Seriously: she should not be on your back. Ring her up and tell her not to come tomorrow thank you very much, then go and get him weighed in a week or a fortnight.
(Oops, now I sound bullying. Sorry.)
Maybe you yourself need to take it a bit easy for a couple of weeks - be good to yourself and let your supply build up. Could somebody shop for you?

Jord - I think your baby may need topping up at present...just not with formula

An expressing regime does need consistency - I agree, it's a real problem if a change in your regime isn't given a chance to work.

Please, people, don't tell Jord not to have her baby weighed or to ignore the HV. Yes, she sounds unhelpful and bullying, but we can never have the full story here, about why the HV appears so anxious to weigh the baby.

It's true, of course, that the HV has no power to insist on weighing. And Jord, it is your choice how much contact you have with the HV. You may want to get him weighed for your own reasons, anyway.

How are the nappies looking? Plenty of wet ones? Poo mostly yellow, or lots of green? Agree with everyone else that your HV visitor sounds really mean! You're doing so well.

Ahem, tiktok, I don't believe I said he shouldn't be weighed, Just that daily weighing is not necessarily going to put anybody's mind at rest, given normal fluctuations from feeding and nappies. Weekly is surely more sensible?

I would want him weighed i think, just not tommorrow. I want a BFC who knows what there on about(ie not HV) to come and see me, and spend the time actually looking at the problem.

I also got very upset yesterday while she was here, and i think part of her visit is to check how i am and that i didn't juat ignore her, which i did think about!

Hi Jord, sorry to hear the HV is stressing you out so much. My HV, although trying to be nice, was very ill informed about breastfeeding, and despite my ds having good weight gains was also having him regularly weighed and suggested I offer top ups of formula. I politely thanked her for her advice but that before going down that route I would prefer to seek help from a breast feeding counsellor and asked that she gave me contact details for a local counsellor (who was fantastic and actually called the HV to correct the misleading advice she had given me!).

Obviously your circumstances and baby will be different, but maybe that's a way of 'negotiating' with her?

Oh and I'd also got very upset (actually burst into tears when I opened the door to find the HV was an old school friend I hadn't seen in 15 years ). I'm pretty sure part of it was also to keep a check on my mood and get me to retake the PND test about 5 times!