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Infant feeding

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

Original poster

all ye women with slow-gaining babies... come and sympathise with Aitch here please...

288 replies

Aitch · 01/10/2008 12:28

oh bloomin' heck. she's only put on an ounce and a half in 6 days.

OP posts:
Original poster
Aitch · 01/10/2008 23:46

latch could maybe be better but i'm not in ain (some chafing occas)

OP posts:
moondog · 01/10/2008 23:46

Oh really??

That's bloody tremendous.

Can you not ease yuorself into stopping, say 10 ml less each time, then not so brutal??

Original poster
Aitch · 01/10/2008 23:46

pain

OP posts:
berolina · 01/10/2008 23:49

No pain very good. How about all the muscle-by-her-ear-waggling (I know what I mean ), swallowing sounds and so on?

vlc · 02/10/2008 01:23

Hold your nerve, kiddo.

babycarrot gained a couple of ounces a week despite every conceiveable effort. I didn't top up (apart from cheating a couple of weighings).

In her first 6 months she only gained 3lb. I was demented with worry. In the end I decided that, as far as bf went, I knew more than the health professionals, and ultimately, I didn't accept that their advice was correct. I bought my own scales and started weighing her myself, and got out of the system as soon as I could. They considered her "Failure to thrive". I considered this a mis-diagnosis. She is the healthiest, happiest baby I know, and still breastfeeds several times day and night at 14 months old. Her weight really took off at (baby-led) weaning, and then stabilised again, and she's back to gaining a couple of ounces a week.

I just think some babies gain like this, and yet nothing is wrong. Tiktok once told me dd was like a bush baby of the Kalahari (or summat), designed to feed even as much as 20 times a day or more. This really helped me. If she wanted more milk she could have it, as often as she wanted.

Gosh, I know how awfully hard this is for you though. And of course you need to check that there aren't any problems that need fixing.

But you may have to consider the fact that you already know more about the best way to feed dd2 than the people who are supposed to be helping you.

Hang in there, Aitch.

berolina · 02/10/2008 01:28

Kalahari bush baby! That's ds2. ds1 as well, actually, when he was younger than ds2 is now. And we have come so far that it is thought of as abnormal - terrifying, because unquantifiable.

wastingmyeducation · 02/10/2008 08:46

DS was overdue and huge, but lost shedloads and then took seven weeks to regain birthweight, the line on the chart was horizontal for a long while. We got referred to paeds, which pissed me off, cos I knew there was nothing wrong with him, but it was reassuring. If you are armed with all the MN knowledge and support available they can't bully you, but if they offer urine tests etc. it can't hurt.

xx

wastingmyeducation · 02/10/2008 08:47

Oh and the most important thing I did was to stop thinking about foremilk/hindmilk and focussed on keeping him drinking by swapping sides when he began to lose interest.
All the HVs and MWs are obsessed with hindmilk!

xx

Neenztwinz · 02/10/2008 09:15

VLC is right - you prob do know more than the people trying to help. You think your baby is a slow gainer but I don't think she is. Percentage-wise she is gaining a lot. Being able to see how much she drinks (ie by giving formula) is very short-sighted and will only lead to you making less milk for her not more. But you know all this. Just trust your instinct.

That's what I did with my DD - sometimes she would just sit there at the breast and thrash her head from side to side with her mouth open as if she didn't know what to do, but I just relaxed and waited for her to find it, even if it took 10 minutes or more. Your body and your baby know what to do, so let them get on with it!

welliemum · 02/10/2008 10:39

Aitch, before seeing paed you need to read this thread.

If in a hurry, just read the OP which quotes a paper about how we need to be careful about inducing catch-up growth.

LaTrucha · 02/10/2008 12:02

Thanks Welliemum. So happy to have that info and the growth chart.

lizzytee · 02/10/2008 12:27

Aitch

Feeding EBM before a BF sounds crackers and suggests to me that the HV who suggested it knows a) very little about the physiology of breastfeeding and b) very little about how much work is involved with expressing. re weight gain but just because it is a source of anxiety and distress for you.

TinkerBellesMum · 02/10/2008 14:50

LOL at the research!

Hopefully if you are going to see the paed he should be using the premature breastfed charts so your daughter will look like a monster! (Tink was only ever on the chart on his chart and she looked huge! I loved going to see him just for that ) I've said before we were told 1-2oz a week was the expected weight gain. She was about the same size as your daughter born but two weeks earlier. So adding that and the correct chart together sounds to me like she is doing well.

If your top ups are EBM then it doesn't sound necessary to me, the milk is there and she's getting it. If you're putting so much into her that she's sleeping for hours then she is getting more than she needs. Just think about it in BLW terms - a self feeding baby will only take what they need, but when parent fed they can push themselves a little further. One thing I love about BLW is how it carries the practices of breastfeeding into solids.

Can someone tell your OH he must restrain you when it looks like you're going to cave?

Tapster · 02/10/2008 18:33

Hold your nerve and good luck. I would ditch EBM and feed every 2 hours or on demand if shorter, depends on how long her feeds are. I would only do every 3 hours at night or if she took an hour to feed, as my DD did.

HV obsessed by top ups of EBM/formula as a cure for everything. IMO it is the root of alot of problems and why people fail to breastfeed.

Trust your body and your baby they know best.

Original poster
Aitch · 03/10/2008 00:30

ggggggrrrr, death to the HV. honestly.

paed perfectly happy as dd2 is yomping along the 2nd centile line and in any case their scales showed her as having gained 3.5 oz over the week rather than 1.5. someone's scales are wonky, if dd2 put on 20z overnight.

anyway, to quote the paed 'keep doing what you're doing'. yessir. (he'd been a lot less positive prior to the weigh-in i must say, but i'll draw a veil over that. he's going to speak to the HV about how to draw a centile line and also how to weigh in fooking grammes as oz are totally confusing to a child of the metric age such as myself. i keep asking her to tell me in gs and she just can't. it's like decimalisation never happened.

OP posts:
Original poster
Aitch · 03/10/2008 00:30

that's 2oz. not 20 zees...

OP posts:
Pesha · 03/10/2008 01:03

Just skimmed thread so sorry if repeating anything/talking nonsense.

Ds2 didn't regain his birthweight till 32days, never mind gain weight although he was 8lb13 at birth so pretty big. He continued to 'fall down the charts' but always gaining, even if only a couple of oz a week. I had endless hassle from HVs who wanted me to give formula and wanted me to wean early. DD and DS1 did the same thing only with them I did give formula top ups and wean at 4 months and it gradually replaced bfing and with dd she'd stopped by 6 months and ds1 by 8 months so i was determined not to do this with ds2. He fed constantly, I used to carry him in the sling so that I could feed him whilst walking about otherwise I would never have been able to go out for more than half an hour! But he did sleep well at night (not in the day) and he was happy, smiley, active, adorable little boy. He dropped way off the bottom of the charts though with a real dip around 20 weeks and by 24 weeks was only 11lb 9 and actually even I started to worry then so I offered him some finger food and he loved it and has gained steadily ever since. You can see from the pic on my profile how skinny he looked.

The paed I saw was rubbish though. She said she wanted me to try formula to see if that helped, I said I didnt want to and if she thought my supply was the problem could she try giving me motilium to help. She said yes but we didn't know if my supply was the problem and giving formula would help us establish this I pointed out that surely giving me motilium or similar would also establish this but she was having none of it. I said I would rather formula be a last resort so she wanted me to express ebm and supplement him with that I did try but he was feeding so frequently in the day I barely got the chance and could never get more than an oz or 2 anyway. Couldn't see how that was supposed to be any better than giving it straight from source TBH.

Eek, was going to post more but just seen the time Anyway I think my point was that if she is gaining then that is really good, and following a line always keeps them happy! And feeding every 3 hours doesn't sound like a lot to me at all, but then I do have very slow flow boobs, but I certainly wouldn't think its too frequent or implies not getting enough at all.

TinkerBellesMum · 03/10/2008 01:11

2oz is a feed or a wee!

TinkerBellesMum · 03/10/2008 01:13

And glad to see he's being more positive, didn't I say?

welliemum · 03/10/2008 01:34

Good. Good. One in the eye for HV.

Can you disentangle yourself from this HV asap? She sounds a bit of a numpty and she's not helping you.

Easier said than done though, I suspect.

Neenztwinz · 03/10/2008 08:16

Yes when my DD was that small it was better to weigh her straight after a feed!

tiktok · 03/10/2008 08:57

Aitch, an HV who is not comfortable with metric, and whose scales are questionable, is not equipped to practice this sort of specialist care. I think it's a disgrace, to be honest.

mears · 03/10/2008 12:31

Aitch - have been away and just caught up with your threads.

You are doing a fantastic job and I think one of the things that needs to happen is a reduction in the frequency of weighing. By all accounts your DD is bright, peeing and pooing and the paeds are happy. Weekly weigh-ins are very frustrating because you will have fluctuations and small weight gains will feel devastating.

Have you got in touch yet with the breastfeeding support team and Queen Mothers/Yorkhill? I saw a reference to the 'Linda woman' but never saw if you got her? You need that support more than a crappy HV.

My DS3 was born at 35 weeks and was static in weight for a while and then took off. You'll get there. Have confidence

LaTrucha · 03/10/2008 14:54

None of my HVs (I've had 5) have been able to measure in metric. They've frequently written the wrong metric number in dds red book and I have to correct them. It's just impossible.

katpink · 03/10/2008 16:25

hi everyone,
my DD was 7lb6oz when she was born and never put on more than a 1lb per month and sometimes not even that much.
She 18mths old now and perfect.
Crappy f*ing HV are a big problem mine told me all kinds of rubbish. i now advoid her like the plage, i only get DD weighed when she has jabs.
Another sensible HV told me to lay her down flat and naked, if she looked in proportion, ie her head looked the right size for her body and her legs looked like they had some meat on them then she was fine, no matter how much weight she put on.

i've breastfeed DD for 18mths and i would think that giving EMB would confuse your milk production and may be end up with you being engorged.
even if all you do is BF for a few weeks, get in to your own routine.
only worry if they start to drop below the line there on dramatically. otherwise you might just have a little DD/DS like me.