Grrr. Yet another piece of rubbish advice from an HV.

[Caligula]

A couple of friends of mine have just had a baby, she's a week old today. She's breastfeeding her quite happily, latched fine, no problems whatsoever, milk came in on day 3 OK, everything tikkety boo.

So what does her HV tell her to do? "Try not to feed her so often - leave more gaps in between feeding."

So now the baby's crying far more often, because the mother is doing what the HV tells her. The problem is, I can't tell her the HV's talking crap, because I'm not a professional, am I, the HV is, and has got a piece of paper to say she knows better than me, and I'm not close enough to the mother (it's the father who's my friend, originally) to interfere!

I'm so annoyed! When is someone in the NHS going to get a proper BF training programme established? This mother was doing so well, and now she's been undermined by shite advice from someone she ought to be able to trust!

So when in a week or two the weight gain slows and she's full of wind, what will be her advice then ? grrr [anger]

When I had DS1, in hospital 5 years ago, I was told to feed him when ever he needed it, not everytime he cried but when he went for my boob. When I had DS2 woh os now 10 months, I was encouraged to feed him every 3 hours, even if he wasn't hungry (I was also told to wake him if it was time for his feed, he was born on time and was a normal weight, there were no medical reasons why he should be fed this regularly) I diddn't agree with this but thought i would get him into a better routine when we went home 3 days later. By this time he was so set in his ways that i spent 6 months feeding him every three hours. Looking back in hindsight, we should have argued with the nurses but we thought they would know best! How wrong could we have been

Caligula, can you make some anodyne remark about advice you got, or what you did, in utterly unthreatening manner?

Grrrrr too.

I'm going to try and inveigle a remark in - plus the number of the local NCT and the Mumsnet website!

The problem is, I'm not seeing them till the weekend, and that's enough time for things to go really pear-shaped by then.

Hope you manage to find some way of telling her and sending her here. It's shite isn't it?

There is no reason at all why this advice would help in any way - and plenty of reasons why it could mess everything up. This baby is a week old......he is designed to feed often, and designed to cry when he is not close to his mum. Are you sure this is the HV talking - she would normally be seeing the midwife at this point, BTW.

Whoever it is, they're talking crap

I think you can tell them the HV is talking crap on this occasion, if you dare, Caligula. You are a persuasive and courteous poster on here after all!
What a worrying and depressing attitude .

Well personally I'd just come straight out and say something along the lines of

"I'm really sorry, I don't mean to interfere but the best practices in BF suggest that in the early weeks you feed as often as the baby wants. I am really concerned this poor advice is going to affect the mum and the baby. Please can you call xxx xxxx xxx (get a local BF counsellor or NCT number) just to find out for yourselves. I wouldn't feel right if I didn't say anything though I know its none of my business but I've had experience of such bad advice from so-called professionals."

Then back away

or send a note

HTH

That's a point - I've only got the story from the Dad, who is somewhat hazy as to the difference between a midwife, a HV, a nurse, a GP and an obstetrician!

So it probably is the MW - she had a normal delivery, but they still send in the MW for two weeks, don't they?

How about sending her a good book on b-feeding, as a little present? NCT delivers their books
very quickly, ime.