Can my dippy HV really be right???????

[milfAKAmonkeymonkeymoomoo]

Had DS nearly three weeks ago, he was on the 93rd centile for weight and height and has just creeped over the 98th centile. He is exclusively BF and she said I was over feeding him and should offer water at night!!??

BF DD for 15mths so not a complete novice

My hv thought I was ff ds because he never lost weight after being born, just piled it on! When I told her he was exclusively bf she just said, oh well, just keep feeding him as much as he wants then.

so your hv is talking crap

I agree with everyone else. She's talking absolute **.

My porky little bf babies have all ended up on the slim side of normal later in life. As do everyone else's, frankly.

Those charts are not gospel truth at all. One of my friends was told her children were badly underweight according to the charts, and panicked for a bit, until her Asian mother-in-law pointed out the charts are based on white babies (presumably mainly bottle fed), whereas Asian babies tend to be lighter. The HV had not taken race into account when assessing her children.

So follow your instinct and ignore silly comments like this.

How can these people be allowed to advise women!!!?? Think I shall avoid clinic from now on

ds3 child no. 6 was born on 75th shot up to 91st within a couple of weeks then free fell to 4th over the next 6 months. HV twitched away, wanted me to feed him cream cheese sandwches

They are barking mad, the lot of them

Maybe we need a Mumsnet campaign to educate health visitors and other 'health care professionals' about the ins and outs of breastfeeding.

No wonder we have such appaling rates of BF in the Uk

Sorry to turn into my work self but the centile charts are based entirely on bottle fed babies. They are bringing out new charts for breastfed babies this year as they gain weight so differently and so many breastfeeding mums have been given nutty advice based on them! Stick to your guns you're doing a great job! x

My friend has just told me that her mw told her to limit the feeding time of her 3 week old and substitute with a dummy, consider expressing and feeding from bottle so can monitor intake as she thinks the baby may be overfeeding !! the baby has had a weight increase of 9 oz in 3 weeks !!!!!!!!! mine (10 wks)puts on 14-16oz every 2 wks ....... who is right ?????????

The issue is not the charts. UK standard charts are not based on bottle fed babies - they are based on data sets of babies whose feeding was not differentiated, and many (prob not most, though) will have had a period of breastfeeding.

The issue is ignorance of the way to use charts and the way to monitor the growth of individual babies, and how to care for newborns.

This nonsense will not go away simply by using a different chart. It will last as long as HVs and others are under-trained.

None milkmonster - babies are all different

And they cant interpret silly charts

Didn't someone post that their H/V suggested eating cream cakes to help their milk?

bloody hell

Just noticed that my chart for DS is the BF one

DS made a similar leap up the charts at around 4 weeks ? from 75th to 91st. My HV told me to try and push the gap between feeds to 4 hours, and to let him cry on his mat for a while between feeds because (and I swear I am not making this up) ?he?s a fat little boy and the exercise will do him good?. I can laugh about it now, but at the time I had to pick myself up off the clinic floor before telling her what I thought of her advice. Fortunately he was my second, and I knew she was talking rubbish, but if it had been my first, I might have listened to her.

Think I am actually speechless now!

Snickersnack - the exercise will do him good??? WTF?!?

If your lo had gone from the 9th to the 25th would she have said the same thing?

I think not!

We can laugh but this woman needs reporting. She is endangering the lives of babies!

The issue is not the charts - sorry for repeating myself! There is f* all difference between standard UK charts and the newer bf from birth charts until you get three, four, five, six months in...and they don't really even start to diverge significantly until 5-6 mths.

You could give every HV and midwife new charts and order them on pain of death to use them (not that I am advocating this!) and nothing would change...if supposedly trained professional people spout a lot of rubbish about exercise and overfeeding and water instead of milk and eating cream cakes, using different charts won't help them, or their poor clients.

Well my 15 week dd is steadily heading up to the 98th centile. I'm just off to put her on her changing mat for a kick around to give her fat little body some much needed exercise.....

I can't believe some of the advice given. The hvs surely should be reported?

My friend was told with her first to get up in the night and eat cream cakes. She has a 3rd now and is about to stop bf at about 4mths as she says that she is not eating enough to have a good milk supply...

Just checked DS's red book.

At birth he was on 50th centile (3.6 kg)

He then dipped down to 25th centile at a week old (3.48kg).

Then shot back up to above 50th centile and stayed there until 12 weeks at which point he allegedly started "falling through the centiles" (that old chestnut, no not falling actually, he is gaining weight, just not at the rate the stupid chart wants him to).

Ignore the idiot HV.

I am thanking my lucky stars for my sensible health visitor who just laughs at DD's rolls of fat and tells me to keep up the good work (although no advice on cream cakes unfortunately).

DD is an absolute pudding and I would bet off the charts by now at 8 weeks. How on earth do you not feed a hungry baby? And isnt giving water in large quantities actually dangerous to little babies?

ARGH

I don't understand - 95th centile for height and 98th for weight = perfectly proportioned baby! How can that possibly be wrong? HV are scary.

Ds is now 18 months and still a real boob boy. He was a real whinger until recently, wanting to suck all the time. When he was about 10 months old my HV told me that instead of letting him feed when he wants I should offer him snacks and not let him sit on my knee to eat them. He should be made to sit next to me, that way he wouldn't want boob!

I told her there was no way I was going to stop him from sitting on me and having a cuddle/ feed.