Should I follow the health visitor's advice?

[mummy2rachel]

My 7.5 months old dd was exclusively breastfed until 6 months. She is now weaned to 3 meals a day and still breastfeeds on demand (several times through the day and about 2-4 times at night). I had her weighed yesterday and dd has not gained any weight in the past 8+ weeks. She dropped from above 25th centile in weight to just 2nd centile. She started nursery 8 weeks ago and since then, has been having various periods of coughs & colds. Initially, she was also refusing to feed in nursery and only started to feed properly after 3-4 weeks there.

The health visitor has advised me to reduce her breastfeeds and increase on her food intake. She suggested adding double cream and/or butter to all her food. DD doesn't eat a lot for each meal, about half a jar of baby food. I initially thought that that was ok for her age, but the health visitor said that she should be having at least 1 full jar each meal.

Just wanting a bit of advice from experienced mumsnetters.

1. Should I reduce her breastfeed? I thought breastmilk is good for babies under 1?
2. Wouldn't adding double cream and butter to all her meals be setting her up for heart disease later in life? Or should I do it for now to bulk her up a bit?

We saw the gp after that and he thought she was fine. However, he also advised me to reduce her breastfeeds as he said babies her age need more than breastmilk.

As she is my pfb, any advice would be appreciated.

i personally wouldn't start adding cream and butter to your dds food. Fatty fods can play havoc with someone's digestion if they are not used to them. This happened to me with ds (also a pfb) and the HV told me to give him puddings and custard I fed him up a bit over a week and took him back. Either he had put on 10 lbs (unlikely) or the scales were wrong.

Are you sure the scales were right. would you prefer to get a second opinion? I do agree that babies do need more than bmilk, you could consider dropping some feeds. tbh, 4 feeds a night sounds an awful lot at that age. if she has had her fill of milk in the night she won't be ravenous for solids.

But go with your gp. If she looks fine and she feels fine and she is eating I'd say let her get on with it. Offer more solids by all means but don't push them on her if she isn't interested, she's only new at this.

When did you wean her?

Hey

My ds went from 25th to 2nd starting when he was about 4 months. Dh and I were both skinny and I think he is suppossed to be small and skinny.

I recently discovered that when I restricted his night feeds he ate more in the day and he feels a lot heavier now (tend not to weigh him often as it is never as much as I hope) and looks chubbier. I have just (today) stopped bf completely and over the last few weeks he has almost doubled the amount of solids eaten and it seems to be what he needs, but he is 11 months and things are very different when they are nearly a year. So if my baby was 7.5 months reducing bf would not be my first step

I do agree with your hv about adding butter and cream. I discovered at some point I was cooking 'too healthily' for my ds, just a bit of olive oil to saute usually. He now has his own pack of unsalted butter and it goes in all his homemade dinners.Favourite fattening up dinner: pasta with tinned salmon vegs and lashings of double cream, very yum.

My ds certainly has only recently started to eat a whole jar of food. They are quite sizeable and one size fits all, ie a baby on the 98th centile who could weigh quite a few pounds more would also eat one jar?

Babies need a lot of fat for brain growth among others. This is not the time to worry about heart disease in later life.

And rule of thumb: gps do not know a lot about bfeeding.

she is talking twat.

food is fun until they're one. breastmilk should be her main source of nutrition, not blimmin double cream or butter.

seriously, what planet is she on???

honestly, breastmilk is best for her. it's highly calorific and contains everything she needs.

Thanks for your quick reply, happy. I weaned her when she was exactly 6 months old. She was teething for the past few weeks as well (proud owner of 4 baby teeth) and I think that has contributed to the frequent feeding through the night. She was waking up a lot and breastfeeding seemed the easiest way to get her back to sleep again.

In my limited experience, HVs are obsessed with solids and cutting down milk/liquids if a baby is slow weight gain.
My SIL was told by HV/Nursery Nurse at clinic to cut down drinks for her DS when he wasn't putting weight on after being told by GP to keep his fluids up as he had a cold.
Babies do need lots of fat in their diet, and they get that from breastmilk.

Absolutely do not follow your HV's advice, she has no idea what she's talking about. Babies don't grow because of food intake at this age, it's purely down to milk. Food is just for fun and tasting! If anything, up her milk intake!!!!

Teething, illness, starting to be more active etc etc, are all reasons why she may not be growing.. I would not bother getting her weighed againh. HVs get so obsessed by it! As long as baby is happy, contented, has lots of wet nappies and a poo at least once a week there is nothing to worry bout!

Opps, didn't realise that there were so many more replies! Thanks to all. FWIW, I am only a petite size 8 and dh is tall but slim. DD was born with a 2nd centile birthweight, put on loads in the first 3 - 4 months and then the weight gain seemed to have slowed down significantly.

Ugh, HV twuntness strikes again.
By amount BM is far more calorific than solid food. DD2 was ill recently and 'survived' 3 days on BM alone, she is 14 months!
Also when they start weaning they normally go down in weight as the solid food is taking up space so they drink less milk, and normally weaning means fruits/vegs and low calorie foods, so stands to reason they woudl drop their weights.
Tell her to feck off!

Is she still active and alert? DD1 had a massive problem with weight and eating issues. I discharged myself from the specialist when she was five as I felt we weren't getting anything from it. She is still v slim but not unhealthily so.

If your baby is happy and alert and is eating I'd be inclined to say stop taking her to be weighed. I think some babies/children are just meant to be small.

mummytorachel, that is classic growth behaviour of a properly breastfed baby, they go up quickly in the first few months then often 'drop' a few centiles. Even less reason to worry

by the way i was not suggesting you feed baby atkins style, just that it is easy in this day and age to make solids too low in fat. whatever she eats in solids needs to be calorific, or it will just take up valuable tummy space.

I bet she'll get over these last few weeks of going on - nursery, coughs and colds - and bounce back, or slowly creep back.

The only thing I'd suggest as a completely inexperienced mum of one is give her more home cooked stuff, mixed with your milk as the liquid. The calories and nutrients will do her the power of good and help her fight off coughs etc. If only a little is going in, make it the absolute best nutritionally if you can.

But nothing is better that bm for fighting infection so surely she needs good amounts of it!!??

I think we do tend [not you in particular just people] to apply the 'low fat is healthy' rule to babies. Especially with yogurts etc. However I think that as they are power houses of growth and development, the goodness in fat shouldn't be underestimated for babies. And so often in low fat food the sugar is off the scale to provide taste, so how is that any good? Or worse still bloody asparamine and so a baby is essentially eating nothing at all!!

Which is why using your milk is so brill - it's all just there in the amounts of fat, sugar and protein she needs, with some extra thrown in from food.

Sounds like your doing amazing and really accepting of her changing needs [i.e. some extra nighttime disturbance to get her through this little mini stress] and it's a shame no one said well done you. So well done you!!

I stopped weighing my dd after the hv made some stupid comment when she was about 7mo. She was on the 75th at that point. But I think that we get too obcessed with these charts, if the child looks well and behaviour is good then I wouldn't worry too much. My dd never ate a whole jar of food, she used to eat about half and bf often.
I wouldn't reduce bf. It is good for babies under 2 and is very high calorie, iirc only avacardo has higher calorie content. Not sure about double cream and butter, I would use all high calorie foods, but make sure that she gets a variety of different flavours.

LOL I saw this thread title and thought "almost certainly not"

And guess waht- imagine my surprise, a HV talking crap about food.

'underweight' ds put on half a kilo in a week at 25 weeks. of course this was down to the two spoonfuls of apple hv made me give him because bm was not enough.

i was such a fool. and now she thinks she is right.

just wanted to echo madmouse too. it is normal for a breastfed baby to gain rapidly and then plateau. or "catchdown"

Thats true. The new red books have the bf growth charts in them, and you could ask to have your measurements put onto one. BF apparently zoom up rapidly then stay still - which with the colds etc could easily involve a drop off slightly and no big drama.

Fecking charts!!

My hv came out to see me when dd was a few weeks old and weighed dd. The scales said she was only a few pounds. The hv flipped out and rang the hospital to arrange an emergency visit 'just in case' before she went to fetch another pair of scales. She came back with said new scales, re-weighed dd and saw that she was in fact, a great deal heavier and that her first scales were obviously broken. I was sat in the corner shaking and crying thinking something was wrong with my child. She then told me to start adding baby rice to dd's formula so that we 'don't have any more scares like that.'

I think I'll speak for most when I say 'what planet is this woman on?'

It's likely to be a phase and you'll probably notice a big weight gain soon. Babies too and fro with their weight whilst they're growing and do this mainly to scare the pants off their parents I think.

Try not to worry. My dd lost weight whilst weaning until she got the 'hang' of food. Your breast milk will be doing wonders for her, please don't listen to numpty hv.

why did you have her weighed?

If you were concerned about her weight and the slowing down in weight gain has confirmed what you were worrying about underneath it all then do think about her diet.

Small volume high calorie food is what babies need to grow and fat IS important - full of energy and vitamins. It is not a problem to eat fat in a well balanced diet.

but if you just had her weighed because you fancied it - then don't do it again!

She is very active- rolling and creeping all the time, alert and constantly babbling. I wasn't worried about her development until I saw the health visitor. Thank you, Treedelivery for your word of praise. I think I needed it as the past few weeks has been very hard indeed with all the illnesses, teething, guilt from sending her to nursery, starting work again etc.

I don't go 'low fat' for her food, just normal food. I don't mind putting cream and butter in some of her meals but I thought for ALL meals would be a bit too much?

catchastar I don't know whether to laugh or cry at your HV suggesting baby rice to avoid any more cases of broken scales.

i mean, seriously?? where do they get this stuff from???

Bless you. Leave your guilt here and we'll look after it for you. You are doing an amazing job. Repeat 10 times per hour and every trip to loo [same time as pelvic floor exercises].

No need to add loads of fat - just don't avoid naturally occurring fat! So avocado? Buttered toast (not low fat yukky Flora)? Mashed potato/parnips with a small knob of marg & splash of full fat milk? Fullfat milk on cereal? Greek yoghurt and fruit puree (mmm yummy)?

None of that is excessive IMO - just part of a nromal diet of many 7.5 month olds - and the best of all is the breast milk !

catchastar. Makes me so made these are well paid professionals in sought after jobs, why are they so crap so often??

I know, I know.

Unfortunately I was younger and a first time mum who didn't know what I do now. It wasn't until I spoke to my own mum about it that I realised she was talking, ummmmmm, crap I think would be the correct word.

OP please don't worry, listen to what treedelivery has just said.

Christ,they are such fucking idiots.