My lovely 16 wk old DS has been exclusively breast fed since birth. From about six weeks, he started sleeping through the night and demanding less food less frequently. HV told me this was fine and as a first time mum I believed her.
At wk 8 I saw another HV as DS had dropped 1.5 ozs. She encouraged me to feed more often particularly at night. DS gained 4oz the following week, 1oz the week after that and then only 0.5 ozs over the next three weeks. Meantime, I'd noticed that he was feeding much less longer (only about ten mins) and only on one side. We were then referred to GP who felt DS checked out fine and was meeting all his developmental milestones except weight gain, but referred us to the paeds as a precaution.
Two days later one of the older GPs called me to say the appt with the paeds had been brought forward and that in the meantime, I should stop breastfeeding and feed formula instead. I got very upset about this, but decided to ignore him and speak to a BF counsellor instead who advised switch feeding.
In the two weeks that we've been doing this, DS has been feeding more regularly and for much longer (sometimes as much as an hour) and he's gained 10 oz in those two weeks which I thought was great. But we went to see paeds today and registrar advised topping up. I asked why I couldn't offer another breast feed instead - he then conceded that I could top up with EBM. But I'm feeding every three hours as it is, usually for 45 mins to an hour and am worried I won't be able to express that much in the meantime. We have to go back to see the paeds in three weeks. Apart from slow weight gain, DS smiles, giggles and is fiendishly active and alert. He's very tall, just not so fat.
Paed told me DS will be fundamentally weakened for life if we don't get his weight up in the next three weeks and that I should be looking for a weight gain of 7oz per week. I'm now even more worried and stressed about it and have spent most of the evening crying. Would be grateful for any advice - sorry for long post!