Panicked and VERY annoyed about the Health Visitor - long...

[Moomma]

I've posted here before about my DS, now 20 weeks (17 adjusted as he was born just over three weeks before due date). He's EBF but only weighs 11 pounds 6, as of today's weigh-in. I feed on demand, currently 7-8 times a day, have had his latch checked by an NCT breastfeeding counsellor, have been to various GPs and talked to them about him, and generally watch him like a hawk to see if I'm doing anything I shouldn't or if there's anything I can do to feed him up. (Last time I was writing about him, the general consensus was that I was being over-anxious!) He's brilliant - very smiley and happy, very energetic, developing at a great rate and keen to get on with life. He is long and has massive feet which will have him out of 3-6 month clothes soon, even though he is swimming in them around the waist. He looks more like a 12/13 week-old baby, physically - just hasn't put on any chub.

Today I took him for a weigh-in, twelve days after being sent packing by the lovely GP who told me he was just slender, and perfectly well otherwise. The HV who was marking up his loathsome red book got very huffy about it, marked his weight in the wrong place, and told me that six ounces in two weeks wasn't enough and she thought I should be referred to a paediatric dietician. It WASN'T two weeks; anyway I told her he'd been sick with a tummy bug and its aftermath for most of January and was just picking up now. But he's never put on weight quickly in any case. She didn't actually look at him at all - just asked me lots of accusing questions about whether I was following a system or feeding on demand (like I would leave him hungry!) and whether he'd been checked out before. She was so upsetting, I burst into tears as soon as I left the clinic - God knows what people thought as I trailed home with the pram, sobbing.

I just don't know what to do. She wouldn't recommend formula to top him up because HVs never do; he feeds three times during the night and every 2 1/2 to 3 hours during the day, so there isn't much scope for feeding him more, even if he would stop playing to take it. I am so tired of people thinking that I'm doing something wrong, when I'm doing my best - and so is he. I just don't know why he won't get any fatter. People are always shocked to hear how old he is, and when I look at pictures of him from a couple of months ago, he looks so thin. I just don't think I'm enough for him, and that breaks my heart.

Oh well. Just wanted to have a moan about insensitive, stupid, non-child-looking-at HVs, and a little bit of a panic about my poor lovely boy.

I am shocked with that HV, I am no expert but your baby sounds fine to me and a lot of the mums here probably would agree. Your GP said he was fine, he is the one with the medical expertise not some silly HV. Just do what you are doing, dont worry, my ff dd was painfully thin and would hardly drink any milk all through her babyhood, now she is a heavy nearly 3 year old.

Really i think that this type of attitude does not support bf at all and puts women off like me for example. Dont take your baby to be weighed, there is no rule that you have to I did not because would be lectured by HV as to why she is not putting on weight.My friend who has bf all 4 of her kids did not weigh after the first one as she encountered the same problem as you and just did not want their interferring as they were towards her. If your baby is having plenty of wet or poo nappies and is alert, happy and otherwise healthy dont worry.

I expect that an expert like tiktok might be coming soon to give you some advice.

Don't bother with HV, most of them are rubbish and you can get better advise from the web and forums.
If you are really worried about anything go to your GP.
When you have your second baby, HVs don't want to know you as they know that you have sussed them out to be full of s*it

hello

this doesn't help you much but I just wanted to say that I know very much how you feel, my little girl is only just 10.3lb at 17 weeks and has been under paed care and supposedly 'failing to thrive' since three weeks old. what a load of tosh, she is thriving in every way, she is just slow to gain weight. I too feed on demand and have been told umpteen times I should be topping her up with formula which I don't do. My daughter has reflux which has complicated the issue too.

anyway...what i am saying is that in my very limited experience you should go with your instincts, you are not a moron, if your baby was not developing well you would know it and do something about it.

I have become pretty anti-establishment since I had my little girl, I just can't believe some of the crap I have been told by some supposedly highly educated health care professionals. sorry, rant over, just want you know you are not alone!

If he's happy, healthy and active, ignore her. You know your baby, it sounds as if he's developing brilliantly, and in my experience HVs and their effing charts are a menace and do untold harm to breastfeeding mums' confidence. My son went through a phase where he alternated between being long and thin and short and fat - they do seem to grow first and then fill out a bit, and then grow a bit more. Once he started really filling out, my HV started giving me grief about him putting on too much weight - you can't win! I just stopped taking him to be weighed in the end and the next time she saw him was at his 18 month check, for which we only let her in because she had free Bookstart stuff! has your HV even considered your build or his father's? My friend had a very skinny baby who's now a very skinny 7-year-old, but he's fit and healthy, eats like a horse, does competitive swimming and gymnastics and has just inherited his beanpole father's build.

Hope you're feeling better now. It really does sound as if he's fine and you're doing a fantastic job, so have faith in your boobs and enjoy your son, and don't let your HV get you down.

Gosh I wish that I discovered MN before I had dd than i would have been better prepared and more calm about it all, hopefully if there is a dc number 2 i will be more calm and better prepared.

Well, a child is more than a stat on a chart, isn't it? It sounds like your GP is taking a rounded, child-focused approach - as are you. Looking not just at the weight, but at the overall picture - general health, emotional well being, development. And all of that is fine. He's just not huge.

Fwiw, dd dropped from 25th percentile around birth down to the bottom of the chart, and dragged along it. My (sensible) hv looked at her, as I was concerned she was small. Asked if she was active, generally healthy and happy. Then shut the book and pointed out that at 5'2 and under 8 stone, I was maybe likely to have a small baby - and to enjoy her.

She's nearly 4 now, and still one of the smallest in her peers, and very, very slight. She's also robustly healthy, very active and perfect in every way

And agree with the point made earlier that they often go long & lean and then fatten out - classic pattern ime

So sorry you feel like this Moomma, my ds is 5 months old now and i have never taken him to get weighed. To be honest i don't care how much he weighs.

What is important to me is that, a child is'nt sick and is developing well. You ds seem's happy to me, if he was'nt i'm sure that he would let you know.

My first son is autistic, so to me what matters the most is, a child's development not there weight.

Take no notice of them, they go by there own rules. You a doing a fab job!!!!!!!!!!!!!.

Thanks, everyone - these messages have made such a difference to me. I will say that since he was born, I've had several really seriously disappointing encounters with medical professionals, and I should know better than to take them seriously.

1. Very young paediatrician who told me he probably had an unspecified bone disorder just before she went off shift the night after he was born. She had examined him earlier in the day, said nothing then, arrived on the ward at 7.55pm, just before my husband was kicked out for the night and poked at his skull for three minutes, then went on her way. (His head was swollen from, you know, labour - it went down the following day and I never saw the idiot woman again, but thank you for a night from hell.)

1. The HV who called in his second week and told me (after I finished telling her he had just been to A&E because we had been - correctly - worried about his weight loss) I should try to get him to feed four-hourly so he got used to being genuinely hungry rather than feeding all the time.

1. The midwife who couldn't be bothered to wait to weigh him naked, so weighed him in his clothes and wet nappy, then told me very irately to give him six feeds of formula a day the following week when it looked as if he'd only gained 10 grammes (and I was too sleep-deprived to remember why the scales were saying that).

1. The GP who drank tea throughout our consultation and told me to take him off after ten minutes each side as he really didn't need to feed for longer than that.

1. The nurse who gave him his first vaccinations, who asked me if I couldn't undress him on my lap when I made a move towards the examining couch, told me she wasn't a health visitor, you know (I hadn't suggested she was), stuck him twice extremely roughly and wouldn't let me breastfeed him to comfort him afterwards as she wanted to close up the room. She also told me that if I wanted to give him Calpol, it was up to me, but an adult could DIE from taking just ten paracetemol tablets.

1. Chart lady, the latest offender, who I am increasingly amused by rather than upset about. She didn't even look into the pram!!!

He is a lovely boy, and it's so nice to hear from other mothers who have long thin children. I am going to let him do his thing in his own time and stop worrying about an obviously healthy little boy. Health professionals aren't always that professional, it turns out.

Wow Mooma what a fantastic line up of medical professionals , sounds like you are doing fantastically well and keep going as a lot of mums have said on here. Look at your baby holistically and not as a pecentile on an out of date growth chart.

My ds was almost 9 lbs at birth. By the time he was six months he was at 9th centile. Can't remember weight. Fortunately my hv was fine about it. As she said charts in red book are designed for bottle fed and not breast fed babies.

Oh Mooma, I could have written your opening post. My ds is 2 years, 3 months now and still slender and energetic.

He was 6lb 5oz born and the midwife weighed him 3 times as she thought he looked really long and couldn't weigh that little.

I have been through just about every health professional you cold wish to see. He has always gained weight slowly whatever we did. He's been on high calorie milk, high calorie powder, i've seen the dietician to get tips on high cal foods to feed him. The (stupid)hv referred him to the paediatrician who was actually the most sensible of the lot. He had blood tests and stool samples etc etc

Anyway, what I really wanted to say was, stop worrying! I worried so so much and my ds is absolutely fine! He is just built this way, he still follows the 0.4th centile for weight and 9th for height. He was a bugger to feed once we weaned but in hindsight we were so anxious about him feeding by then we probably caused a lot of the problem ourselves. He eats well now (for a toddler) and is coming on leaps and bounds developmentally

I had a big long thread on it a while ago, i'll link it so you can have a look.

Oh and he's never been chubby, not all babies are! OH and I got totally sick of people thinking he was about 4 months younger than he actually was...

Here is the thread

There are some pics of him on my profile, you can see he's just a little guy

IGNORE THEM ALL! So irritating isn't it? I was told that my DS (now a bruiser of a 2.5 year old) was 'failing to thrive.' They absolutely wouldn't leave me alone and I ended up feeling like a complete failure.

I knew deep down that he was fine and fortunately I had a very sensible health visitor who told me that he was just a little weed who would probably end up as 6'3" rugby player. Sounds really dreadful but actually it was quite comforting at the time and she single handedly gave me the confidence to trust in my instinct that DS was just a bit small and liked to feed a lot.

When his very meagre weekly weight gain slowed down altogether (at about 4.5 months), she told me to try him on solids which I realise is a bit early but she was absolutely right. It was at that point he started to gain weight. And I kept BFing until he was one.

It's all about instincts I think and not all babies fit into the pigeonholes some of our health professionals like to tell us they should.