Big baby slow weight gain

[bid_90]

Hi everyone,

I wanted to post on here to see if anyone has had an similar experiences.

My baby girl was born at 4.5kg and after a week lost 10% of her birth weight. It took her a good three weeks to regain it. I am breastfeeding and topping up with formula on advice from the paed who we seen after her initial 10% drop. My milk came in pretty late as we were separated at hospital which was horrible and so breastfeeding has been a struggle from the get go.

She is now 10 weeks old and we are continuing with weekly weigh ins (which are so stressful) and the BF and formula top ups. At her 8 week check up, the paed suspected reflux so we have been giving her meds for that now too which seems to help her. Basically at every weigh in, I hope she's made the 150-200g recommended gain a week and most weeks she's on the lower end and this week she didn't even reach it. It gives me so much anxiety. I try everything to boost my milk supply and she does have good wet and dirty nappies as well as being happy, active and alert between feeds etc.

We went to a different doctor yesterday who was patient and kind and said she was 'looking for her line'and we would continue to monitor her weight. I'm just so worried that the slow weight gain will turn to a weight loss as she barely takes any formula top up either (between 10-30ml) and screams if we try to make her take more than she wants. She won't drink more than this from a bottle, even if we leave her a bit longer. It's like she just drinks the bare minimum so she doesn't feel hungry :( which breaks my heart.

If anyone has any advice or similar stories, please share for this stressed FTM!

Sounds similar to us although we ended up solely on formula from 13 weeks.

I take it you’ve seen a lactation consultant to check latch etc and tongue tie. Tongue tie is very hard to pick up and missed a lot of times by Dr’s and HV. How many times a day is she breastfeeding? Is it long enough feeds that she’s getting your hind milk?

Id recommend Brewers Yeast to up supply. You can then feed baby breast milk instead of formula if you’d prefer (if you have spare).

Yes we've been observed breast-feeding by a number of lactation consultants and she's been checked for tongue tie by all three of them too. She does get lazy with the latch and so I'm trying to make sure it's a deep latch each time but she often pulls back to a shallow one. We do 20 minutes total feeding 10 each side and sometimes that is a struggle depending on the time of day.

To be honest, I would go full formula for peace of mind and my anxiety but she really doesn't like it and we have changed the brand a few times. We have one she tolerates now but still will only ever drink 30ml of it max at a time. I'm going back to work in a few weeks so it is a worry.

I haven't tried brewers yeast? Did you try this and see a noticeable difference?

My son was almost 5kg at birth and lost weight and didn't get back there for several weeks. I don't recall this being an issue though - I exclusively breast fed and he seemed fine in himself so didn't worry about it. He did start on solids around five months though as he was hungry and ready.

@ChickinMarango did your bubs take easily to the full transition to formula? I wish my baby would drink more she flat out screams if we try to get anymore than 30ml into her.

@tuliplover yes my LO took a few weeks to get back there too but I'm just worried about her slow weight gain since. It's so hard to get any extra formula or expressed breast milk into her.

@bid_90 she did and we went onto kendamil. To be honest I’m so pro breastfeeding and had a horrible rollercoaster with 25/48 bf strikes and I’d think my milk was drying up. I was pumping 20/40 mins after every feed, never responded well to the pump so only getting 8oz in 24 hours.

She was 9lb 3 at birth, dropped to 8lb 4. In my group her weight gain is still slower but it’s getting there and she’s a happy baby. (5 months old on 14th).

I really suffered with my mental health and I think trying to continue to breastfeed for so long affected her appetite because it took a good 3-4 weeks of being formula fed before she started to eat anywhere near the recommended amount. I know every baby is different but it was a worry!

She seems to have plateaued and gone up to 75th centile now (97th at birth). My first did the same and actually went back up to 97th after we introduced solids at six months (still there now at 4 years old).

@bid_90 currently in similar shoes to you with slow weight gain and refusal to drink anything from a bottle. Did your little one’s weight gain improve eventually? Did weaning into solids help too?

@poppet131 hey! Yes it did improve (even though she never really took to taking much formula much!) something seemed to click around the 3 month mark and from then on she gained and nursed really well. To be honest I was doing everything to make sure my milk supply was increasing too so not sure if it was a combination of that and that she finally found her growth curve! I also think I stopped stressing so much and relaxing a bit about it all and that helped heaps. We didn't start solids until 5/6 months so I can't say it was the solids that helped as she was regaining much better long before we started.

If I can give any advice is to do what you can but don't stress too much as they do end up finding their curve themselves so long as they are happy etc!

@bid_90 Thank you, that’s so reassuring. It doesn’t help that my little one is getting fussy with his feeds too. What kinds of things did you to improve your supply? And did your baby end up back at her birth centile or settle at a different one? X

@poppet131 I honestly got so obsessed about it at the time and now looking back I wish I chilled out a bit! When she was born because she was so big she was technically 'of the grid' (so my paed said) but now she is 90th percentile and has been following that curve since 3/4 months. My girl was so fussy with feeds too I remember but it was just a phase but one that felt like it would never end (at the time).

For supply I drank heaps of water, took mothers milk tea (a lot), ate oats everyday and took fenugreek tablets. I definitely think something in that combination worked as it all started to come right.