6 month old losing weight

[redshinycushion]

Just want some advice as to whether I'm worrying unnecessarily...

DD is just over 6m (28 weeks). She was 3.5kg at birth and has been on about the 28th percentile ever since. She's tall (95th percentile) so is long and skinny! She's exclusively breastfed: we've started BLW but are still on the tasting stage rather than taking in any real amounts of calories or nutrients.

I weighed her a three weeks ago and she's reached 7kg which was great. I weighed her again tonight though and she's somewhere between 6.8kg-7kg (depending on which scale reading you take: I was worried by the first one of 6.8kg so redid it - have used the same scale every time).

She's been a bit ill for a few days but not vomiting (a cough/cold thing) and I haven't noticed her feeds diminishing. Other than being ill she seems ok in herself - she never sleeps through the night and always feeds at least twice between 10.30pm - 6am.

I don't really want to go see the HV in case she starts trying to make me supplement with formula (no offence but I don't like the stuff, plus DD won't take a bottle so it'd be pointless to try!), but I'm a bit worried.

My diet's not great to be honest: I exercise quite a bit and probably don't eat enough, but I've been like this throughout her life and it hasn't been a problem so far and I've never had reason to worry.

Should I worry now or am I over reacting?

Thanks

Not an expert, but two thoughts: one is that dd2 lost weight at this age as she needed more calories (rapid growth at this stage, apparently) but wouldn't take food from a spoon - so purely BLW and no purees etc. That does tend to slow things down, so she lost weight - HV told us to feed her more often, high calorie foods, anything she fancied, and by 7 months she was eating pasta with meat sauce, banana, bread, pizza crusts, baby biscuits, etc. It helped, and by 9 months she was gaining weight normally.

The other thought is that, as your dd is bigger now and needing more calories, it would help to eat richer foods and exercise less for a while - till she's eating herself and less reliant on your intake, for example? "throughout her life' is really her very little babyhood, and she's moving on to a new phase now - needs lots of energy to grow and start sitting then crawling etc!

Hi Redshiny,

I think you have diagnosed yourself. Your baby, at 7kg, is going to need at least 600 calories/day, at a very minimum. That means you have to supplement a normal healthy diet with more than that. If you are exercising a lot, then you will probably be needing around 3,000/day to be healthy and have enough for your baby. I am guessing you are not eating nearly enough.

Focus on exercising sensibly, rather than excessively and making sure you have a balanced diet with enough calories and enough micronutrients (especially calcium as you are bfing).