Reaction to "you know your baby best"/unclear answers from HCPs

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Hi,

I have often wondered if I might be neurodiverse in some way, but have never spoken to someone professionally about it as don't want to waste their time/be told I am being ridiculous and am just shy/anxious etc. I have been told I have anxiety and am on meds, just for background.

I had my first child this year and a few times in interactions with HCPs/the healthcare system I have had reactions or experiences that made me feel a bit odd or unusual and part of me wonders if it could be a sign of ND or just my own personal quirks/issues, so would appreciate your thoughts.

Essentially, I have struggled when I ask questions and get told, "what do you think mum" or "you know your baby best" when I am looking for a straight answer. It really bothers me as I feel like, no you are the expert, why can't you just give me some guidance, even if caveated because I understand you can't always know 100%.

Examples:

• I thought I had reduced movement when pregnant and after going in a few times they wanted to induce. I understand why but they kept asking me what I thought and what I wanted to do based on what I could feel and as I knew the baby best. I had a bit of a freakout as I felt I was being pushed to make a big decision (that I was afraid to get wrong) based only on my anxiety rather than medical knowledge, any tests etc. It felt incredible that no one could be more accurate with all our medical advances. Eventually a doctor did say, look it probably was anxiety prompting my thoughts of reduced movement but it was better to get the baby out just in case, since I was at full term, which helped a lot.

• I struggled with breastfeeding and the baby didn't return to birth weight in time. I found I couldn't get straight answers on lots of things, but especially around how much formula to give Vs trying to breastfeed and I struggled a lot with the fact I couldn't tell how much he was getting from breast milk and there was no "magic formula"/black and white answer to work out what to do.

• Today I was asking our health visitor about when to start reducing milk when weaning and again it was, "use your instincts", "you know his signs", and similar. And I felt like no I don't, or how can I be sure? It feels like their answer is try reducing and see if he "starves"/loses weight which feels wrong and like there should be a better way.

I think I have struggled with the reaction to my request for clearer answers and this sense that I am weird for being so fixated on this/unable to shake it off. It has really been bothering me so would love to know if anyone sees anything familiar in it or if it is just unrelated/anxiety/black and white thinking.

Thanks

This is a very ND familiar way of communicating! Lucy Ruddle has been writing about this recently actually.

You could say something like "Sorry, I understand that there won't be one right answer. But if you were me, what would you do?" That should give you a clearer starting point.

Or "Sorry, I understand there won't be one right answer. But I'm struggling a bit to find a starting point. Can you give me a suggestion?"

For medical decisions/advice I tend to run through the BRAIN acronym which I was taught in antenatal classes and ask questions based on each aspect.

Benefits - what are the benefits of this course of action?
Risks - what are the risks? Are there any risks?
Alternatives - are there other options? What are the risks/benefits of those?
Immediate* - do we need to act now? When would you say we should act by?
Nothing - what would happen if we don't do anything?

(Star on immediate because it's meant to stand for instinct, but instinct is the bit I'm struggling with so I changed it.)

I don't always ask them in order. I find that usually the Risk and Nothing questions are the most helpful, but Immediate can be a good one too.

For weaning BTW - I would aim to keep milk the same until they are really established on 3 meals per day. When you first start weaning, they only really have little tastes. Then as time goes on, they will eat more and more, and often be less likely to request milk feeds. Are you feeding totally on demand ie only when baby seems to want it, or do you have a rough schedule?

Very rough rule of thumb would be to keep milk the same until ~9 months and then look to reduce it so they are having just morning and bedtime feed and perhaps one in the day if you feed to sleep for naps by 12 months. But they can really vary so if your LO seems to want something which is different that's usually OK.

Thanks so much for this! It's really helpful to have a clear set of "rules" as I find it keeps me from thinking I am doing everything wrong and is much more helpful than the health visitor reply which was more focused on him not liking food which wasn't my actual concern.

I think from a weight perspective it makes sense to keep bottles as usual + food for a bit longer, since he dipped slightly at his last weigh-in and is hitting the crawling stage where they burn more calories anyway.

We are doing bottles on schedule as 1. formula feeding and also because 2. my brain can't really cope with the vagaries of "on demand" to be honest - with the odd extra bottle if he wakes during the night and can't be settled.

Thanks again!

Oh then you might like this table we were given - I had my second and third babies in Germany and I liked the idea of introducing one meal at a time and letting it take over a milk feed. I didn't ever feed to a schedule (I am the opposite - more ADHD) so I'm not sure how many milk feeds would be usual at ~6 months but I thought it was good anyway. It's fairly self explanatory - the numbers at the top are months, and the rows are times of day (morning/midmorning/lunch/afternoon/evening) but if you need a translation let me know :)

(Sorry about the boobs, I did think they were white droplets initially!)

Ah it's great to have it visual in front of me like that - will draw out my own versions to get my head around it!

I don't like schedules really, and struggle to stick with it, but I don't feel I can trust myself to read his signals and am kind of shite at remembering to feed and water myself, especially when I am busy/engaged so having some sort of structure feels safer not to mess up. I find I alternate between wanting a set way to do things so things can be done "properly" and then failing to follow those, and feeling bad that I have failed. So bits of autism descriptions resonate and then ADHD bits too, so it's confusing.