Someone tell me this amount of weight loss is impossible.

[Writerwannabe83]

I need a reality check and for everyone to tell me I'm being ridiculous!!

DS is 8 weeks old. Born at 8lbs 7oz but lost 9% of his weight within 48 hours and his weight on discharge was 7lb 11oz.

He put weight on really well, got back to his birth weight pretty quickly and as a general rule has put on between 6-8 oz a week. He once put 10oz on in one week. He is between the 50th-75th centile lines.

He was weighed last Wednesday and his weight gain in that previous week had only been 3oz. I don't know if this is ok but I do know it's a lot lower than his normal gain.

This morning my mom came to visit us with a surprise present which was some baby scales??? I have absolutely no idea why she bought them!

She wanted to see DS on them so I felt like we had to indulge her so as not to appear ungrateful and the reading it gave says DS has lost weight. According to these scales my DS now weighs a whole Kilo less than he did 5 days ago

Now my brain knows that a baby can't lose that much weight in such a short time (1 kilo=2.2lbs=32oz) but I'm still feeling edgy due to his previous reduced weight gain.

My DH has told me 100 times that the baby scales are wrong - but can they be? Surely when designed to weigh babies, for which accurate readings are necessary for lots of reasons, can they really be wrong by a whole kilogram??

This is why it's important to weigh on the same scales each time. Different scales are calibrated differently, and can have a fair amount of variance. So I don't think your baby can have lost that much (if any) weight.

I imagine if you weigh your ds on the new scales in a couple of weeks you will see a weight gain in line with what you have seen previously. Please don't weigh your ds more frequently than weekly as it will drive you mad!

I'd say definitely wrong. Also at 8w you don't need to get weighed every week. Every 4 weeks should be fine now as otherwise it can cause you to worry as growth comes in spurts (well my 14w old has)

Unless the scale has been checked by a Trading Standards Officer (weights and measures), you cannot assume that it is correct.

My BIL is a TSO and when he checked my bathroom scales they were over 15lbs out!

Try weighing yourself on your own scales and then with your baby in your arms. Take one reading from the other to give you a better idea of how much your baby weighs - but this won't be accurate enough to weigh in ounces. Only use one set of scales.

Thanks everyone, I think my mom thought she was buying us a nice gift, but I really can't work out why she thought we'd want some.

DS has been weighed every two weeks of late due to me having problems with my breast feeding and DS having repeated episodes of diarrhoea and vomiting. He is next seeing the HV this Wednesday whose scales he is routinely checked on so I guess I can put my stupid worries to one side until then

Step away from the scales. Maybe they'll sell on Ebay?

Wha'ts the output like in the nappies? Can't go out if it didn't go in.

He's having lots of wet nappies. No poo since Saturday night but boy was that one an explosion!!

I'm going to tell my mom the scales aren't accurate and to return them

That's good; breastfeeding babies do that once in a while then huge explosion pattern; it's handy in a lot of ways.

What a terrible present!

Talk about creating unnecessary and unhelpful anxiety.

I know, lol

The ironic thing is that as part of my job I have a set of baby scales that I keep in my boot and a month before my baby was born I purposefully went into work (I was signed off sick) to hand them in because I KNEW that if I had them in my possession when DS arrived I'd be constantly weighing him and getting stressed about things!!

I was so happy that I'd managed to hand my own scales in, despite a little part of me wanting to keep them to monitor weight, so I can't believe I now have some staring me in the face anyway!! I have wrapped them back up in the cellophane wrapping, put them back in the box and intend to leave them there!!

Take then back and buy something actually useful! I had two sets of babyscales for dd1, total waste of money.

I'm off to visit my mom this afternoon and I know she will ask how I'm getting on with the scales. I will just be honest with her, tell her that I'm getting DS weighed on Wednesday by the HV and if there is a discrepancy then she should return the scales and get a refund!!

Or get a refund anyway, as her gift is triggering anxiety for you and in another 6 weeks you'll be completely relaxed about the weight gain so wasted money. if you say it nicely, but x would be really useful...sure she'll understand.

Just got back from seeing the HV and DS weighs 12lb 3oz, not 9lb 4oz like my mom's scales said. A whole 3lb discrepancy - that's insane.

I have told her to return them

Check them with a bag of sugar- 500grms will soon know if they are right or wrong!

Just remember too that babies can still not put on weight and still be thriving. I worried myself silly because DS didn't put on any weight at all between months 3 and 4. He was just a very active little baby who burnt off the calories with his prolific kicking