12 week old baby weight loss - help

[gimeallthecake]

I'm not sure if this is the right thread. I'm going through a really really stressful period in my life right now and as a result it's affected my milk supply. I'm EBF. My 12 week old baby has gone from being in the 95th percentile for weight to the 5th and I'm absolutely devastated.
I feed on demand, take motilium and flaxseed meal and oats.
Is there anything else I can do to make sure I can continue breastfeeding and get his weight up? How do I know he's getting enough?

Your health visitor should have picked up on this and have put a plan in place? Contact your health visitor and also your local breastfeeding network. Good luck xx

How do you know your milk supply has been affected? Is it just because of the decline in percentiles or something else? Drink plenty of water and try pumping. Milk comes on a supply and demand basis, so the more milk you extract, the more will be produced.

Ok. Your baby isn't losing weight. They are gaining, but very, very slowly and more slowly than they should.

The recommendation is that if a baby crosses more than 2 centile lines they should have a paediatric referral to rule out any underlying health problems which may cause slow growth.

Are you able to get some face to face breastfeeding support to check that your baby is extracting milk effectively? Also, investigating tongue function would be a good idea. If a baby is tongue tied they can struggle to remove milk from the breast.

@dannydyerismydad thanks for your reply: ok that's some consolation that they're still gaining weight. My health nurse has given me a month to rectify the issue. But I can't control the outside stress - going through a very nasty separation through the courts with my ex. I've made lactation cookies and I've always breastfeed on demand. Is there any other way I can get my supply up?

@FTMF30 I've tried feeding more, I'm struggling to fit in pumping as I'm a single mom of 3 and two are u are under 2. So I don't have a lot of time or hands to actually pump ☹️

Op is there a reason you aren’t supplementing with formula? That’s a very dangerous trend on your baby’s weight. 12 week old babies are supposed to grow and grow. I am astonished at the casual attitude of the posters above. A baby plummeting percentiles like this is not a good thing. Do you know the signs of dehydration? You can still continue to breastfeed in parallel with formula supplements, there is no problem at all with that. Exclusive breastfeeding is clearly not the best thing for your baby right now. I would strongly suggest supplementing and careful monitoring of weight. I am sorry you are having such a stressful time in your lift. I know what it is like to over-focus on the EBF message. But right now, EBF is not the best for your baby. I expect to get excoriated by ardent BF folk for this post but I really think a judicious supplementary formula use is called for here. Best wishes, and congratulations on your baby.

@sycamore54321 I am sitting breastfeeding my baby just now and totally agree with you.

As much as I support ebf, that is a concerning drop across the percentiles and I'm very very surprised you haven't been given more support than just "fix this in a month". Were you referred to anyone? Given any advice?

I would get an appointment with a lactafion consultant tout de suite and also start supplementing with formula. If the situation stabilises and your milk seems to be sufficient in future you can always drop the supplements again.

Please, please go see someone else about this.
Whilst your baby is gaining weight, it is much much slower than would be expected, and your baby needs checking out to ensure there is nothing serious underlying affecting weight gain.
In the mean time, start a bottle feed a number of times a day. Thus can be formula or pumped milk.
Getting your baby to maintain his current percentile line, and not drop any further is much more important than ebf.

Is he alert, and happy after feeds?

You need to start feeding before he demands food, and offer 2/3/4/5 sides each feed. Or offer both sides, and then top up on formula. So, longer feeds, if he will rake them, and offer more often. You basically need to be getting more milk into him, and arranging a medical appointment.

No I haven't been offered much more advise apart from lactation cookies 🤔 I live in a country where it is extremely hard to get formula due to on selling to China.

Since I found out about his weight I've pretty must had him at the breast non stop. He's a happy little baby and mostly alert through out the Day babbling and chatting. Not overly sleepy and his fontanelle** has never been depressed. He has loads of wet and poopy nappies. I'm so worried about him.

Should I bring him to the doctor? I realise I must come across as really ignorant in my post I'm open to bottle feeding and don't want my baby to come to any harm.

Was there anything significant about his birth or your pregnancy? Was he expected to be large at birth?

If formula is very hard to get then there must be donor milk available, either in the form of pumped milk or wetnurses. What country is it?

You can try "power pumping" to up your supply as well. Has baby ever been checked for tongue tie?

And yes I'd take him to the doctor if you haven't been. If he generally seems a content and alert baby they may not be able to tell you anything useful, but there's a chance there is an underlying factor of some kind that hasn't been picked up.

Yes, go see someone other than the person who has given you a month to sort it out. Imagine drawing that line currently, and carrying it across to 4 months, baby will be way under the chart.

Are you just restricted to a tin at a time, from behind a counter. Or is formula just not available, even at the pharmacy? If you are continuing to breastfeed, you shouldn't need too much formula. Might those small quantities be possible to source? I can see why you are keen to continue bf in a place where formula is restricted, but at the moment, it isn't working for your baby.

I'm in Australia.His face does come out in a rash when I feed him like dermatitis so maybe it's a reaction to what I'm eating🧐

I hadn't thought of that as I tend to end the same things most days. But maybe it's my diet affecting him as he has very lose stools and I did ask a midwife around a month ago and she said it's normal for breastfed babies but I felt it was runnier than normal. I'm going to book the doctor tomorrow and get some peace of mind.

I'm so glad I asked now and for all your feedback. I wasn't sure was I being overly anxious but it seems im not. I wasn't really comfortable with waiting a month and not knowing if it was getting better or not. And it's a massive drop in weight. He was a large baby fat birth.

He hasn't lost weight. He's just gaining slowly, much more slowly than would be expected. Try not to panic just yet. You do need to get on top of it and make sure he is healthy and getting what he needs, but he isn't losing.

If you're in Australia then you will definitely be able to get formula, there must be plenty of parents exclusively formula feeding by choice.

The rash does make me think cows milk protein allergy may be an issue, or another sensitivity. Get thee to a doctor and see.

Agree with sycamore54321, as someone who ebfd for the first 6 months and still bfs nearly 3 years on. You need to be supplementing with formula.

@CountessVonBoobs yeah you're right I can get it, it's just super hard. With my daughter I had to travel to four seperate stores before I could get a store that had her formula and even then couldn't stock up as there's a limit on how many you can buy.

If I top up with formula, when is the best time to offer it to him? His night feed? What if he refused to take a bottle? I hope I haven't left it too late for him to take one.

Also should I wake him every two hours at night to feed to help get his weight up?

Please do see the doctor as you plan. I think you have been let down by your midwives/health visitor. A doctor will best placed to do a full review of the baby’s health and advise a plan. You can always continue to breastfeed during this period and formula is additional, and if you wish, when the immediate issue is corrected, you could look at moving back to BF only. But that is for further down the line. The priority now is to get that bang growing. Also, a doctor can check just in case it’s not a breastfeeding issue and is some sort of rare health problem with the baby - I really hope it’s not and it would be very unlikely, but the doctor is best placed to rule this out.

(Slightly off topic but that is horrifying to think of living in a place where adequate quantities of formula are not available. I strongly believe access to formula is both a feminist and child rights issue.)

@sycamore54321 if I supplement and his weight goes up can I revert to EBF or should I continue supplementing?

I know I must come across as seeming obsessed with wanting to continue EBF but I absolutely love it. I love the bond and the quiet time together doing it. This most likely will be my last baby and I want to David every last moment of it 💕

Just saw your other post. When I supplemented my babies, due to jaundice and other issues, the advice was to offer as much formula as the baby would take after every single breastfeed. At 12 weeks, I’d guess you could offer maybe two or three ounces to start? And increase that if the baby is draining the bottle. The baby won’t take too much - if it does, it will simply spit it up a few minutes later, but this way you will know for sure he is sated. Obviously if your doctor advises something differently, do that instead.

If you want to prioritise pumping also, you could get a hands-free pumping bra (or cut holes in an old sports bra) and pump while you supplement. But honestly, I never found pumping effective in increasing my own milk supply so personally I wouldn’t bother. But you might find it works for you.

@sycamore54321 oh sorry I must have been typing my question and you'd written your reply hahah so sorry about that!

Thanks so much for your feedback. I really appreciate it. I'll defo check with my doctor. And I've already reached out to my post natal midwife again to see if she can think of anything else to help.

Yeah getting formula is a real issue here due to on selling formula to China. People back home don't often believe how difficult it can be.

mobile.abc.net.au/news/2018-04-26/daigou-chinese-personal-shopping-$1-billion-industry/9671012

Honestly, whether you can fully return to EBF, I don’t know. If you previously had a flourishing adequate milk supply, before the shock of your stressful period, then it’s probably entirely possible. If like me you’d always had low supply, then maybe it’s harder. But once I got over my (entirely unjustified) feeling of failure, I realised I was perfectly happy doing mixed feeding and carried on for many more months. I made some half-hearted attempts at pumping regimes and doing all the things they say to do to up my supply and then realised for me, it wasn’t worth it. But you might well have a different outcome and particularly if you’d previously had plenty of milk and only had a supply issue when you had huge stress.

I have never heard anyone who bottle feeds say that they don’t have bonding and closeness and quiet times with their baby. You can still get all of these things no matter how you feed your baby. There is a horribly insidious message that breastfeeding = bonding, with the implication of not BF means less no bonding. It is absolute nonsense and hurtful with it.

Plus remember that any decisions now only apply for now. You and your medical advisors can reassess and adjust plans in a week/a month/three months. The only thing that is an absolute is that you cannot continue to have your baby drop centiles without medical attention. Get that sorted as the immediate priority and you buy time to try lots of other things. Continuing EBF without medical supervision/advice in our specific circumstances will likely lead to problems. So I’m very glad you are seeking help. Get the baby piling on weight now, and sort the exclusive breastfeeding issue out in time if you still want to.

Best of luck with it all.