14 week old weight

[Irishgirl55]

Has anyone else not had baby weighed since 5 days post birth due to Covid? I feel like as a ftm we missed out on all postnatal checks and are totally in the dark as to how my little on is progressing

I had a 10 day weigh in, but no weigh in at his 6 week check up, the doctor asked if I’d had him weighed (they ask you to do it where the health visitor is a day or so before) but of course they were closed and the HV said on the phone that they can do it at GP practice, but the doctor never made any moves to when I explained this 🤷🏼‍♀️
We weigh him after a bath using our scales and measure him but I’d love more accurate data for sure as I don’t trust how we’re doing it. So yeah I understand the situation but agree as a FTM I feel a bit nervous if he’s ok or not, even though according to the red book, he’s roughly following the same percentile line with our measurements

Mine was weighed at his 8 week vaccinations (and I assume will be again at the 12 week ones).

My GP surgery are in such a rush with the vaccinations, there’s barely time to breath before they escort you out and call in the next baby. My son is 20 weeks and not been weighed at any of his three injection appointments either.

@BouncyTigger85 mine is the exact same. At his 8 week one they checked his hips and eyes etc... but when I asked his weight they said they weren’t doing it as it involved more touching, time and undressing the baby. I’m not overly concerned or anything, it would just be nice to know if he’s progressing well.

We've been weighing baby at home, he's older but was under a consultant for 'failure to thrive' (dropped from 98th to under 9th centile). Haven't heard from the hospital or HV since March so I step on the scales and weigh myself then step on with naked baby and the difference is his weight.

You can plot it in the red book easily- it's been satisfying for us as he's back to 91st 😳

So pubs and bars can open from next month but GPs and HVs can’t weigh a baby? Some surgeries aren’t even doing the baby’s six week checks in person anymore apparently - it’s all done over the phone. My surgery recently took 4 weeks to register my baby because of increased work load due to Covid. What increased work load - they’re not doing any face to face appointments! It’s getting silly now.

Do you have any adult scales? I used to stand on them without DS, then with him and work out the difference. Not the most accurate, and it's shameful that new babies are not able to access their checks, but it might give you a rough idea.

My 13 week old hasnt been weighed since his 6 week check up. He'd dropped a bit, and because he was born on the 95th centile the HV put him on a 'healthy weight pathway' for extra monitering. When I asked what that entailed I was told that he'd just be weighed more, except the weigh in clinics have all stopped. So my sons on a fictional healthy weight pathway.

DS was weighed at our 7 day check and 10 day discharge appt (which was actually at 18 days). We had 6 week check and 8 week jabs bundled in together at 9 weeks (yesterday) and the gp and nurse were really thorough and no worries about touching baby too much at all which was a change from the last couple of appointments. Bloody scales weren't working though!!

We've bought some luggage scales from amazon and we weigh the car seat, zero out the scales then pop baby in the seat and weigh him that way. We've done it once a week and he's steadily following the 70th line so I think it's fairly accurate. We sometimes get on the bathroom scales with him and it's usually roughly the same.

I absolutely furious about how maternity and post natal services have been cut but of course I understand why so can't actually be furious AT anyone which makes it worse

I have to say I didn't find the weighing myself then myself + baby to be accurate at all, based on my trying it versus the weight he was at his 8 week appointment.

@Persipan I was the same. I tried it with baby but it’s wildly inaccurate (works out he’s only put on a lb and by the heaviness of him I know it’s definitely more than that 😂).

I had an over the phone appointment about 2 weeks after I got home from the health visitor and hasn’t heard from them since... baby also isn’t registered as they all shut too!

we only had two visits after one and two weeks. we weigh him at home and track in the red book. he was weighed at his 8 week check up too

I demanded (nicely!) that the Nurse weighed him at the 16 week imms appointment. I told them that it was causing me a lot of worry as normally he would have been weighed and they didn't do it at his 12 week despite me asking!

It took about 30 seconds max. I did the undressing and put him on the scales.

Our 8 week check up was very thorough though and I think it is awful if you don't even get a basic physical check as they check hips, mouth etc too! Our surgery use one room for babies only and full PPE.

It's unfortunate whats going on with the nhs right now. My daughter is under a couple different consultants for different things, and the lack of communication has been terrible.
One thing I've learnt is if you need something, or you have any concerns you've just got to be proactive right now and reach out to them instead of waiting for them to reach out to you.

@Irishgirl55 mine has been registered... via Microsoft Teams!

Worth calling HV to ask.

In my mum group there is a mixture of home visits, door step weighing, borrowing of scales etc. I know I call mine and she invited me to an afternoon clinic that is by appointment only.

I’ve not found weighing my baba too inaccurate to be honest.. I stand on the scales & check 3 times for an accurate weight. Then hold my DD & sane again. When my DD has been weighed twice at the docs, it’s been bang on!

The exact weight is not too important. Your scales won’t give a wildly inaccurate weight. So long as baby is plotting on a similar trajectory on the weight chart & not seemingly loosing weight.

Registrations have started again in my local council. Annoyingly DD was born in a hospital under a different council who haven’t 😩