Baby weight gain 8 months - should I be concerned?

[MyCatReallyIsAGit]

I’m going to preface this by saying that I would not be worried at all if I hadn’t seen the scales, as DS appears happy, healthy and very alert!

DS2 is almost 8 months old. I’ve been weighing him at home (him naked, holding him, then weighing myself and working out the difference) on maybe a monthly basis since lockdown began. I realised last night that he hasn’t gained any weight for over 2 months. He appears to be the same weight that he was in early July. I am sure he’s grown and I thought he felt heavier so am really surprised.

He was born on the 75th centile and went up to the 91st. He was actually slightly above the 91st in July and now appears to be back on the 75th.

Weaning is going well, he has 3 meals a day and eats lots, high-calorie stuff too (full fat cheese, yogurt, meat, etc). Plenty of wet/dirty nappies, breastfed on demand and the odd bottle of formula, he feeds a lot at night still. He’s been crawling for over a month.

I certainly expected weight gain to slow as he moved onto solids and started crawling but should I worry about no weight gain?

Hi op, it's really difficult to tell weighing them yourself, at least that's what I have found! Is he in bigger clothes than he was 2 months ago?

Do you get on the scale, note it down and then hold him without getting off, or do you weigh yourself, get off and try again with him? I can't remember which way around it was, but I found once that one way said he'd lost weight and the other seemed more accurate, showing a gain; I knew he couldn't have lost weight as he was visibly bigger and had gone up a size in clothes.

Hopefully the weigh clinic will be open soon?? Xx

Is he taking less milk? NHS advice is to move to 3 meals a day after 9 months as food has fewer calories than milk so he may not be getting enough.

Your HV can drop off scales on your door step for you to take into the house and weigh him and then you can return the scales back to the door step.

Hi, have been weighing myself, getting off, then back on with him. Probably not the best method! I will try the other way and see if there’s a difference. I did plonk him on our scales by himself last night as well, which brought the same figure up.

I know by 9 months they should be on 3 meals but I’ve not seen anything to suggest they shouldn’t be before then? I’ve just been following his lead really. He is very interested in food and his reflux has definitely eased off, though he still brings up milk sometimes.

I did wonder if he was feeding more at night because of not getting enough milk in the day, though he’s also teething.

I’m pretty sure he still takes significant amounts of milk, though his intake may have dropped slightly. He still feeds first thing, either side of/during his morning and afternoon naps, early evening and throughout the night. He certainly wouldn’t go more than 3 hours without a breastfeed being offered, even if he wasn’t very interested. I’m trying to offer more milk in the day this week to see if it eases the night waking.

Do you think I need to speak to the HV? We’ve had no contact since his 6 week appointment - we never made it to clinic as they’d all closed by then.

I’m just puzzled because he feels heavier and I’m sure he’s grown!

Hi OP, your DS sounds absolutely fine!
By all means speak to the HV if you feel you need to but they weren’t very helpful with my weight concerns for my DD.
From my NCT groups all babies were on 3 meals a day before 9 months so I think you’re doing fine there too.
I bought some baby scales from amazon for £20- is that something you’d consider?

I think once they start moving around more they gain much less quickly. dd was born 7lb 15oz and gained quickly in the first few months, she was 11lbs odd by 10 weeks. but now she's dropped right down to 25th centile. Shes only 24lbs now and shes 2. But im not concerned as long as shes eating and she has grown since start of lockdown, albeit slowly.