Baby weight

[RaeRaeMama]

My anxiety is through the roof

I posted the other day so sorry to post again but I can't sleep and feeling overwhelmed

Health visitor came yesterday my baby is 7 weeks, my baby hasn't been weighed in three weeks but she has only gained 9oz

She was born at a good weight 8lb4 and recovered her 4% weight loss quickly

She has dropped from the 50th percentile to the 25th

The HV didn't seem concerned at all. But everything I'm reading is telling me it's not enough.

I just feel so upset and I don't know what to do for the best. She's been exclusively breastfed since birth and we haven't been able to get her to take a bottle of expressed milk so far, despite trying with me out the room etc

I don't know what I'm expecting you all to tel me. My mother and partner keep saying I'm worrying about nothing, but my partner hasn't read anything about breastfeeding and my mother knows zero about it. She's one of those people that say "she can't be hungry again". But I'm reading that she should be gaining 7oz a week at this age.

Please someone help me, I don't know what to do

OK, first of all stop panicking

The HV isn't worried. That's a very good sign.

Is your baby having plenty of wet nappies? If so, she's doing well, and so are you with the breastfeeding.

Babies vary in the weight they gain per week. Sometimes it's a lot, sometimes only a couple of ounces. They can hop up and down centiles for a while too. As long as there are plenty of wet nappies and your baby is reasonably content (as content as a newborn can be, anyway!) she's almost certainly doing just fine.

You're doing great

My baby was 8lb8, and 53cm. So whatever % that made him but it was higher up. He gradually has settled at a lower % over the few months.
I’m not particularly tall etc and midwife said that babies are often born larger now due to nutrition in womb but actually then settle for a different growth curve according to their genetics as they grow

I really wouldn't worry. Stop reading the books and making comparisons. Formula fed babies are going to be bigger and heavier which will make your BF fed baby lighter by comparison pushing the weight down the percentiles

Trust your own job instincts. Does baby seem alert, happy, sleep well, wee a lot? That's all that matters

In a few weeks you will have moved on to a different reason to worry

I remember my nephew being really low weight in the charts. Caused endless worry to his mum. Now he's a teenager and a giant

Try not worry. In my experience HV’s err on the side of caution so if they are not worried then that is a good sign. It’s also a good sign that she recovered her birth weight. Failing to do that is what gets HV’s worried. But changing percentiles is not unusual. The key thing is consistency. So if she now stays around the 25th percentile that is her actual percentile, not the one she was born on. My third baby was big and on the 90th percentile but he dropped down to the 50th pretty quickly and then stayed there. As others have said, wet nappies are the important thing in knowing the baby is getting enough. It can be hard with breastfeeding your first time (understatement!). And nwith others around you who don’t know about it either it’s easy to worry that the baby isn’t getting enough food. My dad was fixated on the idea it was better to bottle feed so that you could see the milk going in and know how much the baby has had. But he loves data and that’s not how babies work. It sounds like you are well established with the feeding and it’s going well. Feeding a lot at this stage (and I mean a LOT) is totally normal and not a sign that your baby is not getting enough. It’s just how it goes in the early stages but can seem strange to those not familiar with it that another feed can often be the answer to every cry. They will space out though and shorten over time. Also, re the growth charts, try not to fixate on them. My mum in law is a breastfeeding expert and told me time and again how the growth charts are based on formula fed babies which tend to gain weight a little faster. So being lower down on them as a breastfed baby is not a bad thing. Finally, a low percentile doesn’t mean the baby is underfed or struggling, they are just on the smaller side as a person. My daughter was always on the very low side of growth charts and is still petite age 8 but totally within normal range when you see her with her classmates. I’m not 100% sure but I believe that organisations like La Leche League have helplines if you need more advice.

Have you had them checked for a tongue tie OP? It probably isn’t but this does sound similar to what I went through with my first.
They were very slow to gain weight/lost the odd oz here and there. This was pre COVID so I was able to have them weighed regularly and see the HV and breastfeeding HV regularly. Despite this and the keeping on telling me that dc was fine, they did have a tongue tie which was picked up as soon as I went to a breastfeeding consultant at a baby matters clinic and had it snipped. The difference was amazing and dc soon picked up her growth curve again and started to put on weight.
HV and gps have surprising little breastfeeding training so you are better going to a trained person. Mine was free, it was drop in and donation only and was so lovely!
The only issue was that by the time it was picked up, I was past the 8 week cut off for having it down free on the nhs so I had to pay to go private.
Worth checking out even if it is not one, if it puts your mind at rest it is worth it!