HV is getting on my nerves.

[TheOceanClub]

So today my DS who is 16m had his weight review. The last time he was weighted when he just turned 12m and his weight was 11.8kg, that’s around 26lbs That time she said he’s off the charts but nothing to worry about.
So today he had his review. First of all she weighted him with all the shoes, nappy and toy in his hands and made him stand up. Obviously every step and every movement he made the weight changed. So at the end she had 12.2kg or 26.8lbs.
Well apparently he’s a bit on the heavy side and we have to keep checking what he’s eating and maybe cut something. She didn’t even checked his hight in comparison to weight. Made me feel a bit shit with her remarks.
TBH I don’t know how tall is he, 80ish sometimes cm. For reference he’s wearing 2-3y size bodysuit because the smaller ones are too short around nappy area. And 12-18m trousers but even then they have a room.
Hes already eating like a bird most of the time so obviously I don’t want to and can’t cut anything.
All I can see is normal toddler IMO.

Oh and now he will have to review his weight every 3 months…

The HV service is optional and you can refuse it. Sadly what has the potential to be a great service very rarely is. Your son is clearly fine, you can tell that by looking at him, and weighing him more is pointless.
My 19mo hasn’t seen an HV since 2 weeks and has never been weighed by one (though the allergy clinic have weighed him) I’m not even entirely sure what he weighs but I can see him and know what he eats, it’s clearly all fine. Some more common sense needs to be applied to these measurements

How is that in any way relevant to my experience of Health Visitors?

my son was 29lb at 12 months and 31lb at 15 months, over the 98th centile. But was also over the 98th for height. He is now a skinny 6ft1 15 year old. Don't worry. He's gonna be a tall boy.

Looks perfect to me, i have 3 kids with a 6'2 dad too and they looked similar to your baby.
These silly charts don't seem to accommodate 'out of normal' ranges , by my 3rd baby i'd got wise to this and felt a lot calmer about things .

He looks really tall for his age, it's pointless them looking at his weight in isolation. I wouldn't see them again until the 2yr check if you haven't got any concerns.

He looks fine op! Ignore it all x

Ignore them - he looks perfectly normal to me. I had this with DS when the school nurse mis read his height which made him obese. They took a year to send me a letter (so they were obviously really worried about it ) and then wouldn't change the height as they thought it unlikely they'd made a mistake.

In the end I sent a pic of him on holiday wearing only Speedo's and that ended the issue.

As pp have said you can opt out of the service. I certainly wouldn't have it again.

@INeedNewShoes I'm glad you had a good experience of HVs and that the utterly shambolic offering in my area is not the norm, but personally the HVs who've seen our family have been appalling. My repeated concerns were ignored, I was written off as a hysterical FTM with MH issues but offered zero support, and when DD1 ended up in hospital due to serious health issues that I had flagged and they had ignored I didn't get so much as an apology.

They then hounded me during DD2s first months insisting that she had the same issues when she absolutely didn't. It was a hellish experience that completely traumatised my whole family, and pretty much everyone in my area has a similar story.

@MolliciousIntent I agree and I had a similar experience. I think they can be power-crazed and prey on unconfident FTMs to justify their existence. My first was alternately overweight and underweight several times over a period of 3 years, which led to the most bizaare array of advice from the HV. It was only when I did the maths that I realised we were talking about less than a centimetre in height either way for his weight to be 'correct'.

You know your child better then they do.

One health visitor told me that my child wasn't born with teeth and I would need to have them surgically removed. At the time he was 3 months old.

I told another this and she was shocked and annoyed.

He's a tall lad!!

be interesting to do his height when he's 2 & see his predicted height!'

I'd refuse further visits. She's clearly as thick as two planks!

Theres the odd good HV, but the vast majority are a liability & shouldn't be anywhere near new mums, or any mums.

Disengage with any and all HV. They are not fit for purpose.

Agreed. One poor experience doesn't apply across the board.

Do you have your chart in the red book?
Weigh him yourself
Measure him yourself

Add the mark to the book.

He looks completely healthy to me.

@MolliciousIntent
It's not relevant to your experience of HVs. I'm curious about your use of language in relation to an entire professional group. So I was interested to know what your profession is?

My eldest was like that. Tall and always 99th percentile for height and weight.

If she hasn’t considered his height, it’s nonsense.

I would measure his height and weight yourself, plot it on the growth charts or calculate his BMI, and then drop an email to the HV service with the inevitably fine results saying “I was concerned that an issue about his weight was raised, so I have measured X &Y, and calculated Z and as this is not a worrying ratio/bmi, I won’t be taking up the offer of more frequent weighing appointments…”.

Just to make the management aware and to cover yourself.

He's fine! He looks like my son did at that age, broad shoulders and quite tall for his age but definitely not fat.

Health visitors are a nightmare so don't get pulled in.

Nothing particularly exciting I assure you, a very standard office job.

You don't have to keep seeing the HV, its optional. I'm surprised that you can see one tbh, they're like gold dust in my area.
If you're not happy with how the HV weighed him then do it yourself. Plot his weight in the red book, then do his height and compare the centiles.
Saying that, he looks a very healthy lad. I totally get where you're coming from as my DS1 was off the chart for height and weight at that age and some of the advice given at the time was, well........questionable.
It sounds like you're doing a grand job op. Their weight and appetites are not linear and they do fluctuate as they have growth spurts.

Our HV was excessively hung up on weighing and measuring too. Your little boy is clearly not fat, and you can decline the re-weighing visits if you don’t agree there’s a problem.

Not all HVs are morons obviously........... but all (bar one) of the ones I saw were. Lots of inappropriate advice. Endlessly not actually listening to what I was saying. A particular memory was the one who wouldnt stop telling me to feed my son jarred food because it doesnt contain salt - she was convinced that the food I was preparing for him from scratch would have salt. Jarred food clearly better than made at home.

Your ds looks fine op I wouldnt worry. Hes clearly tall so his weight is appropriate given his height.

He looks completely fine, totally lovely. Ignore idiotic HV.

Why are you having him weighed?

He looks identical to my son! It's the height that skews their ratio. He's absolutely fine but often mistaken for 2/3 year old

I had the same with my lad, who is mixed race. A friend told me that black kids tend to be on the heavier side of the curve and Asian kids on the other, but they don't tell you that!