HV saying DD is overweight AGAIN.

[Dipsydoodlenoodle]

Been to get my 8 month old DD weighed at the Health Visitor clinic...and feeling like a complete and utter failure.

This is the 3rd or 4th time they've told me that she's overweight.

She still will not entertain BLW -
she doesn't even put any toy in her mouth (soft ones occasionally, but that's it) - she's more than happy to be fed (anything) but HV said feed an ice cube amount per meal (3 x per day) then moaned she was still having milk. A friend (same HVs) was told to keep feeding her baby food until he turned away!

It's just so frustrating that they say one thing and then another...and keep telling me DD is fat. We go to baby class with babies that have rolls on their rolls...yet we are the fat ones :(

She is 98th centile for weight and 99.5th centile for height.

I'm just having a moan as yes she's heavy...but she's also tall but they solely focus on weight and take no notice of anything else. DD was born on the 9th centile which adds to their argument - DD was measuring small so I was induced early as she wasn't growing, but again they don't take any of this into consideration, just that shes shot from the 9th centile to the 98th :( . I just feel that they don't look at the bigger picture.

Sorry, just feeling low about it and needed a rant.

My DD looked like she'd been blown up with a bicycle pump at that age. She was 97th centile and had proper rolls and creases. Ever since she started walking she settled down and now aged 9 is a very healthy weight and perfectly fit.

The HV moaned an eight month old was still having milk? Jesus.

Ignore the silly HV OP sounds like your baby is happy, healthy and delightful. If you're worried about subsequent visits and have a good GP I'd be tempted to book an appt with he GP just to get her weighed there so you can basically say f* you to the next HV who moans. GP's are senior to HV and I'm sure your GP will say DD us absolutely fine. In terms of weaning food is just complementary until 12 months to introduce flavours/textures etc. So baby still relies on milk but tries a wide variety of foods alongisde this. All babies are different when it comes to food, some get it really quickly and are having a roast dinner soon enough and others take longer. Don't fret if your little one takes a bit longer to get used to food, 9 months is still small. Just offer a variety and she will get there. Milk should still be the main sauce of nourishment. ( As WHO guidelines state, which HV should be aware of! )

Take Care, you got this 🤩

*8 months!

Please stop going and stop worrying about it. When I was a FTM my health visitor drove me mad with the opposite problem that DS1 was underweight. He was big at birth but was 2 weeks late and sort of evened out as the months went on. Both DH and I are quite small so I don't think he was ever going to stay on the 99th centile.

She kept going on about her charts and refusing to actual just look at DS who was healthy, all in proportion and an early mover. He's a strapping 16yr old now and sometimes wish I could tell the old me to just ignore her. So please ignore yours for me!

And of course she should be having milk at 8 months.

Just stop going!! Why put yourself through this. I've never had dc2 and 3 weighed after being told that dc1, at 3mo, ebf and fed on demand (so exactly what you're told to do) was too big. I asked what on earth I was supposed to do about that and the HV suggested giving him bottles so I could see how much he was taking. Never went back. What a load of bollocks.

Moaning about her still having milk!? At 8 months old! Milk should be a baby's main source of food at 8 months. They have given you really dangerous advice there OP and if I were you OP I wouldn't take her back.

It's really shocking to hear some of the shit HVs come out with.

One of mine was similar, tracked the 98th percentile for the whole of childhood. We were not in the UK at that point and the Dr was happy as they were on their expected trajectory. My experience of HVs in the UK has not been positive at all so I’d ignore!

My DS is now 16 and is apparently. 'the hottest boy in year 11' (haha his words reported to him by a girl). Anyway he is a handsome well proportioned chap. Took him to the HV when he was about the same age as yours and health visitor proclaimed in a loud voice so that other mums could hear, ' so going to be short and fat then'. I came out and cried. Do not listen to them and yes of course an 8 month old needs milk.

Your health visitor is uniformed!
My baby was induced due to IUGR so was born small (due to my placenta not working as well as it should).
When she arrived she was a hungry baby and gained weight quite fast until she found the centile she should have been on!The 50th centile, she's now 3 and that for both height and weight.
Your child is in proportion with height and weight. Some babies are on the higher centiles because that's why we have centiles! Take no notice of her and follow babies lead when it comes to regulating food.

We had a baby that wouldn’t eat and dropped percentiles. The HV told us to put double cream in all of her food and feed rice pudding at every meal. Rubbish advice apart from the fact that she wouldn’t eat it whether there was double cream or not.

We saw the doctor in the end and were referred to a dietician. They recommend this - solidstarts.com/baby-led-weaning/troubleshooting/. The link has ways to get your baby interested in feeding themselves whether through spoon feeding purees or solids. It really helped us.

My dd is the same. In the nineties for height and weight. Luckily health visitor saw she wasn’t actually fat just sturdy and tall. Mine also started out very low on the centiles and shot right through. Her sister who is now 8 was exactly the same though as a baby and is now quite skinny and. I think last time I checked she was something like 25th centile for weight and 98th for height.

Your health visitor is an idiot. Your baby is in proportion. She’s 8 months old - milk’s meant to be her main food. I’d stop going frankly!

HVs are useless most of the time in my opinion! My most recent one told me to put my 8 week old in a bumbo seat cos he was developing a flat side on his head! At 8 weeks!!!!

I was told to put butter and double cream in my baby’s food because she was ‘below average’ even though she had beautifully followed her (9th centile) curve from birth. Ridiculous.

DD was 9th centile weight and 50th centile length when born :) I had placenta issues so they evicted her to grow on the outside!

According to the centile charts, I'm 99.5th centile height and dad is 98th centile. We fully expected her to be long.

I've (hopefully) attached a photo so you can see what she looks like. I wouldn't mind the HV comments if she were actually chubby!

I don't think out actual HV had seen her - my last appointment was over the phone (but that's another story).

Trying to answer all three questions in a couple of replies. Yes, she is bottle fed. She's been having between 450 and 550ml of milk this last week - she was having more before that (temporary blip with the temperature and teething, so she wasn't interested in actual food), before that she was having about 600-700ml per day. I do track it and I can see the amount coming down slowly - which is what I thought was to happen.

That baby is definitely NOT overweight! This is completely ridiculous.

My brother was under 4lb when he was born at 36 weeks, by the time he was 5 months he weighed over 21lb, was really chunky but he was tall. By the time he was 5 he was so skinny you wouldn't believe but very tall, he was the tallest of all his friends, by the time he was 7 he was taller than me & I was 13, he is 6' 5" now, really chunky but that just is the way he is built.

Anyone with half a brain can see that you lovely DD is absolutely NOT overweight @Dipsydoodlenoodle !! I was expecting to see a little sumo wrestler in your picture 🤣 she looks perfect!!!
It sounds like she’s caught up and balanced out to exactly where she should be on her charts 🤷🏻‍♀️ Keep working on introducing a wide variety of textures and flavours when it comes to solids and her milk will gradually decrease. Remember if it’s formula she’s on then she’ll need her vitamins when she starts taking less than 500ml per day 😊

She's not overweight in the slightest. Please ignore your hv. They don't always know better. Very often they don't actually. Let your little one eat until she's full

Don’t worry about it at all. Honestly. As you say yourself her length matches her weight centile so she is in proportion and looks so healthy in your pic! Yes she was born small but she was obviously never meant to be that small so she was born and grew really rapidly which is a good thing, same happened with one of mine - born on similar centile to your DD as wasn’t growing properly and had to arrive early. Children slim down once they can walk and run anyway.