12 week old slow weight gain but happy but HV sending me into mental spiral

[Emkitch]

Hi! We are EBF and never had pain but due to slow weight gain had tounge tie assessed and snipped at 8 weeks old. After this we had two good weigh ins as she had put on 160g two weeks in a row. HV due to come back 2 weeks later to weigh and if a good result hopefully discharge (this was today). But she had ‘only’ put on 200g over the two weeks. As a side not she is the most content baby and sleeps amazing with only one feed in the night. Poos usually once a day sometimes more.
so she is on the 9th centile and they did her length today for the first time and this is also on the 9th centile.

I was so excited to be discharged as it’s STRESS having the weigh ins but after today we can’t be because she’s not gained enough and they want us to top up with bottles (which is is literally just point blank refusing!)

looking for some reassurance. My gut says she would be unsettled if she was hungry and not happy but she is so happy- never falls asleep on the boob always pulls herself off. Surely they don’t ALL again within the average gains??! They aren’t robots.

help.

thank you. My first post on here so hope it’s in the right place and some of you can respond

xx

attached image of her weight chart

My understanding is an EBF baby sleeping all night isn't the norm. My experience of FF is because the Formula is thicker it keeps their tummy fuller longer plus you can see the amount of they have taken.

I would follow the HV or engage with another medical professional to support.

So she feeds around 9pm then around 3pm then around 8am … that’s what I mean when I say one feed in the night

I had similar stresses with my EBF second child. The health visitor had me obsessing over her weight and it created such a cloud over things. In our case, she dropped from the 75th to 25th percentile pretty quick, but as it turned out, she stuck on the 25th percentile and still is as a toddler. So except for that initial drop, she's followed her curve perfectly and it seems that's just where she's meant to be.

I would say, if your dd is content and having sufficient wet and dirty nappies then follow your gut. My dd was also feeding similarly to your dd at night by 8 / 9 weeks too. Sleeping for a long 6/7 hour stretch. It's a myth (imo) that EBF don't sleep for long periods. Both of mine did from a fairly young age.

If you wanted to speed up the discharge process, you could do a dream feed around 11pm. That may just up her weight gain enough to keep them happy.

Try not to let it spoil things for you. I wish I hadn't let it get to me as much as it did. My gut told me she was fine, but they made me full of self doubt 😕.

@Nori10 thank you so much for your reply. I agree with it being a myth about the sleep… thank you so much for your reply I really really appreciate it, I’m the same as you it’s really clouding my time and distracting me from the joys of just loving it. I think i will introduce this dream feed as she used to feed at this time a week ago and I just let her naturally not ask for it but maybe if I reintroduce it will help boost her for next week. I’m trying to be pragmatic and trust my gut but they can really get in your heads.

appreciate your support thank you

What centile was she born on? My DD has always been on the 9th centile, still was at last HV appointment at 3.5 years (50th centile height).

Never had any extra appointments or any concerns over her weight from HV. She was combie fed for 6 weeks then FF. Not sure if that's why they weren't concerned. If anything I was always concerned and they always told me not to worry x

For a twelve week old baby the weight gain you report is the lower end if the average range so unremarkable. Some babies are meant to be on the 9th centile - yours could be one of them.

If more gain is an objective then there is no reason why it can’t be breast milk. More feeds = more calories, more sides per feed = more calories.

In general don’t space feeds, offer proactively, always offer a second and third side and do some breast compressions when feeding slows, try and get the odd extra feed in - all of these things would increase milk intake.

Your HV sounds clueless when it comes to supporting bf.

RIGHT

I had a similar problem. The thing I notice is you are EBF.

Before you get too stressed see if you can find the Norweigian weight gain charts. They look very similar to the UK ones.

DS was happy and healthy, but 'wasn't gaining enough weight'. Breastmilk only.

Health visitors were being pushy.

We noticed that the UK charts aren't necessarily reflective of weight gain for breastfeeding as by that point so many women have switched to formula so we sort out alternatives for where the breastfeeding rate is much higher.

Lo and behold, when we tracked DS he fitted their equivalent curve perfectly...

I completely jacked in the official weigh ins at that point. Big fat waste of time. Completely lost my trust and faith in them.

As long as DS was happy, healthy and matching the other charts I was happy.

If the charts are good enough for the Norweigians it'll do for me. i don't think Norweigian health care is significantly below the standard we expect...

The key point - dropping centiles is what to watch for, but I simply don't trust the uk charts. SOMEONE has to be on the lower centiles. They are normal.

DS also did this until 12 weeks.

Then didn't sleep through until he was 6!

Make contact with a Breastfeeding group - NCT is the one that springs to mind (but several others!) Get some support from a breastfeeding counsellor rather than a HV who clearly doesn't have a clue! (If they are anything like the ones we had!)
The stress of weight gain for little one and being watched is awful (& I only had it for the first couple of weeks with each of mine). All the charts/weights etc are geared up for FF, which is really unhelpful. Keep going with the EBF, it's hard but so worth it....
Lots of other signs they are doing fine .....

Agree with all the pps. I also had a baby slow to gain weight. She was and is absolutely fine (now at primary). Wish I'd ignored all the pressure to be honest - she was feeding well, looking well, good nappies and gaining weight, so I'm not sure why it was so much of an issue. She's around the 25th percentile now.

You don’t have to do the weigh ins. HV s are often not great with breast feeding and just cause stress.

@RedToothBrush this is SO interesting!!!! Thank you so so much I will definitely check this out asap! I’m so done with it- she’s so happy!!! I just have no idea how to opt out of the visits because they literally come to my house and book it each week??? But it’s deffo causing more stress than it should when we are so fine before and she’s so content alert and full!!

No idea how to find the charts though scrolling on Google- but I’m going to take the concept on board I totally agree!! @RedToothBrush thank you

@Notellinganyone how do I opt out???

Say it's causing you stress and you don't feel the information you are getting is good enough.

If you have those Norwegian charts and she does track them like DS did, you can even show her that as a sane reason why you now want to opt out.

Honestly they were the source of stress for me. Of course I wanted to make sure DS was ok, but I could prove he was finding and that the GC was actually the problem.

They have no idea about breast milk.

But yes, any sign she's unhappy or not well don't ignore it.

You matter too though.

https://www.vekststudien.no/download-the-growth-charts/

Think this is them.

Just ring them and say you need to cancel their next visit and you don't consent to any further visits from them. Perfectly within your rights.

I used to hate this pish. If she's on the 9th centile for height and weight and not dropping down the centiles for weight she's fine. What sort of height/frame are you and your partner?

DS was a huge baby over 9lber and quickly dropped down the charts. I stopped going to HV as honestly they're just obsessed with babies ticking boxes. He's now 18 and very skinny.

Portfun24 is right. She is fine. She is growing.
My own granddaughter is tiny, her mom is only 5 feet. When she was born she was 6 pounds 3 oz which is 2800 grams. She is 15 months and 9000 grams. She is about the ninth percentile.
(Former NICU head nurse, 20 years experience here.)

She sounds like she's doing great and so are you. I can't see any need for bottle top-ups.

Can't see her chart attached but do you know what centile she was at birth?

@DappledThings 25th centile at birth then straight to 9th I’ll see if I can attach it on here thanks so much for the support

@Portfun24 i am tiny… 5ft 3 and a size 6. My husband is tall 6ft and broad ish but v slim and struggles to put on weight as v fast metabolism. So it seems to make sense maybe? I’ve attached her chart

Dropping (or gaining) one or two centiles and then continuing along the new centile line is pretty normal and to be expected. My mum is a health visitor and they only check up when a child moves more than two centiles or the child is on a very different centile for weight and height. She reckons some health visitors mistake average for "normal" and expect every child to gain the average amount every week.