Is my HV talking b*ll*cks?

[Lovage]

My 8 month old is gradually sinking on the centiles - was born on the 75th, sunk to 25th by about 12 weeks, hadn't had him weighed for ages but got him weighed yesterday and he's now between 9th and 25th.

He's only eating small amounts of solids - maybe 4 or 5 mouthfuls 3 times a day (we're doing BLW as he hates being spoon fed). He's still breastfeeding 7 or 8 times in 24 hrs, including through the night. My HV said what I needed to do was get him to take more solids. The way she said I should do this was to cut down his breastfeeds to 3 or 4 a day and do some 'cold turkey' days where I leave him with someone who can only give him solids or milk in a cup (he never got the hang of bottles)

I'm finding it hard to believe that cutting down breastfeeding is going to help a baby who's not putting weight on well. I did say 'but surely there are more calories in breastmilk than solids' but she muttered something about 'by this age they need solids as well'. I do get that he might need solids as well - clearly his current diet isn't working brilliantly - but I can't believe restricting his breastfeeding is going to help. She said that by this age he shouldn't be demand feeding, whereas I kind of hoped to carry on demand feeding and that he would take to solids and stop demanding so often.

So any experience of getting a centile slipping, not that keen on solids baby to eat more solids? Do I really have to restrict his bfing to get him to take more solids? When I try to offer solids when he's hungry he just gets grizzly and wont' eat them. I'm already doing high fat food (butter and cream cheese on top of everything!), eating with him, miming pleasure and chewing, offering choice and no-choice and in high chair and in lap.

Sorry this is a bit long!

I think I probably have the baby who has dropped through the most centiles - 98th at birth, currently between the 9th and 25th (at 4mths)! Thank goodness I have (eventually) found a pragmatic HV who says "look at the baby not the chart". She has been gaining weight slowly rather than losing, the GP has checked her over and said she is perfectly healthy. She is mostly happy and smiley, rolled over for the first time this week and is getting quite chatty. If she wasn't being weighed I wouldn't have been worried - she looks very healthy and in proportion but it caused a great deal of worry and stress along the way.

We have had a few problems feeding (ebf), she is refusing bottles so I can't get a top-up into her (and that would be expressed not formula as I have a good stock in the freezer) and I have been to see a bfc a few times but she is a very active but not very hungry baby and I think she is just finding her own line on the chart which is an extremely shallow one... Current tactic agreed with HV is to very gradually introduce some solids (after a feed so trying not to reduce the bf significantly) and I am trying baby rice made to the consistency of cream with expressed milk. As she is taking it happily so far I see it partly as a way of getting more milk into her... using milk expressed at the end of a feed so hopefully getting more of that rich hind milk into her!

Just to add - we have been averaging about 1.5oz per week gain - going from anything between a slight loss to a 3 or 4 oz gain. My dh is very tall and thin so guess dd is taking after him not her mummy!

If you don't trust your HV go to your GP. Look at your own build as well as your partner's. The only thing I can confirm ( own experience) is that if you drop the milk intake the appetite for solids increase ( logical if you think about it and luckily it worked for me) If your ds hates solids all you can do is continue to introduce new textures and tastes and keep up with breastfeeding, he will no starve himself. Just keep in mind that you must look at iron and Vit D intake that is not sufficient in breast milk after six months. Maybe you can offer some vit drops?

HTH

Message withdrawn

I think your HV is talking rubish but just up to a point. The truth is that as long as milk is providing most of the nutrition, baby won't be very interested in solids. But at what age is convenient to reduce milk intake is an ever changing guideline.

With regards to BLW, I think it's a fantastic idea for most children, but there are some children with special characteristics that may not do so well on it, not because the baby is taking the "wrong" decisions, but because potential problems may be ignored, waiting for the baby to find his own time i.e. DS have a range of allergies which made him very fussy as a baby and as a toddler. We know now that he is allergic to nuts, soya, fish, wheat, dairy, most legumes, citrics, etc. Obviously DS wouldn't have touched some of them, but would have stuffed himself with others (aparently you can also crave what is not good for you, and in DS's case that was dairy).

I know that percentiles sometimes seem to be there just to make us anxious, but the truth is that, if he is droping down a lot in the percentiles, he needs to be checked. I think he is a bit young to be talking about milk reduction but one feed less a day will not make him any harm.