Baby led weaning/ HV advice.

[Kittysparks1]

I'll try to keep this brief.

My son is 7months old. At 5 months old it was discovered he has put on wayyyy too much weight. I was overfeeding him and didn't even know. So fast forward to 6 months and after research iv decided to do blw so he can call the shots and I don't mess up again.
Fast forward to today- got him weighed and he has stayed on the same line. Relief.

Currently we have 5 bottles of formula 8oz a day. He usually takes about 6-7oz on average. He has breakfast and either lunch or tea, depending on what we are doing. It's offered an hour after a milk feed. He has just started to swallow, although not much (it's hard to tell). Anyway I'm not concerned.

HV advice today -drop a bottle. Offer him solids before his bottle. Give him 3 meals a day. All of this should have been achieved already. She also said I should be more in control of how much he actually eats, or at least aware.

So now I need guidance because I thought we were doing alright. I though food was fun until one. My plan was to add the 3rd meal in once he starts eating/swallowing more and just let him drop his feeds when he wants. Do I drop a feed and give him 3 solid meals a day knowing he doesn't actually eat much? I got a bit confused with the hv and ended up nodding and smiling.

Yeah it might well of been the worst pregnancy and birth in history but we did it and he is now born and we both made it by the skin of our teeth!
I had him checked for tongue tie, he just couldn't latch on. On off on off on off. It took me 50 attempt to try to get him on my nipple once, he just couldn't latch so in the end I just had to bear the pain whilst he tried to get out what he could. My nipples are now very scarred. I gave up breast feeding when it got to the point where I would have to hurt myself to distract from the pain, I was repeatedly hitting my scalp with the remote control and crying through every feed.
I had many people check the latch for tongue tie and everyone said it was fine but I knew something wasn't right, I'm aware breastfeeding hurts but this was extreme. I spent hours researching online people who were struggling to breastfeed and came across this lip tie thing, flipped my baby's lip, and it wouldn't even flip. Total lip tie. The hv then confirmed it. Then we had to find a bottle he could blooming latch onto. I cried for weeks, and I still get so upset if I see anyone breastfeed because I was meant to have that bond with my son and I wanted it so much. But you got to do what you got to do, my baby needed food, it didn't matter where it came from.

Sounds like you are doing fine. My HV was really militant about how i must not cut up any food, I must give my 6mo dd the food exactly as we were eating it. I knew it wasn't right for her, but I overruled myself. Dd had a choking incident that was terrifying (she was ok). Even now at 7yo she still occasionally has trouble, it's just her and I knew that already at 6mo.

Please don’t beat yourself up about stopping Bfing. It sounds like you tried literally everything. Have you thought of calling one of the Bfing Helplines? I know you are ffing now but a BFC should be able to talk through how you are feeling. It sounds like you didn’t get enough support.

As for the tt. I know you’ve had it checked but was that by a tt specialist? It’s just that I was told roughly a million times that’s my DS didn’t have it only to find the lip tie myself then have a BFC spot the posterior tt. Like I said, it is extremely unusual for lip tie to be present without tt and most HCPs get no training on Bfing at all, let alone how to spot tt

kitty blw doesn’t work for every baby and I think you did the right thing taking her lead. My first wanted the food shovelling in as fast as I could manage but was happy with finger foods as an addition. The second would not tolerate spoon feeding at all. They’re all different

Oh I didn't get any support with breast feeding despite reaching out for it. I have complained officially about it as it cannot continue like this. It is no wonder that the particular area I live in has a shockingly low breastfeeding rate (according to one of the hv's who tried to help).
The day after my c sec, about an hour before I crashed, I asked a midwife (begged because my baby hadn't eaten for hours and hours) to please please help me get him on my nipple and she said "you need to go downstairs to the breastfeeding clinic" and left to get me some formula. I had a catheter hanging out of me was entirely naked bar a gown and couldn't move. I literally didn't know what to do. I'm glad I didn't attempt to try to go to the clinic downstairs, I dread to think what might have happened had I not received such prompt medical care when I did end up having a fit.
It's such a massive shame and I know there must be loads of others like me.

My son was born 5th percentile and shot up to the 98th within a couple of months! He evened out at the 91st. Honestly when I held him he looked enormous, when my husband held him he looked the right size!

My husband is 6"5 and quite broad, so we weren't worried about his weight, we knew he'd probably have his dad's physique.

He was breastfed, we also did baby led from 6 months. Now he's a tall, well proportioned 3 year old.

That’s shocking Kitty I’m so glad you’ve complained though. Like you say, it’s no wonder their Bfing rates are low. Did they reply to your complaint?

Althea he sounds perfect

I'm yet to revive a reply. Althea that's really reassuring to hear.

As an update, we are doing alright with the 4 bottles 3 meals. Yesterday he got upset at lunch and dinner but I think he was too tired so today I have fed him meals when he wakes up from a nap (which have been awful) and he has done much better.
I must admit, his appetite for solids seems to have massively increased over night because today he ate a massive amount of solid food, but again this could just be because we have been doing this for 4 weeks and he might just be "getting it".

He does seem unsettled at night but who knows wether it's related. I will keep going and see what happens.

Thanks all :)

I must admit, his appetite for solids seems to have massively increased over night because today he ate a massive amount of solid food

This is what happened with DS and is why I started dropping bottles. When he was getting his fill of milk he just wasn't interested in food. I dropped to two 8oz bottles at about 9 months and we didn't look back - his eating was great from then on and he very quickly moved onto using cutlery etc. Obviously not all babies are ready and not all mums want to do that, but I doubt it makes much difference TBH.

Food isn't just for fun before one - they do begin to need nutrients from food before that.

I've got mine on 4 bottles 3 meals but I am now massively struggling.... and meal times are turning into a drama, which is a shame as they were fun.

Breakfast is fine, lunch is fine, then he refuses to nap so by dinner time, he just gets upset really quickly so I take him out of his highchair. The other night he got upset at dinner, I took him out, settled him for a nap at like 5:30pm, at 6pm gave him dinner which he ate. Then kept him up an extra hour so he would have a milk feed, which he took at 8pm, then he was sick everywhere (first time ever) so I obviously messed that up, he ended up going to bed on empty stomach.
Last night again he was too tired for dinner, crying etc, wouldn't settle for a nap, I gave him a bottle instead and he was in bed for 6:30, no dinner.

Basically fitting in 3 meals around a baby who refuses to nap and won't eat solids if he is tired is crap.

On 2 meals it was easier as I would feed him in morning and whenever he woke from aft nap. Then he would b knackered until bedtime but this was ok because he wasn't expected to eat dinner.