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Breastfeeding
NewFamily09
member
XP: LO is falling off the charts for weight
NewFamily09
member
I posted this on 6-9 and someone recommended that I also post on here and see what you guys think. Someone said that there is a different growth chart for BF babies and apparently my guy hits the 20th percentile on that one. Would you follow my pedi's advice or do you think it's bad advice? Has anyone else had this problem. Lots of people on the 6-9 board said it sounded like bad advice. He said formula will fatten him up more than BM. Is this true? Someone on 6-9 suggested fortifying BM, which I had never heard of. Is this better than formula?
DS was born at 7 lbs 14 oz (50 something %) and has slowly fallen off. At 6 months he was down to 5%. Today, at his 9 mo check up, he was way below the curve. He only ways 15 lbs 6 oz. It looks like my BFing days are going to be wrapping up. The pedi says I can BF DS in the morning and before bed, but I have to do formula during the day. But the good news is that I made it 9 months and apparently that's longer than average, so that makes me feel better about it. Has anyone else here had to stop or reduce BFing in favor of formula to get their LO to gain weight?
Here's a picture of my son. I think you can tell from the picture that he's small, but not skinny. He's not chunky by any means, but I think he looks healthy. Does he look healthy to you guys?
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Re: XP: LO is falling off the charts for weight
My niece is also small. She's 9 months old, and only 14lbs, so very similar to your little boy. She is simply just tiny. She was BF exclusively for 6 months when my SIL started to feed her solids via BWL. It was never ever suggested to her to introduce formula. She is just to continue BFing her as long as she wants to day and night, and just introduce more calorie dense food with her daily meals.
My niece is meeting all her milestones, and besides just a low weight she is very healthy. She crawling around all over the place and has already taken her first unassisted step!
IMO as long as your baby is happy and shows no signs of illness, some babies are just small.
Derek - February 2013 Caelyn April 2011
Yes, fortifying BM is better than formula but only works if you can pump enough (I think!), doing a combination of formula and BM is better than weaning to formula completely.
I'm looking at the WHO charts and from that at 9 months, the 25th percentile should weigh about 18 lbs? The other board might have been confused by you saying he weighed 15 lbs at 6 months, where the 25th percentile is 16 lbs, so 20% would be around 15lbs 6oz.
But to be honest, your son looks fine. I wouldn't even think supplementing would be necessary as long as he hasn't lost weight. I can see that he has some chub on his arms and he looks like he's also proportional, which means he's just a small kid. And small kids are okay! Personally, I think pediatricians worry too much about percentiles. Has he become more mobile (crawling, cruising, etc) in the last three months? That often leads to weight plateaus. Is he a happy kid, wetting diapers, playing often?
There are definitely different weight charts.
My LO one is small too and my pedi told me as long as she was growing, eating and not acting hungry all the time to let it be. He said people are so focused on weight charts it's insane as every baby is different. He also told me someone has to make the bottom of the curve and he's seen more chubby babies than necessary and that's not good either. He's more worried that she is gaining weight and meeting milestones rather than how fast she can gain. Consistency is more important.
DS was 95th percentile at birth then stayed in the 90s til about 6.5 months when he dropped to 35th. His pedi made it a point to tell me at that appointment that it is totally normal for a BF baby to be a chubster til about 6 months and then significantly thin out after that. He told me not to be surprised for DS to be at the very bottom of the growth chart at his 9 month appointment and stressed over and over that it's totally normal and it's one of the reasons that BF often helps contribute to a non-obese lifestyle.
Sure enough, at his 9 month appointment he was in the 16th and then a few weeks ago at his 1 year appt he was 11th. We saw a different pedi at the 9 month appt and she said the same exact thing. Totally normal!
My mom said that when I was born in 1979 the formula craze was really started to get underway and there was lots of pressure from friends and family members to FF me when I thinned out so much after 6 months. She said she was so grateful that she had a wonderful OB and I had a great pedi who told her time and time again that this was a totally normal growth pattern for a BF baby.
One last thing I want to throw out there - DS eats some solids but more often than not his meals end up in the dog's belly or on the floor so his main nutrition is still breast milk. Lots of people worry about iron levels in BF babies after 4-6 months, but in my LO's case his iron level was great when they tested him at 1 year.
And to answer your question - yes your LO looks healthy (and very cute with those big blue eyes
At 9 mos, I would rather look to more quality calorie-dense solids before supplementing with formula, but that's a personal preference. A lot of the calories in formula come from vegetable oil (plus a sugar plus milk protein), so you could look for ways to get more fat (and other calories) in with the solids you're already eating. Whole-fat yogurt, olive-oil with veggies, avocado, (nut/seed butters, eggs, cheese if you don't have an allergy).
If you want to go with liquid nutrition and you can't nurse or pump more, then I'd guess formula is the way to go.
Good suggestions. Coconut oil is also a good source of healthy fat. We spread it on toast, melt a little to make baked sweet potato fries, etc.
Thanks for all the suggestions. I asked the doctor about giving him solids with more calories, such as more cheeses or yogurts, but he said no. Maybe I'll try it anyway, just temporarily. I think my plan for now, after reading everyone's advice, is to actually continue BFing during the day like I have been, but try some techniques to boost my supply. Also, I'll supplement after each feeding with a few oz of formula or fortified BM. And if I offer more high calorie solids, maybe I can bump him up enough to satisfy the doctors and keep DS healthy. I don't mind using formula as recommended, but I don't really want to give up BFing if it's not really necessary.