Aunty Lactivist is all of us so if you have any ideas or links to other sites that might help please comment below.
“Dear Aunty Lactivist My big baby is struggling to gain weight (she’s fine otherwise) so again I’m being threatened with formula!(She was 11 lbs 9 1/2 oz at birth, only lost 180g that first week and has been up and down since – now nearly 4 weeks old. She feeds well and my supply is plentiful, but she is sometimes too patient and goes to sleep be…fore I can feed her!) Any thoughts/advice?
She had been sleepier than normal the preceeding day which I interpreted as the “sleeping side” of a growth spurt, but I wouldn’t have expected that to produce a weight loss.
In general, I’d say we’re feeding every 2-3 hours (often quite lengthy feeds – min. half an hour – sometimes disjointed) with three good feeds at night. We co-sleep. Nappy-wise – plenty of soaks and wipeouts. :-p Though, again, she’d gone down slightly the day before she was weighed.
9/3 (when 11 lbs, 7 1/2 oz), she was 22 days old.
I don’t have a newer weight.
The weights I have were all taken by the same health visitor (I’m assu…ming she always has the same scales, but I don’t know and she’s on holiday this week.)
I can’t give exact numbers on wet/dirty nappies as I don’t always notice as quickly as I ought (thank the waterproof Kooshies for that.) Even then, I’d guess at 6 to 8.
I feed on demand and stop when demand stops. Today, that was at least hourly. I don’t think we have a “pattern” yet, really – just a LOT of feeding. The “disjointedness” I mentioned previously means that she will feed for, say, 15 or 20 minutes (or even half an hour) and fall asleep – then ten minutes later, she wakes up and wants more (which is why I lump it together as part of the same feed.)
She rarely sleeps for long periods, but normally, I’ll get one long nap per day (2-3 hours) and then some time at night (she feeds about three times per night, but as we co-sleep, I don’t always know just how long she feeds for.)
No nipple problems this baby (and for that, I’m grateful!) though sometimes a little pain on the first “chomp”, but that seems to have gone now too.
We’ve been struggling a little with thrush – for which she had medication (they neglected to get me a prescription too, but I’ve been taking an appropriate homeopathic remedy from Holland & Barrett), but that’s gone now and the thrush is coming back, so must talk to the health visitor again.
However, I don’t have any reason to believe that the thrush has been negatively affecting her as she doesn’t seem to have any pain from feeding or anything like that.
Care Instructions – Shopping Bag 
Mummy Milk Rocks – Shopping Bag 
Any Old Cow – Shopping Bag 
“Any old Cow” Short Sleeved T 6-12 months 
“Any old Cow” Short Sleeved T 3-6 months 
I think we need some more information here before any suggestions can be made. Here are a few:
-how much does baby weigh now?
-how many dirty nappies does baby produce in a 24-hour period?
-how many times in a 24-hour period does baby feed? What’s your typical feeding pattern?
-are you experiencing sore nipples?
-are you following a schedule?
-how much is baby sleeping? For how long at a go?
Rebecca
-how frequently does baby feed? what’s a typical feed like?
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Hi
When you say “up” and “down” could you be more specific please? When you say she goes to sleep before you can feed her – how frequently roughly does she feed per day?
What is her output like – how many stools per day and what are they like and how many wet nappies?
AA
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So birth was 11lb 9oz
Weight on day?? was llb 3oz
3.3.11 (how old was she then?) was 11lb 11oz
9.3.11 – 11lb 7oz
When you say feeds are minimum of half an hour but disjointed – can you expand on this any?
Also you say sometimes she is too patient and goes to sleep before you can feed her – what happens in this situation? ie how long is the longest gap in this situation?
Do you have any soreness?
AA
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I just wondered how you are weighing her. If there is any concern about a baby’s weight, he or she really needs to be weighed on good baby scales. Using weighing scales intended for adults is usually not accurate enough in this situation.
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hi there, not enough info although heres my thoughts:
my daughter (now 4) was born at 8lb, born not roll of fat in sight, quite tall at birth but no cubby rolls to squeeze, her weight chart showed she never lost any weight but just stuck to a line accross the chart. I now am a fatty bum mum but was always waifer thin as a child/teen/twenties and pre chilldren. The biological father was also a twiglet thin. Breast fed and healthy, one day she got ill we ended up in a&e with an allergic reation at 9 months, where they told me she needed to fatten up. Well long story short, i disagreed, she had not lost weight and just looked like her parents at her age.
As a mum you know your child, you know when to be concerned and can not be told what to feed her, this whole shove them on fomulae thing eats me up if sh is feeding regularly i would be happy, if she refused to eat and didnt have a cold then id be worried, common sense n motherly instinct. Hope your child is well,
kind regards
Kerry
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Has she been checked for tongue tie?
is there a local breastfeeding support group or breastfeeding councellor you could visit?
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Hi, I am a trained breastfeeding supporter and, in my experience, what you have described sounds like your baby is not getting to the fattier milk towards the end of a feed. Also, I would expect a baby of that weight at birth to be a more efficient feeder (not always the case though).
Even though you are not getting sore nipples, I would suggest you go right back to basics with position and latching and just be 100% sure your baby is latched on perfectly at each feed. This will ensure she gets to all the milk available at the breast in a quicker time and accessing the fattier milk towards the end. Make sure you stick to one side until that one is empty before offering the second.
Points to check are:
* baby has a large mouthful of areola
* baby’s chin is touching the breast
* baby’s neck & back are in a straight line, head not twisted
* the whole jaw moves when baby is feeding, you can sometimes see ear wiggling or the temple moving
* her cheeks will stay rounded during sucking (not moving in and out)
* you should see a rhythmic pattern of long sucks & swallows.
Hope this helps x
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In the absence of other information (and I don’t know how anyone can reply with any certainty without it) maybe this may help:
http://www.analyticalarmadillo.co.uk/2010/09/is-my-breastfed-baby-getting-enough.html
http://www.analyticalarmadillo.co.uk/2010/09/effective-breastfeeding-its-not-all.html
Also what has changed/is different from the big gain to the loss. You wouldn’t expect this is a TT infant.
AA
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This is copied from the mum who asked the question –
I appreciate Kerry’s response – yes, everything else seems fine with my baby – just that she’s not gaining weight as they’d like to see. I’m not overly big and her sister was (and still is) quite small, so I wouldn’t expect to see her keep… to the line she was born on.
Karen, I really appreciate your response as well. Looking to the basics, I think we’re pretty well along, but I often don’t get the whole body allignment thing right, so I’ll work on that one more.
Do you think I need to space out her feeds a little more then to encourage her to feed for longer at a time? It’s hard to hold her for very long because my back isn’t very strong and she’s quite heavy! I feel that I’m being torn between two instincts – one to not leave her crying when she’s hungry and the other to make her wait a little longer for her own good…
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Hi Armadillo. I have attempted to answer your questions as best as I can (these were added to the original post), so I’m sorry if you still don’t have enough info. (I’m still struggling a little mentally since the traumatic birth – large baby who then got stuck…)
I appreciate the links you have supplied – especially the YouTube clip. The other clips, unfortunately, did not work for me.
We had to go out today so our schedule was a bit off, but she made up for lost time this afternoon and evening. I’m trying to stay on one side for longer to make sure she’s getting the hind milk though she’s still feeding just as frequently. But watching that YouTube clip and what he said about mothers in Africa or wherever not worrying about the baby staying on for two hours makes me feel better.
I just hope that this will have made enough of a difference as by that doctor’s own advice there, if it hasn’t, then she probably actually does need supplementing.
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I wouldn’t say you should space out the feeds, just keep feeding on demand at the moment.
One of the things I’ve been told helps mums quite a lot is those V shaped cushions – great for supporting baby and your arms!
When you say your milk supply is plentiful do you find your let down is fast and that she sometimes coughs or pulls away at the start of a feed? If this is the case, sometimes expressing off some milk at the start of a feed can help (and then they can get to the fattier stuff better!)
If you have a breastfeeding support group/drop-in near you, would be worth getting someone to watch a feed and just double check everything from that angle.
x
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