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two questions - weaning and bottle feeding


stacker285

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Hello. Some advice desperately needed! My son is 10 weeks old and weighs 14lb 10 oz. My health visitor has told me that once he reaches 16lb I should consider weaning him as I am likely to struggle to meet his calorific demands with breast feeding alone, unless I am happy to continue feeding him 3-4hrly ( or more frequently) day and night, which is generally what I'm doing now.

Has anyone any experience of this? It sits uneasy with me. I know that the advice changed from weaning at 4-6 months, to 6 months due to allergies etc and gut immaturity. My boy has quite bad reflux too, and is on omeprazole and domperidone.


I would rather try combination feeding than wean too early, but here in lies the next problem. We started giving him a bottle of ebm at 6 weeks, just to get him used to the bottle, but with limited success.we've tried closer to nature size 1 and variflow teats, and the Dr browns bottles. He doesn't refuse it, but starts sucking fine but quickly seems to get overwhelmed by the flow and starts gulping air and gets agitated. It is not a calm experience at all. If he's really hungry he can empty the bottle but more often than not, its not pleasant. Has anyone got any ideas? He takes a dummy fine, so I was thinking of trying a teat shaped like that next.


I'm a first time mum and so far out of my depth it's scary!


Thanks in advance

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Trust your instincts and do what you want to do, don't be pressurised into doing something that you don't want to do. You should be absolutely fine to continue breast feeding, if he ups the number or volume of feeds, then your body will get used to that and produce more milk, you won't struggle to feed him there is no reason to start doing something different unless you aren't happy about how things are now. You will notice that he takes more milk at times of growth spurts and you may find reading about wonder weeks useful. I am still bf my 21 month old, just carry on if you are all happy. Unless there are other reasons to get him on a bottle, I wouldn't bother with that either, especially if it is a stressful experience. As long as your baby seems fine in himself and is meeting developmental milestones you have nothing to worry about, you know what is best for him because you are his mum, new mum or not, do what you think is right for your family. Maria
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Wow, I am quite amazed that a health visitor would give that advice :(


There is no reason why you will not be able to provide enough milk for your little one yourself. As long as you are eating and drinking well, and feeding when he wants it, your body will produce the milk needed.


Good luck x

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I also had a reflux baby and that sounds like really bizarre advice. If he is managing to feed well and put on weight through breastfeeding, and that's working, that's great! Pushing you to change things, particularly if he can't feed well from the bottle, seems really unhelpful. As others have said, they fluctuate in how much they feed, and your body will produce more if necessary (I remember a particularly happy growth spurt later on where this resulted in my loosing 5 lbs in a week!)
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The thing to remember with HV's is that some of them are great and some of them talk BS! For instance about a month ago an HV'S told my sister that all children now have rickets! Said with total certainty too apparently. As others have said A big baby shouldn't mean you won't have enough milk. You're body can produce loads. Just make sure you eat well and drink plenty of water. You may still need to feed every 2-3 hours sometimes if your LO is having a growth spurt, but that is not exclusive to big babies!


The other thing to bear in mind is that not all babies put on weight at the same rate. The HV's generally like to see a steady increase with the baby staying at around the same centile. However my first dropped steadily down the centimes, from just over the 50th to somewhere below the 9th and is fine. I had a friend with a similar experience. Very big baby is now quite a petite, but thriving, toddler. I'm just mentioning this because it can be easy to panic and think maybe you're not providing them with enough milk, especially if the HV'S has already put the idea in your head, but for some kids that is just how they grow.

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The thing to remember with HV's is that some of them are great and some of them talk BS! For instance about a month ago an HV told my sister that all children now have rickets! Said with total certainty too apparently. As others have said A big baby shouldn't mean you won't have enough milk. You're body can produce loads. Just make sure you eat well and drink plenty of water. You may still need to feed every 2-3 hours sometimes if your LO is having a growth spurt, but that is not exclusive to big babies!


The other thing to bear in mind is that not all babies put on weight at the same rate. The HV's generally like to see a steady increase with the baby staying at around the same centile. However my first dropped steadily down the centimes, from just over the 50th to somewhere below the 9th and is fine. I had a friend with a similar experience. Very big baby is now quite a petite, but thriving, toddler. I'm just mentioning this because it can be easy to panic and think maybe you're not providing them with enough milk, especially if the HV'S has already put the idea in your head, but for some kids that is just how they grow.

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Classic HV logic, your baby is bouncing and bonny and you're doing an amazing job of stacking the weight on him with bf, so?naturally this means you won't have enough milk for him?errrr. Ignore. Your instinct that this is not right is a good one, you sound very far from 'out of your depth' to me, sounds like you're doing an ace job!
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Thanks everyone. If anything I've had an oversupply of milk, and I thought that my baby would just feed for longer to get the milk he needs as he gets older. He was never going to be small, I'm 6'2 and my husband is 6'4.


I think I'll just stick to my guns on this and take my cues from my boy. If he starts showing signs of being ready to wean earlier than 6 months then maybe I'll start it, but most def not before 4 months!


I'm debating whether I should speak to my hvs supervisor, as this is not the first conflict of opinion I've had with her.

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:-0 gobsmacked at the advice you've been given, am curious as to your LO's birth weight as by 12wks would typically expect them to have doubled their birthweight so his weight could well be spot on.


Advice I would give regarding weaning (staff nurse on HV team but not in Southwark) would be to look for the baby to be:


*Sitting upright independently/with minimal propping

*showing interest in/ability to pick things up & put them in his mouth

*ehen putting things in his mouth/if you were to attempt to spoon feed him seeing that his tongue doesn't stick out ("milk tongue" occurs because of them expecting milk) it's a sign that he wouldn't be able to move food to the back of his mouth to swallow properly.


These things all happen around about 6mths, no weight limit! Agree with the nod & smile, am well aware when I give advicetgst it is just that - she won't suddenly pop out of the shadows when you're at home & tell you off if you're not doing it correctly.


Maybe if you encounter this HV again you should ask if she's done the UNICEF breast feeding course (as everything she says is contradicted by this!!)

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Really odd advice! Other posters have said it all really but just thought I'd say that my son was 17lb four months and I didn't wean him until he was 5.5 months or so and sitting up. Until then he was happy/thriving on breast milk. He never took a bottle either but I wasn't very good at expressing, there aren't enough hours in the day!
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Jeez - do they ever stop giving out contradictory information! I've been really surprised about the inconsistency of advice from HVs since the birth of my son earlier this year. He's just turned 16weeks and is rapidly heading towards 17lb and is 98 percentile length, 91 percentile weight. Whilst I'm conscious he may need to wean earlier than 6 months, I'm not contemplating it until he shows signs of really needing it - would expect him to be unsettled, not sleep well, cry after full feeds etc. As everyone says, go with your instincts.


On the bottle front, we use the closer to nature variflow with our little man. Agree that bottle feeding with him hasn't been the calmest experience, but it has certainly improved with perseverance. One of the main issues we had was that he was drinking so quickly he got terrible wind - gulping loads of air. In the last week or so this has improved significantly, especially with us having a more set routine and getting to him with feeds before he is really hungry / overtired. Don't know if that's any use - but good luck!

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What makes me cross about this kind of advice is that it makes you start to question your instincts as a parent.

IME breastfed babies are very good at knowing what they need and if baby is happy and you are happy (if tired and drained - quite literally sometimes)then try not to worry.


I had the opposite problem to you, BF babies that would not use bottles and as they got older slowly went down the percentile chart. However, they were happy and developing normally. Despite not putting on that much weight, they sometimes fed every 3-4 hours and I grew to accept that it was just part of the experience! The HV gave me such a lot of hassle about my first child not putting on weight that I really lost confidence. However, she is now 7, normal height and weight and perfectly OK. Needless to say (except for the 6 week check), I never took my 2nd or 3rd to be weighed.


Sounds to me like you are doing just fine. Try not to lose confidence in your instincts.

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Oh for heavens sake some HVs are so unhelpful - seriously if you can face it complain about this, new mums don't need to be stressing over nothing! grrr


For what it's worth I've had 2 big babies (similar parental height issues to you!) both were were the same sort of size at 10 weeks. With the first I worried that I wouldn't be able to produce enough milk for the full 6 months but actually it was fine and she regularly went for 8 hours at night from 12 weeks. The second has reflux (I feel your pain!) and wanted solids at 5 months but again no real milk supply problem other than during growth spurts.


For bottles, with both of mine I've given them a little bit from a bottle at the end of a breast feed at least once a week. Which has worked really well and I was able to give a full feed from a bottle when needed/when I just really want to go out!. Perhaps may be worth a try as the baby won't be desperately hungry so may be more relaxed about trying the bottle?


Good luck and ignore the HV, nod and smile and walk away...

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Like everyone else, ignore the hv. You might find another one in the practice gives different advice. My son was off the chart - fully breastfed- and began solids just before 6 months (he was 23 pounds then).

Our hv didn't tell us to wean early on account of his size.

As I understand just because they're big doesn't mean digestive system is more mature / ready for solids

Good luck

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Door bouncer thing sounds dangerous! - surely most of them can't support themselves at 6 weeks? If you have the energy, I reckon it might well be a really good idea to make a list of any advice you've been given by this HV that sounds questionable, and approach the supervisor with it. If she's coming out with these things to people less critical / in a more vulnerable state than you, they might be following her advice and it sounds like some of it is positively detrimental...
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That's exactly what I kept saying but she was so adamant that the doh guidelines said about it. I'm not exactly ignorant of child health matters, but I haven't been a mother before and I look towards professionals for guidance.


Buggie - he was 8lb4 at birth, so is doing fine IMO. I'm not worried about his gain in the slightest, he is a bouncing baby boy, generally happy if his reflux isn't bad.

Kes - good idea about bottle after breast feed. I'll try that. I'd like to be able to give a bottle occasionally if I need to, to give me a break or sleep. I've also got pnd after a really stressful first 6 weeks of reflux worries and severe sleep deprivation. My husband helps as much as he can but obviously he can't breast feed!

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8lb 4oz BW? Sounds to me like he's bang on target!


Door bouncer at 6wks?! Either she's giving v v unappropriate advice, or was actually suggesting a regular bouncy chair but couldn't explain it properly which is equally concerning.


If you know the name of the HV I'd be curious to look her up on the HV team contact sheet in the red book to check she really is an HV & not a HV assistant - had one trying to tell me she was an HV until I asked a question & she said I'd have to ask the HV ("well who are you then?' Was my reply!), either way, maybe try & find details of the Southwark HV manager to let them know your experience.

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As everyone else has said. She's just plain wrong - and a bit scarily so on this. The current advice is that weaning should start to happen sometime between 4 and 6 months, when your baby shows they are ready. This is when they show avid interest in food (watching you like a hawk as you eat, grabbing stuff from your fork etc.etc.), and when the tongue reflex disappears (where if you put a spoon in their mouth their tongue automatically pushes it out again). Then they are ready.


Door bouncer at 6 weeks? FFS.

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