Doctors making me panic for slow weight gain
My LO is now 12.5 weeks, and we’ve had issues with slow weight gain and reflux from the beginning. He has terrible reflux and spits up after and during every feed, and for hours after it too. He was put on Prevacid a few weeks back and it’s helped the discomfort but nothing else has changed.
He’s fluctuated is daily weight gain anywhere from 10, 12, 28 and 25 g per day.
Today was weighed and he’s averaging about 21g per day which brings him to about the 4th percentile, and doctor is not happy with the curve. It’s not a steady climb and is trending downwards.
I guess I just wanted to see if anyone had thoughts or experiences? Isn’t 21g a day good? He’s pretty tall for his age and my husband is a tall thin guy and I’m pretty tiny.
Also just a rant about doctors catastrophizing things sometimes too and how damaging it can be for us moms. I’m traumatized by these medical professionals telling me he isn’t gaining enough. And these messages on top of daily terrible reflux and vomitting is the last thing I need
The views expressed in community are solely the opinions of participants, and do not reflect those of Peanut.
Learn more about our guidelines.
I feel this! I went through it with my son. I'm on the petite side, and my husband is tall and slender with a high metabolism. Both pediatricians had us go in for extra weight check appointments, but the first one was awful and shamed me so much. She made me feel so inadequate when i was trying so hard. I ended up combi feeding and just felt like I was force feeding my baby to try and get him to gain weight faster. He spit up a lot more, and it just didn't sit well with me. It was frustrating because I knew my baby was eating when he was hungry and he was still gaining weight and getting taller, just not quite as fast as they wanted. I think it would be a bigger concern if he wasn't gaining anything, or if he was losing weight.
I’m going through this too. My LO is 5 weeks and we currently have a health visitor coming round every 4-5 days to weigh him. Although even though he is putting weight on, just not as quick as the curve. They keep saying to me they want to see around 25g per day weight gain and the last week we averaged 40g and yet they are still coming again on Friday and again next Thursday. We were told to do formula top ups but it’s made him constipated and throw up a lot. I’ve also been pumping after every feed to help get my supply up and hoping they will be happy with me to stop the formula soon as think it will help settle him.
It’s very frustrating as there doesn’t seem to be any flexibility with the graph even though it’s based on the whole population average. I’ve been in tears many times after medical visits, completely agree it’s not been great for MH.x
Download the Peanut App
