Advice on feeding

My opinion on this is that babies are born at a certain centile and they will either stay at that centile or will change to another whether that is higher or lower than their birth centile and follow that one. My first born was born on the 50th, he went up to the 91st and has stayed there for both his weight and height, he is turning 3 tomorrow.

My June 2024 baby was born on the 98th, he has dropped down to just below the 91st and is now following that line.

I was told by my health visitor that there's so many factors that determine which centile children will settle on such as genetics or if there was anything going on during pregnancy that effected their growth in any way like preclampsia, pregnancy induced hypertension, gestational diabetes etc. So babies then grow differently when they are out of that womb environment.

In my opinion, if I was you I'd continue to feed your baby how she wants to be fed, she's happy and she's sleeping well, plenty of wet and dirty nappies? And I think you'll find...

She will now follow the 25th centile going forward, and that is absolutely fine! I feel there's a lot of pressure about being born on a certain centile and staying there and it's not realistic x

My baby was on 75th when born and is now between 25th and 50th. The health visitor was soooo nice and basically said some HVs start to panic at this point but if baby looks a healthy weight, has good nappies and isn’t constantly hungry there’s no need to worry at all, it’s just baby levelling out on a new percentile. She said if I didn’t take her to get weighed they would never know and doesn’t agree with the whole panic stations straight away!

Thankyou for this..

Yeah plenty of wet and dirty nappies

She’s happy and she’s bright, smiling and interacting.

The lady asked me to go back next week to reweigh her and now I’m worried what she will say if she hasn’t put weight on enough

@Lea I would go back and get her weighed just out of interest but if she remains on the same centile then I think she's found her new normal. I know it's anxiety provoking sometimes when professionals are saying things like this but I always think it's best to focus on your baby, if she's happy and healthy you are doing a great job! X

Thankyou for that, it makes me feel much better. I personally think she looks a nice weight and is bright and smiley. Plenty of wet and dirty nappies.

I think that’s the problem with the health visitors signing you off at 6 weeks as there isn’t the consistency with the 1 person who learns what’s normal for that certain child.

❤️ That means a lot Thankyou! I’m generally a very laid back relaxed mum who doesn’t worry about much but when the professionals say something different then I worry a bit, especially when I think all has been well. She has her 12 week jabs on the 16th so if the lady next week says anything scary I can double check it all at the doctors the week after xx

I wouldn't worry too much, as long as your baby is gaining weight, seems happy and you're feeding her when she wants it , then I see no issue! My baby girl is 15 weeks and was born on the 91st percentile, she then dropped to the 75th, then dropped again to the 50th. So the HV then suggested upping her milk intake (which i was planning to do anyway) so I just increased each bottle by an ounce, however she does always finish it.

Babies are pretty good at regulating how much they need/want to drink. I wouldn’t stress over it too much unless she continues to lose weight or something. 25% is still great. And it sounds like your baby is drinking plenty. I wouldn’t force more milk unless they wanted it.