Dropping percentiles in weight

[lily28]

My son is 4.5 mo at the moment, we had our 4 month visit to the doctor (who is also an IBCLC) the other day and it seems he is dropping percentiles in weight.
My doctor is not worried, she says she is satisfied with his weight and development.
He started at the 50th% at first visit and has slowly reached the 17% on the WHO charts.

Local charts (of FF babies) from our ministry of health he started 75% and slowly reaches the 50%.

He is EBF, he is a happy , VERY active baby who has lots of feeds during the day and I offer the boob all the time. He is gaining weight, but not as much as to keep steady on his curve.

This is him in his swim suit, he may not have rolls but he looks healthy, right?
https://img.photobucket.com/albums/v493/onecherry/baby/bb_zps12678495.jpg

His length/height is a whole other thing, he is 85% with WHO and 95% local chart.

Should I worry? Am I doing something wrong? How to keep him on the boob longer? He is easily distracted and he is off the boob sooner than I would like.

Any input?

 

[summer rain]

No I wouldn't worry at all and what you have said exposes one big problem with the WHO charts. The babies they gathered the data from all seem to have been extremely rapid gainers in the first four months and incredibly slow gainers thereafter. Not all BF babies gain this way, some gain a roughly similar amount per week or per month throughout the first year, others are slow gainers at first and gain more as they get older, than before. If your doctor is not concerned then I wouldn't be.

My youngest started off on close to the 91st centile in weight and length, and just above the 25th in HC. He is now about 1/4 under the 50th centile line in relation to the 25th line in both length and weight, even though he has been gaining an average amount in weight and length according to the Kellymom site. In the UK we have WHO charts but drawn up by our government to look more like the old charts we had here so they are more user-friendly. On the old UK charts based on a mixture of BF and FF babies he has barely dropped at all xx

 

[lily28]

Thanks for your reply. The WHO charts have me really worried! I trust my doctor, she is really experienced and an expert in her field, but I can't help but worry because all I hear from other moms is that the baby should follow his curve, which mine doesn't.
I prefer looking at he local FF baby charts because he is scoring better on those.

The first 3 months I had an oversupply that has now corrected it self, and my baby is at last LESS fussy. I thought he would be gaining more weight as he now gets the hind milk, or so it seems. I was devastated with the drop.

 

[JenX]

He looks perfect. I think all babies are different, and going by how he acts and looks he is doing wonderfully. If your doctor isn't worried then I'm sure he's just fine.

 

[Debi]

Don't worry! He looks perfect! My ds gained very quickly the first few weeks and then he started to drop off (still gaining, just not a lot). He was also really active early on and I really think that makes a difference. It knocked me too when he started gaining less, but that was just what was normal for him. I figure he hit the "active stage" early so was just burning it off before the line on the book levelled. he's chubby again now so he caught back up.

 

[ChimChims]

Trust the doc's instincts here. My LO has done the same thing. She was growing on a huge curve at first, but then has been slowly going down the carts since about month six or nine. She's healthy, happy - they even said she is thriving. She's just not a little fatty, and that's okay. My first DD was off the charts huge (12+ pounds at birth) and stayed that way for years. It took her until the last couple of years to get down onto the chart and then level out at 50th percentile. (She's gonna be a shorty! Kids just all grow differently. If doc says he's healthy and you can SEE it - which even in the pic is fairly apparent - you're doing just fine, mommy.

 

[Lara310809]

Both my kids (one FF and one BF) have dropped percentiles and gone right down and almost off the charts. I've always been told, by professionals too, that if they're happy and healthy, and they have a normal appetite (for them), then not to worry.

He doesn't look underweight; he doesn't have the rolls of fat, but not all kids do. Mine never did and they're perfectly healthy. I had the additional stress of my BF daughter refusing solids until she was 14m old; I would offer them but she refused. I was also told to stop BF and switch to a high-calorie formula, but even when I starved her off (medically supervised) she refused until she was limp, so I had no option but to continue BF. it came right in the end though and she's doing well; she was ALWAYS doing well; it just didn't look like it on the charts.

 

[greenlady]

He looks great to me ( and so cute!)

I have just found out my 3 month old has dropped in the charts too, from 25th percentile to 9th. However we have had some trouble with feeding lately due to her painful reflux. im just starting her on a new medication so I'm hoping she'll get back on track soon.

You could maybe try a nursing necklace to keep his attention while he's feeding. My daughter is already quite distractible at 3 months and has quite short feeds too.

 

[lily28]

Thank you everyone for their replies!

Lara, goodness it must have been so hard for you to go though this w/ your LO...

greenlady, I have the nursing necklace but he doesn't pay any attention to it, he just wants to explore the world around him... I make sure I boob him while he is napping to make sure he gets as much as he can.

One silly thought of mine is that maybe I should space the feeds further apart so he is VERY hungry? Would that make him stay on the boob longer?

 

[greenlady]

That might be worth a try. I thought about doing that too. Currently she feeds about every 2 hours during the day, and about half the time it's only one side for less than 10 minutes. However as she is refluxy I don't know if it's good for her to have a big amount of milk at any one time because she's bound to bring a load back up.

But yeah he might eat better if he's really hungry and feeding him while he's sleeping is a good idea too. I wouldn't stress too much though he looks just fine to me.

 

[lily28]

I just want to update you all.
Dennis is currently teething, his 2 bottom teeth popped 3 days ago and he is super fussy which makes nursing pretty difficult, and to make things worse he bit me tonight
He is gaining weight, I don't remember how much he gained since the last visitat the pediatrician, but in my book any kind of weight gain is good.
I'm glad he is feeding well during night, but I'm super tired because I don't get much sleep, and I'm worn out by his fussiness during day.

Tonight he barely had any milk from 4pm till 8pm. At 8.30 after his bath I tried to nurse him and he had very little and then he bit me.
I tried to dream feed him when he fell asleep but he wouldn't...

My new question is how many times a day should I nurse him?
usually he eats at
6am
9am
11am
2.30pm
5.30pm
8pm
11pm
2am

Not always on the dot, and not always a "full" meal.

I know that in order for a baby to gain weight he should nurse often but lately it is a battle to make him nurse every 3 hours. Also sometimes he gives me hunger cues but he will cry if I try to put him on the breast...
Do you have any tips?

 

[monte3375]

That's about my L0zchedule and he is not rolls either. Just happy active baby.

 

[summer rain]

For a 5 month old that looks pretty excellent, sometimes you just can't get them to feed any more frequently xx

 

[Hangin_On_AGS]

Mia Has dropped from the 50th% down to the 11th%. Her ped is not worried because she is developmentally on track, does not have the body of a starving baby. and is eating well.. As long as she doesn't drop below 3% they are not worried. and mia even has little thigh and calf rolls. She is just a little peanut and is a slow gainer.

 

[lily28]

thanks for the support everyone

I'm trying to be as cool about this as possible but as a FTM I can't help but worry, especially when all the babies I see are huge. My friend's baby girl is 4 months old and a whole kilo heavier than my son. The comparison is devastating and I get looks from other women like "ugh you are starving your baby"
My only reassurance is his height, and that he is way ahead with his developmental milestones.

My mom tells me to not worry, not to compare with other people, and she shows me pictures of me and my sister when we were babies and we were the same, smallish babies, with long legs without rolls. And generally we are slim people, both my family and my DH's.

Honestly the weight competition between babies is crazy, at least where I live
It's like there is a prize for the chubbiest baby.

 

[Lara310809]

Yeah I find that here too; people like seeing chubby babies, because that's what they think is normal, but i think it looks weird, probably because I'm used to seeing my slim girls

 

[Rachel_C]

Honestly, at that age and if your doctor is happy with his weight gain and general health, I'd stop stressing about it and stop trying to make him feed more. You really can't force a baby to feed when they're not hungry! By that age, both of my LOs were sometimes going more than 3 hours without milk, up to 5 hours if we were out and about and probably 6 hours overnight. If you are always trying to get him to feed at the 3 hour mark and he's not really hungry, he will have a small feed with mostly foremilk which isn't as high in fat as the milk later in a feed. It might be better to go 4 or even 5 hours (depending on his cues) and have him hungry enough to take a proper feed with plenty of the milk later in the feed. I know the divide between foremilk and hindmilk is artificial, there's no sudden switch over, but you do want LO to take enough of the later milk. I'd give it a week or two of only feeding on demand rather than offering to a schedule and see what happens.

 

[lily28]

^ thanks rachel!
I'm not really following a schedule, it is really up to him, usually he eats before or after a nap it is based upon his sleeping habits and our daily life, not really rigid. In a previous post i asked if maybe I should make the intervals between feeds a little longer so he is very hungry when he gets a feed and he eats more this way. But I'm reading in Kelly mom that the way to make a baby gain weight is feed him as often as possible and it is more of a volume thing, rather than a fore milk/ hind milk balance. Usually he eats 1 boob each meal, very rarely he asks for the other boob, only when he is having a growth spurt.

 

[monte3375]

Your little one looks big to me..this is my 18 week old...he is 23.5 inches and 12.9 lbs, doc said he is fine

 

[summer rain]

I've always thought mine are skinny when they are babies but when I look back at the baby pics when they are older I realise they were quite chunky after all! Some babies are just not genetically predisposed to being mini Michelin men, regardless of how, or how often they are fed. Mine always have stocky chunky legs but long and lean torsos and slim arms, my mum says it's from my dad and also the males in her family are of a similar build. My son is in 6-9 months in most clothing but can still fit lengthwise in some 0-3m trousers-they are a bit too snug though xx