Baby not gaining weight

[Anonymous]

Baby hasnt gained much weight at all since his last check up at 2 months (almost 3 months now).

Our Ped is a group practice and at different visits, one doctor said to try to space out his feeds more so he would take more at each feed, and the other said to try to feed more frequently.

What should I do? EBF but I definitely make more milk than baby needs as I have a pumped freezer stash as well when he refuses to eat any more. The most he takes is 3 oz at a time.

[Anonymous]

If you pump after feeds, he is getting the foremilk rather than the hind milk he needs.

But the first thing I would do is a weighted feed to see how much he gets in a feed.

[Anonymous]

Get a scale so will know how much he is taking per feed. If you are in or near DC make an appointment at the Breastfeeding Center today, they are very good ime. Otherwise contact a lactation consultant today.

https://llli.org/breastfeeding-info/is-baby-getting-enough/

[Anonymous]

If he eats at most 3oz per feed, I would go with feeding more often. Since you’re pumping after feeding, try bottle feeds too and see if he’ll take more from a bottle (and that will ensure he gets hindmilk too).

[Anonymous]

Ugh. This kind of conflicting advice about infant weight gain is why I switched to a sole practicioner pediatrician.

What they’re telling you is that the baby should be getting more calories, and two different ways they think you can get there. But they are in agreement that the baby needs to be eating more.

All babies are different, but in this scenario, I increased my baby’s intake by scheduling feedings every 2 hours. Prior to that he was not getting enough frequently enough. Years later it turns out he is a kid who is just not that sensitive to bodily discomfort and is also very uncoordinated. So as an infant he didn’t mind being hungry and was a bad nurser!

Although the nursing schedule helped a little, ultimately he didn’t start to gain appropriately until he started to get 4oz formula a day.

Is he spitting up a lot? You could try eliminating dairy in your diet. My baby was a HUGE spitter and it didn’t get better until we added in that formula. Could have been a coincidence but his stomach seemed to settle down when he was eating more.

[Anonymous]

Does the baby take pumped milk from your stash? Or are you just prepping for a return to work? It might be good to see if he’ll take more in the bottle as it’s easier and some babies are “lazy sucklers” and he might be getting tired at the breast.

[Anonymous]

I'd work with a lactation consultant to rule out latch issue. Are you bottle feeding mostly ( how do you know it's 3 oz?). If not I'd nurse more frequently or supplement with bottle feeds

[Anonymous]

Is he getting the fatty milk at the end? Draining one whole boob before switching? Do your bottles have a lot of cream? Are you eating enough fats/dairy?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Does the baby take pumped milk from your stash? Or are you just prepping for a return to work? It might be good to see if he’ll take more in the bottle as it’s easier and some babies are “lazy sucklers” and he might be getting tired at the breast.

Doesn't sound like OP is actually EBF. OP is EP. Move to formula, OP.

[Anonymous]

Feed more often or supplement with formula.

[Anonymous]

Give a bottle after you nurse. The reason you have such a large supply is because he's not latching well and not getting enough milk. Let him nurse for comfort but then give him a 1 oz bottle. This helped us a lot with my first, who just couldn't get the hang of nursing but needed to be nursed to sleep...