I spent a lot of time reading this sub while I was at the end of my pregnancy and while my daughter was a newborn. Reddit made me make an account finally, so I figured I’d post my experience with my slow grower from the other side (lil babe is 14 weeks, so juuust out of the newborn stage) in hopes that it might help other anxious parents!
My girl was born at 39 and 2 via induction (relevant because I think all the meds I was given inflated her birth weight) at 8 lbs 4 oz. When we left the hospital, she had dropped 5%, my colostrum was kicking; all was well except her latch was super painful for me.
At her first ped appointment at 4 days old, we learned that she had dropped to 6 lbs 13 oz - a massive 17% drop. Doc put us on a “calorie challenge” in which I fed baby via nursing every 2 hours (counting from the beginning of the feed of course!).
While this was somewhat successful, the next 10 weeks included gaining less than .5 oz per day, not gaining at all for periods of 5-8 days, and steadily dropping percentiles from roughly 50th at birth to NINTH at the lowest. (Note: some babies remain at single digits in perpetuity and are perfectly healthy. I was concerned about the massive drop in percentiles and was beside myself thinking she could qualify for a failure to thrive diagnosis.)
To address this, we did it all. Triple feeding, top up bottles of expressed milk, waking baby up to eat even after she regained birth weight (took 22 days, not 10-14). You shouldn’t do this, but I would do weighted feeds for every feed across the whole day on my home scale to make sure she was getting the right amount because I was DESPERATE for certainty. I felt like I was going crazy because she had plenty of wet diapers, is the happiest little girl, meeting milestones, sleeping well, etc. It was just the dang scale.
Another element was that we were using nipple shields until roughly week 10. I was so conflicted because I did feel like they helped at times but I also felt like they limited her milk transfer at others by messing with her latch. She was clicking/smacking so much and obviously taking in a ton of air. They are also soooo annoying because of the need to clean them, carry them with you, and hold them onto your breast. I hated them.
I will say that we could have definitely supplemented with formula throughout all of this but I really wanted to exclusively breastfeed/our pediatrician never brought it up. It’s also worth noting that many of my mom friends’ pediatricians seem way more concerned with weight than my daughter’s ever did. We would’ve 100% followed doc’s orders if we were told to supplement. I also had a ton of support both logistically and emotionally, which was essential in pushing through. If I hadn’t had others to clean all the pump parts, for example, it would have been a different story.
At roughly 10 weeks, things changed. Finally weaned baby off the nipple shield. Finally started seeing some bigger numbers when I would weigh her feeds, and, in the last month, baby girl has jumped back up to the 17th percentile and is gaining MORE than an oz per day. I thought that we’d never turn a corner but, in the last month, we absolutely have.
I was desperate to find a story like ours online and for any reassurance that we’d be able to EBF. So hope this helps anyone else feeling the same!!