WWYD RE Health Visitor

dizziblonde

panagia wrote: »

Health visitors are renowned for being little Hitlers, unfortunately. They often worry the mother for no reason at all, and more often than not have had no children of their own, so only have text-book knowledge.

If you're concerned, OP, take him to the dr, but otherwise just ignore the woman, or ask to see a different HV (or don't see one at all!!)

Yep the first thing that springs to my mind when I see my health visitor is that she's on a par with someone who committed mass genocide. Obviously. Do you want to rephrase your rant in a slightly less melodramatic, offensive and blanketly judgemental manner or do you just want us to ignore any actual content in what you say?

For what it's worth my HVs have been fantastic - picked up on my youngest's allergy issues which the GP was ignoring, administered a massive backside kicking to the GP when the GP was being deliberately obstructive to try to force us to leave their patient list, worked with the dietician team to get a screaming little girl with a swollen red face and horrific skin rash into the bright and bubbly little monster she is right now. She's got her annoying features, and I've questioned some stuff she's said which she's then gone back and double-checked the up-to-date guidance for me and confirmed I was actually right, but she's been pretty spot-on with us (and I'm normally the most distrustful of anyone involved in baby health as a general rule so it's fairly high praise).

Gigglepig

If you make the call you will get a second opinion from someone qualified, so that might be good?

If you are told it would be best to feed more, they can advise on alternatives, personally I would rather wake up for night feed than top up (frequent feeds = better for milk supply, less faff than expressing, avoids formula) but they should be able to help you find a solution that works for you and your baby.

missindecisive

please be aware that .. once you start topping up with formula milk your breastfeeding may slowly diminsh. Thats ok ofcourse if you are happy to take that route. The baby will quickly put on weight once you top him up, then the hv can tick her box.

The growth charts in the little red books they give you, I am lead to believe, are based on bottle fed babies, not breast fed babies, so it doesn't really apply for your baby. Perhaps you could google this yourself and check if I am correct.

Does your baby cluster feed in the evening? Its important that you get plenty of rest and eat really well. If I was in your situation, I would get the advice of your local breastfeeding councellor.

ps. I am a mum of 4 and have tried every method, from sole breastfeeding, sole bottlefeeding and a mixture of both. At the end of the day, theyve all grown up to be fine children and are doing just fine..so don't worry yourself over it too much, just do whats right for you and your family and what suits you best. good luck x

Toto

neneromanova wrote: »

"I need to ring the ped to see what they want me to do. you will need to feed him top up feeds of expressed or formula milk and hopefully he'll gain some weight"

The reason that the advice is usually top up is because sometimes babies don't feed until they are full. There are a few babies who get a bit tired and drop off to sleep at the breast before they've had enough. They can then get a bit sleepy and the frequency of feeds goes down too which just creates a vicious circle. As feeding from a bottle is easier for the baby the usual advice is to see if this improves things a bit. It's usually temporary just to get the baby to fill up a bit and to break the cycle.


This isn't necessarily what's going on here, as you say it might just be a normal pattern of growth for your little one and absolutely nothing to worry about. As I've said though, I would monitor the weight closely and look for signs of ill health. I would also try to feed a bit more frequently, strip baby off so he's nicely awake for the feed and if he drops off before you think the feed has been long enough try to wake him (a mid feed nappy change usually works )

FBaby

neneromanova wrote: »

"I need to ring the ped to see what they want me to do. you will need to feed him top up feeds of expressed or formula milk and hopefully he'll gain some weight"

Easy then. Wait for her to come back to you after she spoke with the peadiatrician. Surely if the paed is concerned and repeat the same advice, you will then feel more reassured that this is the right advice?

Nicki

FBaby wrote: »

Easy then. Wait for her to come back to you after she spoke with the peadiatrician. Surely if the paed is concerned and repeat the same advice, you will then feel more reassured that this is the right advice?

The HV has already reported back. She's actually been very quick and professional and didn't leave OP to hang on and worry. From the timings of OP's posts she got back to her within an hour of seeing her and raising her concern.

neneromanova wrote: »

Just heard back from the HV, her being worried and ringing the pediatrician straight away was nothing to worry about apparently. the ped is happy not to see us straight away and to just see how things go with a top up.

FBaby

Sorry I missed that. Then it sounds like she is very professional. She expressed her concerns, provided advice, but said she would check with the consultant. Did so and reported back immediately. What else was she expected to do?

liney

WWID? I'd be getting more milk into my baby!

Either feed him more often, and take his socks off whilst he's feeding which help keep him awake, or give him a dream feed when you go off to bed. My DS would sleep through a nappy change at 11pm, but would then feed whilst asleep.

littlemisssunshinee

missindecisive wrote: »

The growth charts in the little red books they give you, I am lead to believe, are based on bottle fed babies, not breast fed babies, so it doesn't really apply for your baby. Perhaps you could google this yourself and check if I am correct.

Unless it has changed in the last 2 years there are separate charts for breastfed babies.

My little one didn't put on a lot of weight at first, and although I was never advised to top up I did seek the advice of a breastfeeding councellor who was really helpful. One thing I had been doing wrong was taking him off when he fell asleep thinking he'd had enough - turned out he was still feeding well while he was asleep. There are probably a lot of scenarios that you could get advice on, but this was my experience!

He caught right up on the chart at about 5 months when he fed all night every night for a week :eek:. Luckily by that point I was comfortable feeding while sleeping as well!!

warehouse

After Health Visitor no.1 lectured us for an hour on how evil we were to dare to not breastfeed OUR child, we refused point blank have her back in the house. Yes there was a sh**storm but we stood our ground.

Like any profession, there are fools a plenty out there.