here you go: WHO links. for a quick check just see how babies with median weight gain weight. and you can do a lot of detailed tracking.
http://www.who.int/childgrowth/standards/en/
http://www.who.int/childgrowth/standards/en/
Breast-feeding Issue
- Thread starter mavislohsp
- Start date
2010-NewDad
Registered User
Thanka2 is definitely incorrect on this - her statement is quite misleading. There are many growth charts/centiles kicking around. They are only a guide at best, and none of the ones I have seen have babies doubling in weight after 8 weeks.
At example is here, at the World Health Organisation.
http://www.who.int/childgrowth/standards/weight_for_age/en/index.html
You can look at all the percentile ranks for both boys and girls - none is expected to double after 8 weeks - regardless of whether your baby is very light, average or very heavy at birth.
-- edit: miran beat me to it!
Sorry! I really typed that wrong! Sorry. Babies get back to their birth weight by 2 weeks. The general rule is that a baby doubles his/her birth weight by FOUR months, not TWO! Sorry! Frazzled brain. Thanks for catching that!
And my daughter reached that stage earlier than four months. But, this is a general rule. From what I understand, it only becomes an issue if the baby is "failure to thrive" or having serious weight issues.And thanks for keenly catching that mistake. Posters on this board never miss a beat! What I read and was told my my son's doctor in the States is that babies generally double their weight around four months. And there certainly are no cut-and-dried rules about weight, height and size of children. Against the Chinese weight and height charts that my "mixed" children are measured they are "giants"--97% for height for my son, 99% for my daughter and; 70% for weight for my son, 90% for my daughter. In the States, they would be in a more "average" range.
I think it's really an issue if your baby is not faring well in other ways or is extremely thin and unwell--which is something you should be in contact with your doctor about.
on an average - double in 5 months. triple by 1st year. never heard of 8 weeks !
Thanks for catching that mistake, miran. The details of whether it's 4, 5 or 6 months are unclear. It depends on where you're looking but yes, the general range is between 4-6 months to double weight. Babies should regain their birth weight by 2 weeks.
If the OP's doctor says the baby is doing well and the OP seeks other opinions and they all say the baby is doing well and she doesn't notice any other problems with the baby's health then weight (especially small differences in weight) shouldn't be a problem.
Sarah_Lotus
Registered User
As the others have said as babies grow older most (but not all) shorten their feeding times, sometimes to just five minutes per feed. How long the baby feeds for doesn?t matter it is how he grows on those feeds that does.
It sounds like you baby is doing great on the feeds he is having. 6.4kgs is a good weight for a 4 and a half month old. We are looking for his weight to be between 6.0 kgs and 8.7 kgs. (2006 WHO Growth Standards) But really it is difficult to say anything about a baby from a single weight we really want to look at growth, so need to know his birth weight, his lowest weight and what he?s been doing for the last few months.
As others have said we are looking for a doubling of birth weight by 5 months and a tripling by 12 months although some babies manage this earlier. This was a change with the introduction of the new standard curves in 2006. In developed countries these curves made more babies at 12 months fall into the obese category and in developing countries it made more babies fall into the undernourished category.
The longest I?ve ever heard of an exclusively breastfed baby going without stooling is 13 days. The mother of this baby told me that it was a lot to clean up when the stool eventually came! The important thing about the stool is the consistency not the frequency. If the stool is soft then it is no problem even if the baby only has one stool every two weeks. But if the stool is hard and dehydrated it is a problem even if the baby has one every day.
A word of warning about giving a baby milk (expressed breast milk or formula) in a bottle after a feed. The baby will always take some ? even if he is full. Imagine that you come to dinner at my home. You eat the main course and are full. Will you have some desert? And if you say, ?No thanks, I?m full.? And I say, ?But I make it especially for you and it?s your favourite.? Will you still say no? Because this is the message you are giving your baby by offering the bottle and so babies nearly always say yes ? even though they don?t need it.
If you have successfully breastfed for the last four months then you have enough milk for your baby and don?t need to start giving formula. Remember a one month old baby drinks the same amount in the day as a six month old baby. So if you had enough milk last month you?ll have enough milk this month too.
It is very easy to know if you have enough milk. We are looking for the baby to have six wet nappies each day (24 hours) and weight gain over time. I would expect your baby to still have at least six feeds a day but eight to ten is more common.
I would recommend attending La Leche League meetings. Here you will find other breastfeeding mothers and be able to get answers to all your questions. The English speaking schedule is at http://www.lllhk.org/Meetings.html and the Chinese speaking meetings at http://www.lllhk.org/ChineseMeetings.html. The web page, What is La Leche League, http://www.lllhk.org/WhatisLLL.html explains exactly what the society is all about and the article: Why LLL, http://www.lllhk.org/WhyLLL.html will explain why the meetings may be helpful.
Best wises,
SARAH
Sarah Hung IBCLC
www.lotuslactation.com
It sounds like you baby is doing great on the feeds he is having. 6.4kgs is a good weight for a 4 and a half month old. We are looking for his weight to be between 6.0 kgs and 8.7 kgs. (2006 WHO Growth Standards) But really it is difficult to say anything about a baby from a single weight we really want to look at growth, so need to know his birth weight, his lowest weight and what he?s been doing for the last few months.
As others have said we are looking for a doubling of birth weight by 5 months and a tripling by 12 months although some babies manage this earlier. This was a change with the introduction of the new standard curves in 2006. In developed countries these curves made more babies at 12 months fall into the obese category and in developing countries it made more babies fall into the undernourished category.
The longest I?ve ever heard of an exclusively breastfed baby going without stooling is 13 days. The mother of this baby told me that it was a lot to clean up when the stool eventually came! The important thing about the stool is the consistency not the frequency. If the stool is soft then it is no problem even if the baby only has one stool every two weeks. But if the stool is hard and dehydrated it is a problem even if the baby has one every day.
A word of warning about giving a baby milk (expressed breast milk or formula) in a bottle after a feed. The baby will always take some ? even if he is full. Imagine that you come to dinner at my home. You eat the main course and are full. Will you have some desert? And if you say, ?No thanks, I?m full.? And I say, ?But I make it especially for you and it?s your favourite.? Will you still say no? Because this is the message you are giving your baby by offering the bottle and so babies nearly always say yes ? even though they don?t need it.
If you have successfully breastfed for the last four months then you have enough milk for your baby and don?t need to start giving formula. Remember a one month old baby drinks the same amount in the day as a six month old baby. So if you had enough milk last month you?ll have enough milk this month too.
It is very easy to know if you have enough milk. We are looking for the baby to have six wet nappies each day (24 hours) and weight gain over time. I would expect your baby to still have at least six feeds a day but eight to ten is more common.
I would recommend attending La Leche League meetings. Here you will find other breastfeeding mothers and be able to get answers to all your questions. The English speaking schedule is at http://www.lllhk.org/Meetings.html and the Chinese speaking meetings at http://www.lllhk.org/ChineseMeetings.html. The web page, What is La Leche League, http://www.lllhk.org/WhatisLLL.html explains exactly what the society is all about and the article: Why LLL, http://www.lllhk.org/WhyLLL.html will explain why the meetings may be helpful.
Best wises,
SARAH
Sarah Hung IBCLC
www.lotuslactation.com
mavislohsp
Registered User
Hi Sarah and all mothers out there,
Thank you so much for your reply, I really appreciated it. I felt so relief after reading all the advice above. My baby's born weight is 2.8kgs, which means he is doing absolutely fine! I fed him about 7 times a day, and he did wet about 5-6 nappies a day. I shall monitor him closely on his poo poo. The last time he pooed has leak all the way to the floor, but I am happy to clean the mess he created!
Thanks Sarah, I shall try to attend the meeting, I am sure it will be very helpful for me. Thanks everyone! Have a great week!
Thank you so much for your reply, I really appreciated it. I felt so relief after reading all the advice above. My baby's born weight is 2.8kgs, which means he is doing absolutely fine! I fed him about 7 times a day, and he did wet about 5-6 nappies a day. I shall monitor him closely on his poo poo. The last time he pooed has leak all the way to the floor, but I am happy to clean the mess he created!
Thanks Sarah, I shall try to attend the meeting, I am sure it will be very helpful for me. Thanks everyone! Have a great week!
mavislohsp
Registered User
Hi, just to do some update. My lil one just pooed today, I.e 6 days from his last past motion. Hurray! Don't know is it because he did 'more' exercise yesterday he went for his little swim or rather floating session in the swimming pool yesterday.
he went for his little swim or rather floating session in the swimming pool yesterday.Don't top up with formula, you'll just over feed your baby. And don't compare the amount of expressed breast milk with formula your baby take because breast milk changes in composition according to your baby's need and formula can only increase in volume to accommodate that. Breast milk is super easy to digest so it's possible that all of it is digested by baby. If you are really worry about baby's constipation, massage baby's belly in clockwise motion, and give his legs some bicycle movement exercise when baby lays on his back.