Badass Breastfeeding Podcast
Badass Breastfeeding Podcast
When Baby Is Not Gaining Weight
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Do you or have you ever worried about your baby’s weight gain?
Who doesn’t, right?
What happens if your baby isn’t gaining weight well with just breastfeeding? What can you do?
If you are a new listener, we would love to hear from you. Please consider leaving us a review on itunes or sending us an email with your suggestions and comments to badassbreastfeedingpodcast@gmail.com
WE HAVE TRANSCRIPTS!! You can also add your email to our list and have episodes sent right to your inbox!
Things we talked about:
Review and listener question! [1:18]
Abby’s experience with Exley [4:01]
What happens with weight loss right after birth? [9:04]
Research based information regarding infant weight loss [10:54]
How to advocate [15:14]
Older babies who’s weight gain slows [21:42]
Checking all the boxes [24:18]
Genetics [24:59]
What if there is a problem? [26:51]
How much weight should babies gain [29:33]
Babies should be fat and grown ups should be skinny. WHAT?? [32:44]
*This Episode is sponsored by Niki’s and Ceres Chill
Links to information we discussed or episodes you should check out!
https://badassbreastfeedingpodcast.com/episode/growth-charts-and-percentiles/
https://badassbreastfeedingpodcast.com/episode/black-breastfeeding-week-with-meisha-the-nurse-milk/
Set up your consultation with Dianne
https://badassbreastfeedingpodcast.com/consultations/
Check out Dianne’s blog here~
https://diannecassidyconsulting.com/milklytheblog/
Don’t Forget!! Dianne and Abby have started the new parenting podcast! Check out Revolution Parenting!
https://www.buzzsprout.com/1755123/8400508
Follow our Podcast~
Here is how you can connect with Dianne and Abby~
- Abby Theuring https://www.thebadassbreastfeeder.com
- Dianne Cassidy http://www.diannecassidyconsulting.com
Music we use~
Music: "Levels of Greatness" from "We Used to Paint Stars in the Sky (2012)" courtesy of Scott Holmes at freemusicarchive.org/music/Scott Holmes
Speaker 1 (00:20):
[inaudible]
dianne (00:20):
Welcome to the badass breastfeeding podcast. This is Dianne, your lactation consultant,
abby (00:25):
and I'm Abby, the badass breastfeeder and today's episode is brought to you by Ceres chill. Never worry about safely storing your breast milk or formula again. Ceres chill was invented by a mom for moms and offers guaranteed convenience with their double walled stainless steel container. And today's episode is also brought to you by Niki's natural wipes. Niki's was created, uh, out of the passion of two new parents and is the first all natural baby wipes made with menuca honey and coconut oil. And we'll hear more from our amazing sponsors later, but these sponsors make this podcast possible. So please head to badassbreastfeedingpodcast.com and check out our sponsor page. If you need anything, check there and see if you can give any of our sponsors your business and why you're there, Scroll down, enter your email address, and we'll send episodes straight to your inbox every Monday. And right now, Dianne has our review of the week.
dianne (01:18):
Yes. And I had a dream about Ceres chill last night. It's like so funny, so random. And I have these very strange dreams, but yeah, I was like, look at this. I was like promoting it in my dream. I don't know. It was very strange. So our review of the week comes from iTunes and it's from AK555. And she says, thank you. I started listening to this while pregnant. I've been breastfeeding for only three weeks, but I could not have felt more prepared than I did when I started. I saw so many of my friends quit due to lack of support or misconceptions. I tried to refer them, but without success, the best thing I did was listen to your advice and prepare myself to set my daughter and I up for success. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Our biggest challenges, her falling asleep, midnight feeds causing me to feel engorged come morning. Pumping is not my favorite, but I can't keep her up that long at night. Any tips? Alex. And thank you so much for leaving us this review. And as far as tips for that, I would just try to let it be because your body's going to adapt to what your baby's doing. And you're not gonna feel that engorgement for very long, or you can hand express a little bit out, but I would say stay away from the pump if you can,
abby (02:33):
because the pump will encourage your body to continue to make all of that milk when your body actually, if your baby's sleeping, it would help just to help even it out if you just leave it.
dianne (02:43):
Yeah. So I know it's uncomfortable, but it's, it'll your, body's going to adapt to what she's doing. So you're doing awesome.
abby (02:50):
I love this idea of people asking questions, questions that we can like answer in a quick minute or so.
dianne (02:55):
Yeah, I know. Isn't that awesome. That's why I picked that one today. That's cool. Yeah. So thank you so much for sending that in and for leaving a review for us. And you can, of course always send them via email at badassbreastfeedingpodcast@gmail.com. If you want to, or you can just leave them on iTunes. Thank you so much.
abby (03:15):
questions too. We can start, we can start being a thing I know. And that'd be fun. Don't tell us like a nine paragraph story and then ask, you know, for like a whole consultation online. Cause that's obviously not going to work at the beginning of an episode, but like little tips like that. That's of that's kind of fun.
dianne (03:32):
Absolutely. So glad, glad we could help.
abby (03:35):
You can still send us your thing. It's just like, we won't read that at the beginning.
dianne (03:39):
That would be a totally different, just a private, the whole different thing. But today we're going to talk about not gaining weight for the baby, not the mom, not the parents.
abby (03:49):
That's a whole other conversation. Yeah, exactly. Um, yeah, that's really scary when your baby's not gaining weight. And that happened to me with Exley.
dianne (03:58):
Oh yeah. In the beginning, right?
abby (04:01):
Yeah. So he was like, uh, I dunno, like a week old or something. And uh, I kind of had it in my mind somewhere that like their green, their poop would transition from like the greenish into like brownish yellowish and it just wasn't happening. It was just green, green, green, green. And so I, I emailed or called I, I, by then I had actually, so thank goodness I had a lot, I knew lactation consultants and I knew where to go for help. So I called one and I said, um, you know, I think, you know, his poop is still green. I don't know, like, is that supposed to be that way? And she was like, no, actually it should have, you know, transitioned by now. So, you know, what's his weight and I can't remember all the details, but we somehow got to the weighing and stuff and he hadn't, he really hadn't gained weight weight for like a week. And, um, so I was tandem nursing too. And she was like, all right. So let's, um, let's try a few things. So first she was like, let's not, I was doing, she was like, how are you Like organizing the tandem feeding? And I was like, organizing? I have two boobs and Two babies. What's the deal. She was like, well, let's not do that. She was like, let's make sure that the baby is getting the fuller breasts, you know, at each feeding. And I'm like, oh, that makes sense. Okay. So, and then let's try some like compressions, some breast compressions while he's feeding and work on like latch fishing lips out and getting a, you know, a deeper latch. And, um, I think there was, I feel like there was something else. Well, that's three things. So, um, and in like a week he had like gained like twice as much as he normally would. And so I was like, oh, okay. That worked. Um, that was, you know, and that was, it was early on and I knew where to go for help. And I will say that I was actually in conversation with three different lactation consultants because I also know too many lactation consultants. That's hard, but I also know too many. Yeah. So I was like seeing one, this one was on the phone. And then I was like emailing with another one. And the two, the one on the phone was like the main person who was just like, knew. She just like, knew what to do. And the other two were kind of like, eh, and one of them was like the one who I was going to for like the weigh-ins. She was like, um, you know, oh, you know, it's okay. You know, it takes them a while to gain their birth weight back. And like, you know, I do think that we overly worry about a lot of things because of misinformation or whatever, but, you know, there's also things that you don't really want to go meh over. You know, you do want to address these things, especially early on so that they don't turn into huge issues. Um, and so, you know, we say a lot here, like, you don't need to worry about this. You don't need to worry about that and you don't need to worry about this, but like, you know, there's also interventions, you know, don't let anybody tell you if you feel like something's wrong to just be like, nah, it's fine. When you know, maybe somebody else will, hopefully you don't have like nine lactation consultants working with you. But, um, anyway, it worked, um, and we really got organized and, uh, it was, it turned out fine. Um, but I, but that's also not sometimes, you know, if it hadn't worked, we would have to look farther into what was going on.
dianne (07:45):
And sometimes so the thought behind this episode was to kind of talk about the, yeah, those early, early days when you have a newborn and we're watching the weight go back up because they all lose weight. Right. And we're going to talk about that. But also sometimes when your baby gets to be like four or five months, their weight gain slows down. Um, and that freaks people out because there's like, there's a good, usually two months between pediatric appointments, which is the norm. Like, I mean, I'm sure it's different everywhere, but typically we see like you go in at two months and then you go back and four months and sometimes you're like, you're rolling along. You think everything's fine. And you go in for the four months and I'm like, oh, the baby is gained like two ounces since two months ago. And you're like, what, what? Like, that's scary. You know, like you're so totally, you know, cause you're, everything seems normal. Everything seems fine. Um, but we're going to talk about like both of those things, but in the beginning, when your baby is first born, they, they lose weight. They just do like, and it's expected, nobody expects your baby to like gain weight in the hospital. That's not something that you're going to see or gain weight.
abby (09:01):
And if someone does expect you to, to see that they are so wrong.
dianne (09:04):
They're so wrong. And there's usually a window of about 10%, which is kind of like, okay, you know, we don't want the baby to lose really more than like 10% of their body weight. And you know, a couple of days. I talked to a mom yesterday, actually who called me and the baby had lost 10% by the time they left the hospital. So they were freaked out. But she also stayed in the hospital an extra day because she had a C-section. So I was like, so you were monitored a day longer though, too. Like they, you know, that wouldn't have happened. If you had just gone home and been home that day,
abby (09:40):
they wouldn't even have known,
dianne (09:41):
they wouldn't have even known. Right. So it just, you know, sometimes you got to consider what's going on too. But in the hospital, a couple of things happen, your baby is losing weight. You have to look at what is going on. Like is the baby pooping and peeing while they're in the hospital. Like we expect to see one wet diaper and one poop within the first 24 hours of their life. Just one of each, that's it. Second day we would expect to see two of each and that's it. And this goes for obviously like, you know, home birth and birth centers and everything too. Um, but if your baby's not pooping and peeing and they're not latching well, and they're super, super sleepy, or maybe you're separated from each other for some reason, then we're going to, and the weight's going down, then we're going to go, okay, what's happening here? You know? But if your baby's like pooping and peeing really well, you're, you know, it's day two, you're getting ready to go home. You feel like your milk is starting to come in. And the baby has been feeding all along and you've been just kind of putting the baby to the breast on demand. We're not going to worry about that weight loss, because that is a normal weight loss and your baby's not going to,
abby (10:51):
we're not going to, but somebody might put that fear in your head,
dianne (10:54):
but you have to look at the whole picture. You have to look at all the things, the baby's pooping and peeing is the baby been going to the breast, is the baby eating. Um, the other thing that we see, and this is scientifically research-based, so you can look it up and bring the research to whoever you would need to. If you received a lot of fluid while you were in labor, your baby's birth weight might be exacerbated, which will also cause them a higher weight loss. They will lose that fluid very quickly.
abby (11:29):
Yeah. It's not just you that had the fluid. If you're getting fluids, the baby's going to get the fluids too. So sometimes they're all puffed up,
dianne (11:35):
yes, they're going to be all puffed up. I had people show me pictures of their babies as soon as they were born and there's their faces so swollen. It's like, oh yeah, that's, that's why they lost 12%. It had nothing to do with their feeding. That is why it was all that water weight. But if you had say, for example, a long induction where they are giving you fluids, if you had a medicated delivery, they always give you fluids with that. If you're swollen, if your feet are swollen, you can bet that you're going to have swollen breast tissue. And your baby probably had some of that fluid as well, which caused some of that weight loss. Totally expected. Like it's scientifically based. It's evidence-based we know it happens, but sometimes nobody takes that into consideration. But now you're trying to get your baby back to a birth weight that never was. So what they really should be doing is looking at what the weight is after the first 24 hours, not what the weight is, the second they're born with all that fluid. And that's, you know, it's hard to remember all of those things. When you go to your first pediatrician appointment, they go up the baby's down and wait, we need a supplement like that.
abby (12:44):
That's the thing. That's the thing is that people are going to get pushback. People get pushback all the time. They're like, I feel like things are fine, but the doctor's worried. And they're, you know, they didn't gain weight and da da da. All this stuff goes on when like, you know, we have this information, we're telling people like not to worry, but then they're Doctor's going to be like, well, you need to supplement or we're going to have to whatever, whatever the threat is these days.
dianne (13:08):
But it's, it's really, it's very awful. Babies are getting supplemented by day four, day three or four, if they weren't supplemented in the hospital. Right. And it's really, it's, it's very frustrating because we're not even giving it half a chance to work. You know, your baby is going to continue to lose weight until your milk comes in. So once your milk starts coming in and we know that usually happens right around day three, maybe if it was a traumatic delivery or a C-section, you might be looking at an extra day, that's not unusual. And it's totally okay. It doesn't mean you need to rush into supplementing or anything. It just happens. But your baby will not start to register weight gain until they've been feeding on your milk for 24 hours. So that first doctor's appointment more than likely your baby's still going to be down in weight. And that is normal, normal, but some doctors go, okay, your baby hasn't gained anything yet. So we need to supplement. And it's like, we're not even giving it a chance.
abby (14:12):
I know. So like we have, I know then we live in a culture where breastfeeding is not really normal. And we have all this like bottle norms and stuff. And you know, we don't see breastfeeding. And that really affects people's ability to successfully breastfeed. And it's really hard to people are really stressed out about it and that's all true, but like sometimes it's actually going fine and we totally create problems where there aren't any problems because we, because like medical medical professionals don't understand what breastfeeding is supposed to look like, because it's not the norm or because we have all these formula supplementing protocols in hospitals where, which is like, well, this is happening. Well, we'll give formula. And this is happening. We recommend formula when actually like what's happening is perfectly normal or as a result of some sort of medical intervention that we also don't understand the effects of, or take the time to learn how it affects breastfeeding. Because we don't understand breastfeeding to begin with. Like we're creating problems where there are none.
dianne (15:14):
Exactly. Yes. Is a situation where, and if you're listening when you're pregnant or if you plan to have other, other babies along the way, or maybe you went through this, but if you have somebody kind of lined up in advance, and I know a lot of times we talk about this and Abby mentioned it all the time, like have just touch base with a lactation consultant when you're pregnant or know, you know, talk to your pediatrician. A lot of people do those little, like meet and greets before they, you know, choose a pediatrician or whatever and get their stance on breastfeeding and what they want to do if this is really important to you. But I, I work in a pediatric office so I can be that buffer, you know, like they come in and the baby's not gaining weight yet. I can tell the pediatrician, mom feels like her milk's coming in the baby feeding really well. The latch looks great. Let's bring them back in two days and just see what looks like. And they're like, okay. And in two days they're gaining and it's fine. And if you are working with a lactation consultant, you can easily tell your pediatrician. If they give you pushback, say I'm working with a lactation consultant, I'm going to see her tomorrow or whatever. Can, can I come back for another weight check? Can we hold off for a day? You know, like you can really advocate for yourself in that way. If you really do not want to do formula with your baby. And that is okay, that's okay. If you know your baby's pooping and peeing, you feel like your milk starting to come in. You don't, you feel like everything is going well. But sometimes they put the fear of God into you that your baby is going to shrivel up.
abby (16:38):
And sometimes they threaten you. I mean, they have, they do threaten people. Sometimes I go, you know, like even my friend who had the home or the homebirth. well, they need to gain, you need to gain some ungodly amount in a few days. Or we have to call a pediatrician like the midwife, like what? It's not even possible to gain that much weight in a day or however many days it was ridiculous.
dianne (17:04):
I had somebody the other day. Well, it was a couple weeks ago. I was like, what? Because the hospital told her your baby's lost 5%. And by the time and 6% is where we start supplementing. What?
abby (17:22):
They Like make shit up. Oh my God. They just make stuff up as they go. This is not improv, this is not doing like comedy improv. Okay. This is people's lives.
dianne (17:32):
I don't think I've met a baby that didn't, that didn't lose 6% of their body weight.
abby (17:37):
they're supposed to. This is how humans work.
dianne (17:40):
Now the other one that I love to hear is same hospital said, this babies that are born by C-section always get supplemented.
abby (17:50):
Oh, shut up.
dianne (17:52):
So it's not, and it's not fair. Right? It's not fair.
abby (17:56):
No. And then that person in that system doesn't even stand a chance because they're pushing back against the system and the system pushed back really hard sometimes.
dianne (18:04):
So it's really, it's very, very overwhelming, very overwhelming and scary. Cause you just want the best thing for your baby, you know? So you just kind of go, okay, you know, there's there just supplement a little bit til your milk comes in. Which is what they told you remember. And it's like, then sometimes that can work against you if you're not doing it. And they don't tell you how to do it. They're just like, oh just supplement till the milk comes in. And it's like, okay, how much do I give.
abby (18:27):
They give you all the free formula. And you go home and you think everything, you don't even know what to do.
dianne (18:31):
Yeah. It's very, very overwhelming and discouraging to say the least. Um, and they're, you know, luckily there's ways out of that. And once your baby starts gaining your baby's feeding fine, you're rolling along most of the time, you know, you don't need to supplement anymore. And most people don't anymore right after once things get rolling and that's, that's totally fine. And should we take a break and then talk about the second half of our baby's lives?
abby (19:00):
Totally. Let me tell you about the thing that Diane had a dream about.
dianne (19:04):
Oh yeah. My dreams.
abby (19:06):
All right. We'll be right back. Today's episode is brought to you by Ceres chill. Never worry about safely storing your breast milk or formula. Again, Ceres chill was invented by a mom for moms and offers guaranteed convenience with their double walled stainless steel container. A little bit of water and ice is all you need to keep your breast milk or formula safe for 20 hours. No more lugging around chunky coolers and dozens of containers you can pump and double pump all day into one sleek container. The chillers are dishwasher safe, airport friendly, and last a lifetime. Use it for wine, coffee or any of your favorite beverages or hot dogs like I do to bring to the park when you're done. Totally. When you're done breast or bottle feeding. Head over to cereschill.com. That's C E R E S C H I L L.com. And, uh, or you can check them on an Instagram, uh, @cereschill on Instagram for more details, um, and use code badass breastfeeders 25. Badassbreastfeeders 25 for 25% off of your order. And today's episode is brought to you by Niki's natural wipes. Niki's was created out of the passion of two new parents, wanting to protect the health of their precious new baby Niki. Conventional baby wipes contain harsh chemicals that can lead to redness, itchiness, dry skin, a burning sensation, and even blisters and urinary tract infections utilizing the miraculous antibacterial qualities of menuca honey, combined with the proven ability of coconut oil to moisturize dry skin Niki's has set a new global standard for premium baby. The smell and feel of the wipes is unique. 100% natural ethically sourced, EWG certified and biodegradable check out the first all natural baby wipes made with menuca honey and coconut oil on Nikis.com. N I K I s.com and use code promo use promo code badass 10 that's badass 10 for 10% off of your purchase. And I kind of want to have another baby so I can name it. Niki. I love that name. So really cute. Yeah. So all of our sponsors and these promo codes can be found in our show notes at badassbreastfeedingpodcast.com. Our show notes will also include information about other things that we talk about. Um, and at badassbreastfeedingpodcast.com, you'll also find our breastfeeding resources, all of our other episodes and information about scheduling your very own one-on-one online lactation consultation with Dianne.
dianne (21:42):
Yeah. Yeah. So should we talk about the babies that are a little bit older, a little bit older? Yeah. They're just doing their thing. You're just breastfeeding. They're rolling around there. They're meeting milestones, they're busy, they're sleeping, they're doing all the things and you go to the pediatrician and they say your baby's not gaining weight. Or as in gaining enough weight. usually when this happens, it's right around the four to six month mark, it is very normal for babies who are breastfed or receiving breast milk to slow their weight gain down. After about four months. everything else is growing. Their length is growing. Their head circumference is growing and they're still gaining, but not at the rate that they were prior to, you know, in the first month or two. this is normal, but we do not live in a culture where we see exclusively breastfed babies for extended periods of time. So your medical providers might not realize that this is very normal for, for your exclusively breastfed baby. Cause they just don't see this, but it is normal. So usually when people contact me with this, one of the, one of the biggest things that comes up as we were at the appointment and they said, my baby dropped several percentiles. I don't care what the hell your baby's percentile is. And you can listen to our percentile episode and you'll realize how ridiculous
abby (23:21):
Find out all the nonsense about the percentiles. Yes.
dianne (23:24):
I I'm always like, I don't care what the percentile is. Tell me what the weight is and I'll, I'll do the math and see where we are. And if it's a situation where it's like, okay, yeah, your baby really isn't really stopped gaining. Well, did they measure the baby's length? Then I'll start asking those questions. The baby's growing in length, there's a baby's head circumference. Are they meeting milestones? Are they doing all the things they're supposed to doing? Then I will offer to see them so that we can do a weighed feed and see like, is this just their growth pattern? Are they still transferring milk well? you know, cause the first thing everybody thinks of is it's my supply. You know? Cause that's usually the first thing the medical provider will say, well, is your supply, okay.
abby (24:04):
They'll just say you're not making enough milk. Yeah. Clearly you're not making enough milk. And it usually drops off around four or five months. You don't make milk anymore because they just make shit up and you know, so, you know yeah.
dianne (24:18):
And then they tell you that they want you to start supplementing. But if that's something that you don't want to do that let's check all the boxes, you know, let's see, is the baby transferring milk still? They're transferring milk. Well, is this a situation where maybe we can just slip a couple more feedings at maybe, you know, like add in a feeding somewhere? Is it, are they at six months yet? And we can start doing some solids where you can add in some breast milk with maybe a little food. You know, there is a lot of different things that you can do without worrying about like, oh my gosh, you know, my baby is losing all this weight. Percentile... Your baby is not going to be, they're not going to stay at the same percentile. Like they're just going to, it's going to change as they grow. You also have to look at genetics. You know? I mean, if I see this happen a lot, like if you are smaller person or your partner's a smaller person, like you're not gonna have a huge baby. So we also have to look at what is going on, you know, genetically to see, okay, is there, you know, could this just be a genetic thing?
abby (25:24):
Yeah. People will struggle sometimes with a smaller baby they'll struggle for years and years with medical professionals saying that something is wrong saying that they need to force them. You know, they need to supplement, you need to give them more foods. You needed to give them Pedialite or whatever that stuff, you know, you need to do this. You need to do that when this person is just small.
dianne (25:43):
Yup. Now I had a mom that I've been working with recently. Who's been going through this struggle, which is probably why we even did this episode, but it's been an ongoing struggle for the last couple of probably at least the last month, month and a half with weight gain with her baby. And it started because she was in a Facebook moms group and everybody was talking about what size or how, how much their baby weighed and her baby didn't weigh the same as their babies. So she got nervous. And was like, oh, well my baby doesn't weigh that. Maybe I should go take her in for a weight check and see, and the doctor's like, oh yeah, she's not gaining enough. They're doing blood work. They're threatening hospitalization. It's like, oh my God. And she was like, I really think everything's fine. You know? I mean, it is so much stress on a parent to have to like try to manipulate, try to try to maneuver your way through this red tape. It's awful.
abby (26:41):
Right. So what do you, so, so we have probably earlier on with this might come up more. I certainly, well, I guess I can come up at any time, but maybe more in the beginning. So there's all of these situations where weight gain or weight loss or slow weight gain is normal. But what about when it's not normal when you're like, you know, do you see situations or what should people be actually focusing on when, um, there is a true issue.
dianne (27:10):
So we're going to look at like behave, first of all, like, you know, doing a weighed feed and making sure the baby's latching well and actually feeding when they're there, when they're at the breast, because sometimes you don't really realize that you don't know what a feed looks like. You know, like your baby's there and they're suckling and you think they're eating, but they're really not. And I've had that happen several, you know, quite a bit over the last, you know, 15 years or whatever that I've been doing this. That parents just don't even recognize the fact that like, they're not really eating. They're just, they're super sleepy. They're not doing anything, but they're there and they're suckling. So you just kind of go, oh, they must be eating, but they're really not eating. So it's helpful to see a lactation consultant and just be like, I just want to make sure everything is going the way it's supposed to be going and making sure that the baby is transferring milk. If there's a situation with like the poop is a really good indicator. So I'm glad that you brought that up earlier because if they're newborn and their poop is not changing, then that is definitely a red flag. But even as they get older, if their poop changes again, you know, like if it, if their poop is just like changes color again, if it's maybe mucusy like really mucusy, if it's the baby's really fussy, they're not gaining well, that could be, that could definitely be like a problem and allergy, as far as like dairy allergy or something like that. I know people like to throw that around a lot now, but a true like dairy allergy, which is going to cause them problems with weight gain, you know, is going to show up in a lot of ways. So we're looking at that. We're looking at maybe is there a lot of, is there a reflux, a true reflux baby is going to lose weight. So is there like a really severe issue with reflux because that could be causing, you know, a weight issue there too. Sometimes they will do blood work and maybe something will come up like thyroid, which can happen with little babies too. There might be a thyroid issue and that would cause some problems with weight. Um, and, but a lot of times it's just the way the baby is designed, but we expect them to weigh a certain amount. We expect to see them gain a certain amount of weight when maybe your baby's just not designed to gain that kind of weight. You know, what's expected to see for, for breastfed babies is half an ounce to an ounce a day or like five ounces week or so, you know, anywhere from four to seven ounces a week. But sometimes the medical professionals will say, we want your baby to gain an ounce a day.
abby (29:51):
That's usually the standard. Yeah.
dianne (29:53):
Yeah. But that's not...that's not what we expect for breastfed babies. We expect half an ounce to an ounce a day. So that's usually another thing that I'll ask to like, okay, let me see what the weight gain is. Give me the numbers. And if it's around that half ounce a day, I'm like, you're, you're fine. Your baby's fine. They're they're within normal limits. They're doing fine, but it's really, you gotta, you gotta look at the whole picture. You gotta look at how they're behaving, what they're doing. You know? I mean, it just, it makes a huge difference. Sometimes, you know, those babies are sleeping. I've had, you know many parents have told me like the pediatricians complaining about the weight gain, but the baby sleeps so well overnight. I hate to wake them up at for another feeding, you know? And it's like, I, I kind of feel like they would wake up if they needed that feeding, you know, your baby's sleeping really well overnight at four or five, six months. I would, they know when they want to eat at that age, they would get up baby.
abby (30:55):
They're telling you, the baby should be sleeping all night. And then if the baby sleeps all night, then they tell you that the baby should be eating more.
dianne (31:01):
Right.
abby (31:01):
And then it's like, Jesus Christ. Nobody, nobody, you cannot win. You can't you can't. We create these. I mean, this medical industry is like, you know, they make money off of problems. Right. So of course there are situations where there is a problem, but there are many, many, many more situations where there are not problems. I remember having Jack in the hospital and Jack like, wouldn't pee Jack hadn't peed. And uh, they're like, okay, well we need to go take him down there to do a liver test. So he had like a liver test, his actual, my actual doctor showed up later. She was like, where's the baby? And I was like, he didn't pee. So they took him down for a liver test. She was like, oh my God, I could have made that baby pee. Yeah. She was like mad. Right. She was like, I wanna flick some water at his penis. Yeah. Um, she's like, you know, I mean, you know, so she was one doctor who she was young. She was a, um, a resident who was my OB. So she was like, you know, a little bit kind of like still being able to see kind of the stuff that was like, wait a minute. Why is that happening? She wasn't all the way in it yet. Um, you know, so she was just like, that's so stupid. It's like, my baby is just brand new and now he's getting a test on his liver. I was Dying. I was almost dying. I'm Like, are you have to bring me some like Valium or something? Cause I literally cannot stomach this. And of course they're like, oh, it's fine. And then he peed later.
dianne (32:32):
Oh yeah.
abby (32:33):
I mean, it just maybe he just didn't have to pee yet. He just fucking got here.
dianne (32:37):
Right. It's it's very, it's so overwhelming. And the idea that in our culture, every baby should be fat.
abby (32:44):
And I know, yes, every baby should be fat and every grownup should be skinny.
dianne (32:50):
I just can't. I just can't with that.
abby (32:51):
It's insane. It's absolutely insane. It's absolute insanity. Like we're all like, it's just, that's just a definition of completely insane. Yeah. And then we were all reeling in the middle of it. Like scared about something going wrong. And again, totally things can be wrong and people can help, but there are no situations that somebody can't help you with.
dianne (33:10):
I could honestly say in all the years that I've been doing this, rarely, is there an actual medical issue. Rarely.
abby (33:17):
Right. Like it's probably, usually, I mean, like with me, it was like, let's get up. Let's work on getting a better latch, work on let's work on you not giving him the breast that Jack just drank out of. Like, how about giving them one with a lot of milk in it.
dianne (33:32):
It's like, well, let's think about the feeds here. Like, cause I had one mom that was like, well, she does fall asleep all the time. So maybe if I just, I could do breast compressions, keep her awake, stimulate her. Make sure she's getting a full feed. Okay.
abby (33:44):
They are babies. They do need help. You have to help them. Absolutely. And sometimes you don't know how to do that. And so when you figure out how to do it, how do we help these babies learn how to do this? Then you know that these problems can be fixed.
dianne (33:57):
I mean, we can't tell you not to worry because no, you're going to worry about your baby's weight constantly. Like it just is something that you're going to do,
abby (34:05):
but just have information about the expectations.
dianne (34:09):
and have people to call, to call that can help you navigate this because it's overwhelming. If you're trying to do it by yourself. Yeah.
abby (34:16):
We also live in this culture where a doctor knows everything, right? The doctor knows everything. Everything that this doctor says is true because they're like the smartest people ever. But the truth is, is that you have to start seeing Your doctors as human. They don't know everything and they know very little about lactation, you know? So get a second opinion, gets other people involved, um, to help with that because you're not going to be able to get the right information from your doctor usually.
dianne (34:45):
Yeah. But yeah. So I hope that's helpful. We just kind of like tip of the iceberg, but I definitely hope it was helpful. But if you have a story to tell about it, let us know, let us know what your experience was. If you, if you have,
abby (34:59):
we can always hit these topics. I didn't have. When we talk about, we can always hit it from a different angle. If you let us know like, oh, you talked about that and we didn't, but you didn't cover this part of it then we'll just, yeah.
New Speaker (35:10):
Sounds good. Thanks for listening. I know what you're going through, unless you tell us, tell us, geez. I know we pretend we know everything, but we don't. Bye!