Okay so courtney was 3 weeks on wednesday, she was born weighing 6lb 6oz and was last weighed this monday she was 7lb 4oz midwife wasn't my normal one. Midwife has been today and apparently now shes only 7lb 3oz :? despite taking 4-5oz 3-4hrly (she took a whole 6oz yesterday!). Midwife says to feed her on demand and only give her water if she needs it, health visitor says try to stretch her feeds and dont let her take 2oz and then another 2oz an hour and half later(she does this sometimes) but to offer her water between feeds. Midwife reckons if i stretch her feeds during the day shes gonna be up alot at night (she sleeps pretty well at min). Who's advice do I go with the midwives or the health visitors:confused:

I would not worry too much about the weight difference. Different scales can sometimes give different weights. Also depends on when she was fed before the weigh in. I'd go with your own instincts. If she's sleeping well, feeding well and appears healthy then thats all good. My youngest (12 weeks) feeds on and off all day but will then sleep about 8 or 9 hours at night, so thats good enough for me :) She has 5oz bottles but regularly drinks 2 or 3 then will finish the rest half an hour or an hour after. My other 4 were pretty much the same. It's a pain during the day as sometimes I'm feeding her every couple of hours but I know she's getting enough bottles during the day to go a long spell without one during the night.

Ive learned that its best to take both a midwives or a health visitors advice with a huge pinch of salt, then ignore them completely and ask someone whose already had kids.

The rest is trial and error, especially feeding regimes because in my experience (and I had five kids worth of experience) if you paid any attention at all to them youd end up with a hungry, grizzly, bad tempered baby. Theres nothing better than experience and the stuff health visitors and the likes get from text books are the latest fads, written by academics who have never had kids of their own and are simply following the latest "How to bring up baby" fashion.

I went right off topic there, didnt I...? :D

I'd go with what suits you? If you are happy with feeding on demand it will stretch out longer eventually. Equally so, feeding on a schedule works too.
We, with twins, did a 3 hourly feeding schedule which meant they always got a regular feed and they took whatever they wanted of it, usually all of it.
Eventually we relaxed that to on demand feeds and it worked absolutely fine for us.
We also made great use of dreamfeeds when we went to bed which helped us establish a great overnight routine at 10-12 weeks.
As long as your child gets regular feeds and sufficient overall, how and when you feed should be to suit you both, not anyone else.

What on earth are 'dreamfeeds'??? :D

:) Feeding the baby whilst still asleep. They get a feed at the latest time before you go to bed so you have (hopefully) 3 hours minimum uninterrupted sleep.
The baby's sleep is prolonged, beginning a habit (hopefully) and they never get to the point of waking and crying a lot, delaying going back to sleep, because they never wake up.
It may well have saved our sanity in the early months of parenting :D

Thing is I can't remeber what i did with last one lol (only been 2 years) I'm just gonna demand feed her as shes been sleeping really well, I don't really trust either midwife or health visitor, midwife seems like a newbie and i don't think shes had kids, health visitor on other hand is like 50+ and i think shes a bit old fashioned

Shes been sleeping 11 till 5ish which is great, she never wakes screaming for a bottle which is an advantage!

Sounds like you're doing fine instinctively anyway :)

To be honest i had no faith in my health visitor with my first child as she told me my daughters head was too big for her body and one leg was shorter than the other and booked an appointment at the hospital for her to be checked out, but when i got there after a week of worrying if something was wrong the doctor took one look at her and said she was perfectly fine and when she was measured throughly it was shown that she was the exact size that she should have been.
On the other hand my midwives were brilliant both times round.
In your case i will always say a mother knows her child best and you should do what you feel is right for you and your daughter.

It's funny you should say that because my Health Visitor tried to get me to go to hospital for something so stupid I can't even remember what it was. She took one look at the astonished look on my face and changed her mind. I wonder if they have some kind of target that they have to meet to refer x number of babies to hospital or something....If I ever had another baby I would stay as far away from the Health Visitor as possible.

To be honest i had no faith in my health visitor with my first child as she told me my daughters head was too big for her body and booked an appointment at the hospital for her to be checked out, but when i got there after a week of worrying if something was wrong the doctor took one look at her and said she was perfectly fine and when she was measured throughly it was shown that she was the exact size that she should have been.
On the other hand my midwives were brilliant both times round.
In your case i will always say a mother knows her child best and you should do what you feel is right for you and your daughter.

To be honest i had no faith in my health visitor with my first child as she told me my daughters head was too big for her body and booked an appointment at the hospital for her to be checked out, but when i got there after a week of worrying if something was wrong the doctor took one look at her and said she was perfectly fine and when she was measured throughly it was shown that she was the exact size that she should have been.
On the other hand my midwives were brilliant both times round.
In your case i will always say a mother knows her child best and you should do what you feel is right for you and your daughter.

My health visitor did the exact same as yours minibobkin, they do your head in, half of them aint had any children,

Go with your heart, sounds like you are doing everything right.

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I totally agree with this, I had a bit of a run in with a health visitor last time round. She was utterly convinced I had P.N.D (I was fine there was nothing wrong with me) she got to the point that she was bordering on harrasing me about it.
In the end I had to go see the practice manager and demand that she be told to leave me alone before she ended up actually giving me depression, she did and they gave me a different woman after that. I am considering telling the health visitor I do not need her services this time round.

I told my health visitor to f-off a while ago, shes tried more than once to convince me I'm depressed well after the run in with her she phoned social services:rant:

When our last horror was born the health visitor sat down, looked at the OH and said `Theres no point in me telling you anything because you could probably teach me a thing or two so Im just going to weigh and check baby over and then Ill be on my way.`

She didnt offer any advice at all and thats the best way for a health visitor to be. They should be there to be asked for advice, not to insist you take it weather you want it or not and then peer down their noses at you if you disagree with them.

My health visitor and midwife were both great (my youngest is 1 now), they'd sit and tell me what i should do then i would tell them what im going to do, most women know what their baby wants and i found giving my daughter water helped her to settle more.

they both told me she didnt need it but its like us only drinking coffee or tea and not having any other liquid it would get sickly

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I personally prefer to demand feed. Babys are very good at telling us what they need. But mummys are also very good at listening and noticing the smallest difference in their babies. Go with your instincts they both might have read the books but nobody knows your baby like you do.

Some of them get a bit power hungry, I basically told the practice manager that some of the things she had said to me could quite easily have sent someone who actually had P.N.D over the edge and that they should thank thier lucky stars I was not depressed. I have a child with severe behavioural problems and neuro disabilitys(the eldest), she seemed to think he was neglected because he was grounded on the day she came and he was playing the poor hard done to waif, not once did ask what it was he got into trouble for, she actually went on to say to my face that I was neglecting my children. I was livid to say the least, I also asked the practice manager what qualifactions she had to make a judgement regarding a mentally ill child in less that five minutes. He shuffled his feet a little looked uncomfortable and apologised to me. :rant: this time the health visitor will be lucky if she even gets through the front door.

My eldest has problems too and basically they said he was being scrape goated because of my lack of parenting skills! :rant: Turns out if was actually her fault for not realising that he had problems! If you don't let them in they phone social services cos refusing them entry means youre neglecting your kids :confused: Surprisingly social services couldn't find any fault and now she couldn't be any nicer to me if she tried:hihi: i still refer to her as "evil troll" or "shrek" and the kids ain't too fond of her either!

If you don't let them in they phone social services cos refusing them entry means youre neglecting your kids :confused: Surprisingly social services couldn't find any fault and now she couldn't be any nicer to me if she tried:hihi: i still refer to her as "evil troll" or "shrek" and the kids ain't too fond of her either!

There's an interesting article on the AIMS Website, titled 'Health Visitors or Health Police?', all about this very scenario http://www.aims.org.uk/Journal/Vol16No3/HealthVisitors.htm. This is why I put up with the Health Visitors pointless monthly weighs ins and terrible breastfeeding advice. I later discovered, from the other Health Visitor, that I was summoned to clinic so often to keep the numbers up.....I thought they were meant to be rushed off their feet?!?....

There's an interesting article on the AIMS Website, titled 'Health Visitors or Health Police?', all about this very scenario http://www.aims.org.uk/Journal/Vol16No3/HealthVisitors.htm. This is why I put up with the Health Visitors pointless monthly weighs ins and terrible breastfeeding advice. I later discovered, from the other Health Visitor, that I was summoned to clinic so often to keep the numbers up.....I thought they were meant to be rushed off their feet?!?....

My health visitor comes every week and shes had me in tears many times, my daughter got nits.. aparently i'm neglecting my daughter even though i brought nit lotion, nit comb etc and spent hours braiding her hair, she asks me personal questions about my money situation etc etc shes made my life hell when I was preganent she use to phone the hospital and make sure i'd kept my appointments, i missed one appointment because my son was very ill(ill enough to make me phone 999) and I didn't want to leave him, she came round shouting the odds. She also checks my sons attendance at nursey and yeah hes missed some days when hes had colds and ear infections but in her eyes its child neglect!

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Oh my god........ some of these so called professionals sound horrific !!

I am very lucky in that my health visitor is lovely and my midwife was fab too. My health visitor weighs Rachel and only gives advice as and when I ask for it. Even then she tells me that I know my baby best and to go with my instincts even if that is the opposite of the advice she has given me.

I didn't realise how lucky I was till I read this thread.

My health visitor comes every week and shes had me in tears many times, my daughter got nits.. aparently i'm neglecting my daughter even though i brought nit lotion, nit comb etc and spent hours braiding her hair, she asks me personal questions about my money situation etc etc shes made my life hell when I was preganent she use to phone the hospital and make sure i'd kept my appointments, i missed one appointment because my son was very ill(ill enough to make me phone 999) and I didn't want to leave him, she came round shouting the odds. She also checks my sons attendance at nursey and yeah hes missed some days when hes had colds and ear infections but in her eyes its child neglect!

I strongly recommend you contact AIMS and get advice and help. You don't have to put up with this behaviour and I would definitely look at making a complaint, about this particular Health Visitor, as she sounds like a real menace. AIMS Helpline - 0870 765 1433

I've dealt with 4 HVs and only one has been pleasant, the others have all made you feel like a total idiot. The thing that annoys me most is when you're dressing/undressing your baby and he screams (as they do) and they just stand there with a look like thunder on their faces and don't actually help you. You feel like you are being judged because your child is upset!

If there's a next time then I'll rent a set of ruddy scales and do the weighing myself!!! :rant:

I've dealt with 4 HVs and only one has been pleasant, the others have all made you feel like a total idiot. The thing that annoys me most is when you're dressing/undressing your baby and he screams (as they do) and they just stand there with a look like thunder on their faces and don't actually help you. You feel like you are being judged because your child is upset!

If there's a next time then I'll rent a set of ruddy scales and do the weighing myself!!! :rant:

The only time my little sweetheart cried was when he had to be undressed and weighed by the HV. I eventually declined to go into clinic as I could see for myself that my baby was growing and the HV wasn't helping me so it seemed pointless upsetting him. From my work with AIMS I knew all about the surveillance and asked the HV if I was under surveillance and she said no so I said fine then I won't be seeing you again!!

I couldn't stand any of the health visitors who came round when I had my son last year. They were constantly on about his weight as he started to slow down in growth from about three months. It got so bad that they forced him to be admitted to hospital for all sorts of tests (including some invasive and very painful ones) even though I thought there was nothing wrong with him, he was just on the dinky side. After five days in hospital, suprise surprise, NOTHING on any of his tests.

And all this because he wasn't bottle fed, and I refused to switch to satisfy them. They even suggested that he was on the verge of death because of his slow weight gain.

Following that I refused to have anything to do with the health visitors (and awaited the social services visit but it never came) and feel so much better than I did in the first few months of his life. It was almost like I was looking over my shoulder all the time, worrying they were going to turn up and find fault with something/anything.

Now, he's eighteen months old, he eats like a horse and guess what, still dinky.

The midwives who came round after I had him, on the other hand, were all great and really helped when I had questions. Although hearing what other people have had to say over the past year and a half, that could just have been luck.