6.5 month old losing weight
FTM— apologies in advance for the long post! Just hoping someone may have had a similar experience or have some insight.
I’ve been exclusively breastfeeding my daughter since she was born late last year. For the most part, breastfeeding has been a breeze for both her and I, with little to no issues. We’ve seen a lactation consultant regularly from the start, and my baby never had latch issues. The only problem I ever had was an oversupply issue. As of about 5 months of age, my daughter was an efficient eater who could guzzle 5oz in less than 10 mins. She’s always been on the smaller side, hovering at about 8-10th percentile for weight, but it’s never been a real concern because she’s had steady weight gain— “she’s just petite!” is what the pediatrician always said.
She started sleeping through the night at about 10 weeks old.
Around the time she reached 6 months, she started waking up 1-2 times a night to feed; we assumed she might be teething. I then noticed that her feeds were getting much shorter, and she was getting more distracted. At her 6 month appointment, she weighed 13lbs 14oz. Two weeks later, at the lactation consultant, she weighed 13lbs 10oz (different scales and all, but still). They did a weighted feed and noticed she only took in about 1.5oz. They thought it might be a supply issue, so they advised me to pump after every feed to make sure my breasts were emptied. This was last week. We followed up with the pediatrician who ordered bloodwork and found that everything is normal for the most part. She’s alert, active, happy, and is producing a normal amount of wet diapers, she’s been eating solids 2x a day for a month mostly successfully, but the weight loss is concerning. The doctor asked to check back in 2 weeks, and if her weight hasn’t gone up, we’ll have to start supplementing with formula.
For the last week or so, I’ve been pumping after every feed, as well as power pumping once a day (before bed). This seems to have helped boost my supply, as I was initially pumping 1-2oz during the power pump sessions, but now I’m getting 5-6oz a night. We’re also offering her bottled breast milk (1-2oz) after every feed, but she’s mostly uninterested. Just now, I tried to feed her (2 hours after her last feed) and she started trying to push off me to look around and crawl about 4 mins into the nursing session .
We followed up with the LC yesterday, and she’s back up to 13 lbs 12oz, so she’s no longer losing weight, but also not gaining a great amount. We did a weighted feed and she took about 2.5oz, so only a slight improvement from the previous week. Our follow-up with the pediatrician is next week and I’m just concerned that her weight gain won’t have been significant enough. My mom is pushing me to give my daughter formula because she’s worried that my breast milk isn’t nutrient dense enough and is impeding her development and growth but my pediatrician and LC both said we’re not there yet in terms of needing to supplement.
I feel trapped and paralyzed by this fear of making the wrong choice for both of us— my goal has always been to breastfeed for a year, and my supply seems fine, it seems to be mostly an issue with my baby being distracted at this point, so I’m not even sure that formula would help?? But I truly don’t know what to do. Am I being obstinate by not supplementing with formula? Is this just a phase/convergence of unlucky circumstances with starting solids, supply dip, etc? Would love some encouragement 🥲