Nov 12

Posted by My OB said WHAT?!?.

“Oh, Your Baby Is Too Big To Breastfeed…”

“Oh, your baby is too big to breastfeed, you’ll never make enough milk for him.” -OB

There are 24 comments to this post.

naomi had this to say, Nov 12, 2009 @ 6:38 am (Quote)

Well we all know what that is a croc of!

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Megan had this to say, Nov 12, 2009 @ 7:11 am (Quote)

Oh, the ignorance!

*I’m sitting here nursing my 3 month old who was 9lbs. 3.6ozs. and was back up to birth weight at 3 days old. At her 2 month appt she had gained almost 4 lbs…I GUESS I WASN’T MAKING ENOUGH MILK.

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Jill--Unnecesarean had this to say, Nov 12, 2009 @ 7:42 am (Quote)

I asked a nurse why my baby was crying so much (she wasn’t crying a lot… I just didn’t understand that I could simply put her to the breast to calm her). Her reply?

“Child, you don’t have enough milk for that big baby! Let’s get her supplemented.”

I was sitting out at the nurses’ station with about three night PP nurses and she poured a teaspoon on formula into my baby’s mouth with a plastic cup. NO ONE SAID ANYTHING or asked what the hell she was doing. I was exhausted and confused.

Fortunately a family member got wind of this and was livid. I had never had any intention of supplementing and she never got more than about three tablespoons.

There are a lot of misconceptions about large babies. I heard countless times with both babies (mostly from older women), “How nice to have such a big baby. She probably doesn’t need to eat very often.” I’m pretty sure a (different) nurse said that to me to in the hospital.

I’m glad I learned that breastfeeding on demand was our miracle fix for everything. It worked for us.

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Megan Reply:
November 12th, 2009 at 9:11 am (Quote)

Breastfeeding on demand worked for me too (didn’t know there was any other way!). It’s how i got my supply up to feed my ‘big’ baby.

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Evelyn had this to say, Nov 12, 2009 @ 7:54 am (Quote)

Goodness knows what my 22lb exclusively breastfed 7 month old is surving on then!

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Jordan had this to say, Nov 12, 2009 @ 8:33 am (Quote)

My youngest brother was 12lb3oz at birth. My mom was told she shouldn’t bf him either. She did anyway, and he doubled his birth weight by 3 months. Yep, a 24lb 3mo. All on breastmilk. He’s a strapping, tall and muscular 19yo football player now, not an ounce of fat on the kid. I’d say mom sure did make enough milk, and it did him good! As it would do any baby. I know a mom who exclusively nursed twins on one breast alone. She made plenty of milk, too. Surprise, surprise.

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Knitted in the Womb Reply:
November 13th, 2009 at 9:03 pm (Quote)

I had a client birth an 11 lb 10 oz baby. At 4 months old he was 25 lbs, and she would bring him into church in a stroller. Exclusively breastfed.

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Kat had this to say, Nov 12, 2009 @ 8:46 am (Quote)

Huh… This is another one of those “you can’t win” situations. If your baby is large “Oh you’ll never make enough milk!” (nevermind that my body always produces an oversupply that could easily feed triplets).

I have also heard of cases where the baby was small/low birth weight, and of course the answer was “Oh we MUST get this baby some formula ASAP, because we can’t be certain it will get enough from the breast. We can *measure* how much formula the baby takes…”

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Megan Reply:
November 12th, 2009 at 9:22 am (Quote)

they try to get ya comin’ and goin’! i guess they think bf’ing can only be successful if you have a 7 lb baby exactly!

breast is best no matter your baby’s size!

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Kat had this to say, Nov 12, 2009 @ 10:31 am (Quote)

Megan:

Well, sure, if your baby is seven pounds exactly you can try it. But it probably won’t work… and you can’t do it if your breasts are small, or if they’re big. Or if you have big nipples, or if your nipples don’t stick out “enough.” Or if your kid is born on the second Tuesday following a new moon during El Nino…

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Michelle Potter Reply:
November 13th, 2009 at 5:50 pm (Quote)

No, I think you have it backwards. If you have perfectly B-cup breasts with exactly the right nipples, and your exactly seven pound baby was born on the second Tuesday following a new moon during El Nino, that is the ONE time you CAN breastfeed. Anything else is just being reckless and selfish, putting your own desire to breastfeed above your poor, poor baby’s desire to eat formula from a bottle (and your husband’s desire to get up in the middle of the night to feed said formula to the baby for you — yeah right!)

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Sherrie Reply:
November 17th, 2009 at 9:37 am (Quote)

One nurse tried to tell me that just because my baby wouldn’t take my breast I couldn’t breast feed (my oldest was NICU’d for 2 weeks at birth and couldn’t eat for the first 5 days because of a hole in her lung and I couldn’t be at the NICU as much as I would have liked because my ex was a douche). I told them to screw off and pumped for the first couple of months. I had so much extra milk that I had to freeze it and even when I stopped pumping, I still had breast milk for her for another 2 months!

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liz had this to say, Nov 12, 2009 @ 11:52 am (Quote)

My niece is 17lbs at 2months – and her Dr. is saying that she’s overweight! So they want her mother (who is exclusively breastfeeding) do stop and switch her to formula so that she can “restrict” how much she eats.

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Tiffany Reply:
November 14th, 2009 at 12:54 pm (Quote)

thats horrible!!!!! a baby knows when shes full and I would never prevent my baby from having food!

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tiffany had this to say, Nov 12, 2009 @ 12:56 pm (Quote)

My 10.8 lb baby was exclusively breast-fed…and he weighed 16 pounds at 6 weeks of age. Obviously we DO have super milk!

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Micah had this to say, Nov 12, 2009 @ 3:20 pm (Quote)

I exclusively breastfed my son who was 10 lbs 6.5 oz at birth. We’re going on a year strong.

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Alyssa had this to say, Nov 12, 2009 @ 4:21 pm (Quote)

The thing is though, shouldn’t nurses work on FACTS and not misconceptions?? These aren’t just random well wishers on the street, these are trained medical professionals who work with babies on a daily basis and have no clue on how they are supposed to be fed or the facts of nutrition. Oh, I mean, other than that info session Goodstart gave…

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Rachel had this to say, Nov 12, 2009 @ 5:12 pm (Quote)

Thats funny, my 10lb+ baby couldn’t make a dent in my engorgement after my milk came in! THANK GOODNESS for tandem nursing and eager toddlers available to provide some relief, or I would have been in a world of pain.

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Lisa had this to say, Nov 12, 2009 @ 5:13 pm (Quote)

Liz, I hope the motheris ignoring their idiocy? The terror over fatness is over the top, especially when they start trying to restrict food for infants. Good way to *create* fat people.

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Liz Reply:
November 13th, 2009 at 1:59 am (Quote)

Yes, she is. 1. – because it’s just idiotic. 2. – Why spend money on formula – when BF is free? This is a military family & any pennies they can save- they will!

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TJ had this to say, Nov 12, 2009 @ 6:27 pm (Quote)

All of these horror stories about breastfeeding make me so glad that our hospital is awesome when it comes to getting babies on the boob.

Even with the bili levels my daughter had, they still were supportive of exclusively breastfeeding and my family doctor was too.

I realize now how grateful I should be for that support.

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DLN had this to say, Nov 13, 2009 @ 5:41 am (Quote)

I had a 7.5 pounder and was told the same thing. You really can’t win.

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Micah Reply:
November 14th, 2009 at 9:32 am (Quote)

7.5 lbs is tiny!!

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Jessica had this to say, Nov 21, 2009 @ 5:30 pm (Quote)

My 9lb 1oz at birth baby spent the first 32 days in the NICU, and I pumped so he would have breast milk. It took 3 weeks after he came home to switch from bottled breastmilk to exclusively nursing. My body is so ridiculously sensitive to tiny changes, however, so it was really hard (even with fenugreek sp? and mother’s milk tea) to eat and drink enough to keep my milk supply up, especially when baby wanted to nurse 24-26 times a day for the first 7 months. I kept at it, but, regardless of what we did, ended up with an average of 1 formula bottle a day (usually around 3 am when I was completely dry). Just because you might be in a situation where you legitimately CAN’T produce enough for your hungry baby (and I know its really rare), doesn’t mean you still can’t breastfeed as much as possible! 24 ‘breasts’ and 1 bottle is a lot better than 24 bottles a day!