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Infant feeding

Over feeding breastfed baby from bottle?

5 replies

LittleSausageFingers · 31/05/2016 20:07

My EBF DD is 16 weeks. We give her a bottle of expressed milk a couple of times a week. On Saturday I went out for the day, and she had three bottles of EBM - 7oz, 8oz and 4oz. This was in addition to night feeds and morning feeds from me, plus I popped home to feed her at 2pm (I was out 10am to 11pm). The next day I was out for 4 hours and she had a 10oz bottle. We offer her 3oz initially, then burp her, offer 2oz more, until she doesn't want any more. She'll cry if she's still hungry.

I read that EBF babies only take 3-5oz per feed (30oz per day)... Are we over feeding her from the bottle?! I'm not sure how this much milk can fit inside her! Thanks in advance for any advice.

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KP86 · 31/05/2016 20:24

Unless you are force feeding and she's vomiting the excess you can assume that all is well.

Nobody knows how much babies feed from the breast. They are much more efficient than pumping so you can't compare times, plus your flow might be fast, it might be slow, etc.

If baby is telling you she's hungry, then keep going :) My DS had 100+ml bottle of EBM when he was 4 days old. 'They' reckon babies that age have 30-40ml/feed. Ha!

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thrillhouse · 31/05/2016 20:28

Have a read of this, might be useful kellymom.com/bf/pumpingmoms/feeding-tools/bottle-feeding/

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ChocolateHelps · 31/05/2016 20:39

Have a Google for paced bottle feeding. Baby much more upright and lots of pauses. It can take 20 mins to register fullness and baby will often keep chugging because it's there.

Long gaps between feeds can reduce milk supply. There is a hormone in your milk that the longer it sits in the breasts it will tell the breasts to stop making milk otherwise you'd just explode. Ideally pump at the normal times you will feed baby when you are away.

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KP86 · 31/05/2016 20:45

It sounds like OP is pacing, even if it wasn't intentional. She said they are giving 3oz, burping, then 2oz lots until baby is done. It takes time to prepare (or even just pour) those extra lots of milk.

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LittleSausageFingers · 31/05/2016 20:56

Thanks all. Yes, it does look like we've been unintentionally paced feeding! We feed her in a bouncy chair (she won't take a bottle any other way) so she is quite upright. She's a fast feeder, be it breast or bottle, as I have a fast let down, which caused so many problems to begin with but she has now adapted to. However we use slow flow teats for the bottle.

Thanks Chocolate, i do try to pump for every missed feed. Although i never manage to pump as much milk as she takes from the bottle iyswim.