To wonder if we're overfeeding her?

[willisurvive3under2]

2 month old twins. Mix fed, twin 1 is mainly breastfed with the odd formula bottle. Twin 2 doesn't feed well from the breast so she has a lot of bottles. I have no problems with this - we're just trying to survive these very hard few weeks with little twins and a young toddler.

However my DH will feed a formula bottle to twin 2 every time she cries and can't be calmed down in other ways. He insists she must be hungry. She does in fact show hungry cues and will down bottle after bottle. We're giving her way more than the recommended amount shown on the formula tub. Is this ok? They were born small and are still catching up - at 2 months they're the average newborn weight. Will too much milk hurt them?

I know the latest guidelines say to FF on demand but twin 2 literally never says no (and is never sick, she keeps in every last drop). I've never FF before as my first was BF for a long time. Any advice welcome.

My second son is like this, as was my first son.

I’m currently feeding him his 5th 8oz bottle of the day. He’s the size of a house and feeds every 3ish hours. 4 months wearing 6-9 month stuff and some 9-12 months.

I’d have been worried but DS 1 was the same and is now a very tall, strong, slender and active boy and DS2 is going the same way.

If there’s no vomit then crack on.

It's pretty hard to over feed a small baby (they tend to puke). Do they have dummy's? Sometimes they just want to suckle, you'll quickly know if the baby is really hungry because the dummy will be spat out angrily when it doesn't produce milk

Dummies*

I would say best to check with your/their dr to put your mind at rest. How is her size compared to T1?

Or health visitor!

Thank you. Yes they do take dummies and twin 2 is particularly keen. You can tell straightaway if she's happy with the dummy - if not it gets rejected and keeps mouthing.

She's quite a bit smaller. She was 4 lbs at birth and is now 8lbs. Twin 1 is over 9 lbs.

Midwives and HV all said to me You can't overfeed them. Info on tin is just a guide. I did find my son was comfort drinking and HV suggested a dummy as he was always shoving his fists in his mouth since the day he was born, I was against it but he has it and if he's genuinely hungry he'll spit it out and let me know. Other times my husband thinks he's hungry when it's just wind. My son is nearly 2 months demand fed and just levelling out his feeding himself so maybe that's what she's doing. They may just be catching their weight up

My DD was 6 weeks prem and bottle fed from the start. She developed reflux and the consultant initially said we were overfeeding her, she would vomit after every bottle though not just late in the day and she was eventually diagnosed with a milk intolerance. If there's no vomit after a bottle and the dummy is being rejected I'd carry on as you are, she's probably just a hungry baby particularly if she had a low birth weight, she'll be catching up!

I’d respectfully ignore HV advice around the size of your baby - I’ve found them extremely unhelpful.

My first baby was 96th centile (11lb and 60cm). Every fucking visit went like this:

HV: He’s very big...

Me: yes - he has been from day 1.

HV: We’ll have to keep an eye on it.

Me: right. Should I be feeding him less?

HV: oh no, he’s just bigger than we’d expect.

Me: but he always has been - he’s on the exact same centile line as he was at birth...

HV: yes, but don’t overfeed him.

Me: I feed on demand and he’s never sick ever. He’ll refuse a bottle if he’s not hungry. I’m not sure what I could do differently...

HV: maybe his height will catch up.

Me: what’s his height now?

HV: oh, we don’t measure that.

I just stopped going. If you have a good one then great but if not it’s more trouble than it’s worth when it comes to feeding.

It sounds like she's genuinely hungry then, don't spend another minute worrying about it.

My son was 6 weeks early and bottle fed. He had a bottle every 2 hours for about 12 weeks. Never vomited, he was only 5lb at birth so it was put down to him catching up. I really wouldn't worry, if you feed them too much they vomit, as I found out with my DD when the midwife tried to get her to drink more milk than she could handle

I was always told that you can’t overfeed a baby too. I was constantly ringing the health visitors and going “he’s just had 5oz - he can’t still be hungry!” We just cracked on with it. They do tend to puke if they eat too much anyway so it is really hard to overfeed them. I’d recommend not looking at the guidance notes on the formula tubs as they will only make you paranoid.

I was told you can't overfeed a breastfed baby but could overfeed a FF baby. I was told I was overfeeding my FF baby as it was more than "normal". All this added to my depression about being unable to breastfeed. For what it's worth, I completely disagree and I'm really angry they got me so worried and stressed with it all. She's now nearly 2 and still eats like a horse most of the time but she isn't in any way fat. She is tall, though! She got podgy around maybe 4 months or so but it all evened out pretty quickly. Please don't worry about it. My NCT friends were shocked at the time hearing how many ounces she'd get through a day but when we met up and they saw how she screamed with hunger and downed a bottle, they were like "well, you can't argue with that - she clearly needs it!". It got to a stage when they just didn't make bottles big enough for her (!) but thankfully her solid food picked up and sorted that out eventually, and we cut out bottles altogether in the week of her first birthday.

what age do you offer water too? maybe in the heat it's thirst rather than hunger, I can't remember when mine were offered water but I do remember being a bit shocked at myself when HV asked how much water Ds had and I realised I had never offered it!

We’ve got twins too. Good luck, it’s hard going. Ours just turned 1.

If they’re hungry, feed them. They’ll spew if they’re over-fed.

When I took our daughter to A&E a few weeks ago for feeding problems, the senior doctor told me that it doesn't matter how much a baby eats as long as it's gaining a healthy amount of weight.

Also as someone else mentioned if she over-feeds the extra will come up. Just enjoy the fact that she doesn't have reflux.

I am not an expert butility new of my twins was just the same. Was small at birth 4lb 10 and was constantly bottle feeding. I think some of it was for comfort as he had a dummy as well but mainly he just liked milk and is now a big healthy two year old! Still suck an empty bottle at night and drinks milk by the gallon.

In short wouldn't worry too much.

Good luck.

Premature babies can often be hungrier. I presume you’re using higher protein milk designed for premies? If not then please switch.

Both of mine where less than 6lb, and where chugging away at milk for the first 6 months. You literally can not over feed them, they puke it all back up, it'll just be catching up, my oldest was 5lb 9 and fed every two hours on the hour until he was about 4 months, it was put down to him just catching up to the weight he should have been

I do seem to remember having to give water in the heat if they’re formula fed? Maybe she’s thirsty, as opposed to being genuinely hungry. That’s not to say she’s not hungry though, just something to consider. My children have all had varying degrees of greed, my youngest in particular was ravenous as a baby and is still like it now, it was exhausting. No matter how much breastmilk he had he was grumpy unless being fed, so I moved to formula - he was never overweight and eats brilliantly. Now he’s very energetic and strong! My middle child didn’t vomit once until he caught a bug in reception, not even a little bit of milk spit up. Weirdly non-sicky baby. He was fairly greedy as a baby and got absolutely massive, finally stretching out at about 3/4 and becoming lean and muscular. I’m saying all of this to say... I don’t think you can overfeed a baby really. She’s still tiny and I don’t think now is the time to worry about overfeeding, as long as she seems to be enjoying it and not throwing it back up or having tummy troubles.

I think the advice might have changed re water. I don't think they're meant to get it before 6 months but best to check with a HV.

Oh yeah, we were told not to give them water until they are 6 months old. Ours was mostly formula fed. Although I do seem to remember that a hv also said that if a baby gets really constipated you could give them cooled boiled water, but I think the recommendation was that even then it would be best to wait until they are 6 months.

Thank you, pleased to hear most people agree we're fine to crack on as we are.

We've been told no water until 6 months.

Off I go to make more bottles!

Can you look at pace feeding? There are brilliant YouTube videos explaining, but it's a technique of slowing down bottle feeding a little (I know probably not what you want with twins) but it enables ff babies to recognise that full feeling and self stop in time before they're sick. They tend to be more satisfied and take a little less than when you give a bottle in the traditional way.