Should I be worried about 3-month old's weight?

[zinaida]

He was born 4 weeks 1 day premature and the first week we were all worried about his lack of weight gain. He is EBF on demand and since then has been doing really well, I thought- I was really pleased at each weigh in that he'd put so much on.

However my MIL thinks he is putting on too much weight and that I need to do something. In the last 6 weeks he has gone from 4th centile to 90th. I had assumed he was just destined to be a big boy and would level off near the top of the range. His height and weight centiles are the same, andhis dad is a big bloke, as are all the men in my family.

My MIL says babies don't level off and that he will just continue to gain rapidly and that I need to introduce solids to slow him down. I'm going to talk to the HV but have been worrying all night and would like the MN perspective if possible. I had been really proud of his growth and thought it was proof I was doing things right and now I'm so worried!

Actually studies show you can overfeed a bottle fed baby.

Think of it like this if you eat your tea really fast you can easily overeat before you feel full enough to stop. If you eat more slowly then you will eat less before you feel full and stop. The same works for bottle feed babies as they get milk faster then a breastfed baby, plus there is the temptation to make the baby finish the bottle epically if there is only a small bit left (of course not everyone does this but I have seen it done). This is why there is a link between bottle feeding and obesity. By the way it doesn't matter what is in the bottle, its the method of delivery so it could be formula or breastmilk.

It a very good reason why parents should be shown how to bottle feed.

That was certainly not the case with mine. It all balances out and a big feed earlier makes them have less later. The opposite is also true so if you underfeed and dont give them enough they are just hungrier earlier and take more next time. If they dont want it they dont want it so they wont take the last bit however hard you try. Anyway that was the case with mine and I realise others may be different (and therefore predisposed to obesity I suppose).

brett not really no, it doesn't always balance out. The link between ff and obesity is not looking at feeds over one day but over a longer time. The stomach is a muscle and can expand so the repeated giving of large amounts of milk will cause the baby's stomach to become larger and so need more to feel full. This will result in a fatter baby simply because they ar having more milk. If you think about it a baby's tummy is the size of a small marble at birth, a bf mother will feed the baby tiny amounts of colostrum. 1ml of colostrum is nutritionally the same as 30ml of formula so if you imagine the effect on a tiny marble sized tummy of having 30ml put into it.......

Of course not all ff babies are going to be obese and it is perfectly possible to demand feed a ff baby in a sensitive manner. However, it is possible to overfeed a ff baby where it is not possible to overfeed a bf baby.