FF - being able to see the amount being fed not being an advantage?

[tabulahrasa]

How is it a disadvantage to a baby?

I can see how it's reassuring for a parent, I can't quite work out why that's not then also a good thing for a baby?

Or is it more a baby doesn't care, so it's not an advantage rather than it being a disadvantage?

I haven't met a lot of mums who have fed on a timing schedule either, but most mums I know breast feed. I know my mum did with me, but that's so long ago I'm afraid to admit my age even to myself. Dd1 was a wild cluster feeder in the late afternoon from about 4pm-6pm, dd2 was just wild and dd3 has so far followed in dd1s footsteps but she's only 8 weeks. Its funny, none of mine were hungry in the morning.

lol, mine did that with bottles too Rita

I feel a bit odd being in here, I was discussing FF because of that BBC3 programme - mine are well past the BF or FF stage, rofl

it's interesting though

I hear you Rita. DS is a bugger for changing sides, trying to watch someone else in the room, trying to flip over while still latched on etc.

This is partly a bottle feeding issue, not just a Formula issue, isn't it -

I can see very big differences in the way that DP/MiL fed DS expressed milk from a bottle, and the way that DS fed from the boob. MiL in particular, whose other grandchildren have been FF from the start, got very worried if DS didn't gulp down a lot of the bottle straightaway, because she doesn't like to leave the bottle standing around. While broadly supportive of BF-ing (mostly...), she has a deeply grained obsession with timed feeds, and wanting DS to be 'properly hungry' before a feed. This translated into a strong anxiety about the amount DS took from a bottle.

She clearly saw it as a 'failure' if DS didn't take a lot in one go, which I think led to some stressy times for both of them when she was left with him. She kept nudging him to take more when he wasn't interested, and also seems to have ignored some cues when he did want to feed ('he can't be hungry yet, I thought'), and when I got back to them, she'd behave as if she was breaking bad news if he'd only taken a small amount. I did try and reassure her, and said if he didn't eat much then, it was probably because he wasn't hungry! and he'd make up for it later, not a problem... but it didn't stop the maths anxiety.

DP was very aware that pumping and storing milk was a bit of an effort for me, and that a lot of milk poured down the sink meant I'd get supply issues because of over pumping... so although he tried to follow DS's cues when offering EBM in a bottle, I could still see him worrying about how much to offer. He seemed either to be angsting over wasting several ounces, or be racing to the fridge to get more after DS speedily polished off a micro-feed.

As tiktok says, it's virtually impossible not to hold the bottle up and see what's left, and do sums. When feeding DS from the boob, I have never ever had any idea how much he's getting, I've simply fed on demand, and still do at 9 months. His weight gain has been textbook so he's obviously done fine, and tbh I think that relaxed attitude has helped us hugely with weaning, which has been a very happy and chilled process so far.

I think you can tell sort of if they are having a "big feed" or a "little feed" - because with a big one they sort of suck more intently and vigorously for longer and aren't as distracted, and then do the sort of milk-drunk thing afterwards. And then contrast that with the complete opposite where the whole thing is little fluttery sucking and they keep coming off to smile at you or gurgle or look at something interesting across the room (while milk dribbles everywhere...)

But then there is a myriad in between that as well, so not always possible to tell. They could have a feed which has lots of the hallmarks of a "big" feed but they might have just been thirsty and wanting the foremilk.

I never saw it as an advantage to know how much they were getting since I thought it would just add something new to worry about! Not knowing how much he'd had didn't really matter as if he wanted more I had it right there so I could just feed him again.

Hmm, perhaps there's a market for an opaque cover for bottles so you can't tell how much your baby is getting

Thing is, Bertie, you do need the calibrations on the bottle to make up the feed, so you'd be putting the bottle covers on afterwards....and you would need to be superhuman to resist looking at how full/empty it was during or after the feed :)

We all measure and assess when we feed babies - even breastfeeding, particularly at the beginning, and I do think the tendency disappears the longer you do it. You might not be looking at the clock and fretting about whether he's had enough when breastfeeding, but you do sorta judge 'is he feeding properly?' and 'I'm sure he wants the other side but he's just messing about' and 'he's been on an off and on and off for two hours - maybe he'll sleep for a long time now'.

So the whole 'how many ounces has he had?' (which applies to ebm, yes, in a bottle, too) is just an extension of this.

You sometimes see the worrying here on mumsnet - there are sometimes posts which say 'I expressed 100 mls in 15 minutes but my baby is only on the breast for 10 so he can only be taking 80 mls....can this be enough?'

The rot probably set in when human beings learnt to count, weigh, and tell the time :)

I found a notebook the other day that I'd used to record ds's feed and sleep times in an attempt to "see a pattern" - he was less than a month old I think. Over 4 days the number of feeds varied from 8-15 a day, with each lasting between 5 and 90 minutes I gave up looking for a pattern after that, though he was pretty predictable by 4-5 months.

Oh God, Rita, I did that too!

It's sometimes suggested in baby books, too.

Crock of shit :)

Our hospital make you do this when you are in after having the baby. My DD is 6 weeks and fed like a dream from the start and I still had to record the time and length of every feed she had, along with every dirty and wet nappy. They have a special chart they give you as soon as you get back to the ward.

GG - was this recently in the UK???

I thought feeding charts like this went out with the ark!

The ark? The ark?

Now that I'm going to take exception to, I had to do that with my DS.

I'm 32, blooming ark, rofl

ok, it had gone by the time I gad DD, but that's not the point...

:) :)

The maternity units still using this system are from the ark, not you, tab!

Recording timing and amounts of formula may have some benefit in the very newborn period - but once a baby is home and clearly thriving, not so much.

This was 6 weeks ago in a hospital in Merseyside and my baby is BF. However, I'm not suprised as they are terrible for supporting BF.

They put my 8lb14 DS on a hypoglycaemia test last time even with an Apgar of 10 at birth because he was a forceps birth and made me top him up with formula "or he will get brain damage" and took him away to do so, as not to disturb the other babies - that was 2 years ago. I think they had their family friendly initiative rating taken off them as they are that poor.

This time round they were actually much better. However, on a bay of 3 of us, all breastfeeding, by 6 hours after birth (all CS) I was the only one they hadn't suggested a top up to! I nearly said something and did tell my HV, it was my main worry about having a section, them making me FF like last time.

I was asked to keep one of those feeding charts in hospital too - but I thought it was because of ds's jaundice rather than a routine thing?

It was routine when I had my DS - and this in no way takes away from my ark indignation, rofl - said DS will be 15 next month and they no longer did it when I had DD who's nearly 11

I'm not old though, lol

Just going back to the OP for a second - I think perhaps it's not that it's a disadvantage, just that it's not an advantage ie it makes no difference to the baby if you know how much they've had. All the baby cares about is if it's full :)

This is an intersting read about how not to feed a baby a bottle
www.analyticalarmadillo.co.uk/2010/07/bottle-feeders-please-stop-twisting-it.html

Bertie - I would never have thought of it as an advantage, when it was brought up I could see a bit of one in that it helps you plan a bit, but that's not really to my mind a pro exactly, just a handy wee side effect

Bertie, I don't think so - I think if the link between knowing how much the baby has had and encouraging it repeatedly to have more is part of the ff-obesity paradigm, because it i) leads the baby to feed beyond satiety and ii) supports undue focus in the parent on volume and iii) affects the baby's self-directed appetite 'thermostat' then we can say knowledge of how much the baby takes is actually a clear disadvantage to the baby.

All this could be countered by parents only using the 'how much has he had?' thing for interest only, and not as a spur to worry about intake not matching expectations.

lol @ the feeding charts. I have the one from when I was a baby, along with the 'rules' about feeding babies. This was in the late 70s....

Baby should have NOTHING for 12 hours. I apparently was very unsettled, so was 'allowed' a few sips of water at 6 hours old.

Then every 3 hours, on day 1, 1 minute on each breast followed by a bottle of SMA, with the amount of formula taken to be recorded.

Day 2, every 3 hours, 2 minutes on each breast, followed by SMA

Day 3, every 4 hours, 3 minutes on each breast.

Note the nappy must be changed in between the breasts. Finally on day 10 the mother was allowed to go home (and this would be the first time the dad was allowed to hold the baby. My mother records that when I was 9 days old I screamed lots, and sister 'turned a blind eye' as dad held me for the first time - my mother writes "I was terrified she would be taken out of the ward for making a noise").

Once home, the expectation was to continue the feeding/changing/topping up routine, but mums were told that baby should now have orange juice from a bottle. Solid food to be introduced by 8 weeks.

Makes for interesting (and terrifying) reading!!! My parents were fairly shocked that I exclusively b/fed dd, ds2 and ds3 to 6 months, and continued b/feeding to 13 months +. They were more comfortable with ds1 who was mixed fed (due to massive weight loss, slow weight gain and little b/feeding support), though they disapproved of continuing to breast feed beyond his 1st birthday.

oh and I also couldn't think why it was a disadvantage either - because that wasn't how I used a bottle

tab - bottle feeding can (and should) be done responsively to the baby's individual needs, but I think it's not always the case that it is - there is a ton of anecdotal stuff on this, including this thread, and the data collected by the infant growth people shows that formula fed babies aged a year are heavier than babies who were breastfed - clear inference that they have grown non-physiologically.

One of the reasons why this is thought to be the case is the tendency of some babies to be encouraged to eat more than they would do otherwise....and again this is only one factor.

Of course this does not mean that every ff baby is heavier than he would otherwise have been - you only get this by looking at many 1000s of babies, so you see a pattern. There will be plenty of skinny and medium ff babies, and plenty of babies who are bottle/formula fed according to their real needs.

It makes sense, now you've said that's why it's a disadvantage, I just couldn't think why beforehand - which was why I asked, lol