Help - 5 week old is "eating too much" (breastfeeding), I don't know what I should do

[Bartimaeus]

DS is 5 weeks. We've had no problem breastfeeding since birth. He latches on fine and although is a very messy eater (loads of milk misses his mouth - goes on his chin, his clothes, my clothes...) he is putting on lots of weight.

I started off demand feeding, which meant about 10 minutes every hour. I got told this was far too often and to space it out to 2-3 hours. Thanks to an osteo, I managed to space out to 2 hours (4 at night), partly because we identified that he has silent reflux so some of his "I'm hungry" sticking out of tongue etc. were actually reflux signals (bad mummy!) and partly because she fixed something or other to do with his thorax so he can eat more without throwing it all back up. he still can't eat more than 20 minutes at a time though, and often its less than 15 minutes.

Last time I got him weighed however I was told he is gaining too much weight. Since leaving hospital it's an average of 50g/day whereas apparently it should be 25-30g/day...

Thing is, although I'm mainly spacing out his feeds to at least 2 hours, sometimes he really cries and cries and the only thing to stop him is to feed him. DH worries whenever I feed him with less than a 2 hour gap, but I feel so sorry for DS when he's chewing my arm (for example) or screaming the place down that I have to feed him.

Yesterday evening I ended up feeding him every hour for about 5 hours. He then slept for 11 hours without needing to feed (an anomoly - it was only because he hadn't slept all day).

Just realised this is really long, but I'm so confused. I'm told if I feed him too often it will give him more reflux plus he's gaining too much weight. But if I don't feed him when he wants it he cries so much it's horrible and I can't stand it. I don't know what to do - space out the feeds? Or demand feed?

I am also in France and worried about DD (ebf) who at 5 months is off the chart for weight, 8.9 kilos, and 97% for height, 68cms. Doc yesterday suggested letting her cry at night instead of feeding her to diet her and not let her get into bad habits...blatant rubbish!

Have been on Google since trying to understand baby weight gain as there are some very rare conditions that do affect a small minority of babies that are identified via the growth charts. I found this on the WHO:
www.who.int/nutrition/media_page/en/index.html

Basically it suggests that growth charts describe the weights/heights babies actually have and not the ones they should have so are distorting. They also found (loke kellymom) that bf babies have different growth charts than ff babies. So on the WHO chart DD is within the range (I can't figure the difference between the red line range and the black line range - the relevant document has a page error - can anyone explain it please?). They also have a BMI chart which seems like a good idea!

My 3dc were bf on demand . My 10 yo was on the 50 th centile at birth an put on a rapid amount of weight and was soon above the 90th centile. At one point it was a pound a week on average. He was a lovely chubby baby with rolls of fat in his wrists and thighs untill he became mobile and it all seemed to melt away. He is totally average/ slim build now and his appearance and build as a baby bears no similarity to his build now.
I used to love to fact that bf gave to a reason to sit down and watch tv, read a book etc without feeling any guilt that I wasn't doing something else like cleaning or ironing.

Thanks for all these replies - I feel much better. Although I told DH about it and he said of course I feel better, you guys are saying what I want to hear!

But it does make sense. The osteopath said feeding every hour would worsen DS's reflux. It's true that spacing out has made it a bit better and he throws up less, but last night I fed every hour for about 6 hours and he was hardly sick at all (unless you count the mega sick at 3am when I had to change my pyjamas and his). His carrycot is propped up and I don't lie him down flat after a feed for ages. In fact, he is rarely flat nowadays - either in sling, or our arms, or his cot which is propped. Only time he is flat is in the pram, which he hates (coincidence??!!)

For the defense of the osteopath, when I told her the paediatrician told me to "drop a feed" because DS is gaining too much weight she snorted and said BF babies can't gain too much weight. She just wants him to have longer feeds more spaced out.

The biggest surprise for me this morning was that I woke up without huge swollen breasts. So I think the block feeding is working! I also spoke to a friend who is BF, and she doesn't get through loads of breast pads like I do - I thought it was normal to leak loads but apparently not...

paranoid the biggest difference I saw in DS was when I stopped eating cereals and milk in the morning. Before he was really agitated and crying all morning, now he is sleeping. DS loves sucking our fingers too - rejects the dummy though.

Booboo - the WHO chart is the basis for the current UK charts. The data in the UK charts is the same as the WHO charts, it's just presented a little differently for ease of understanding.

www.rcpch.ac.uk/growthcharts is a good link which explains it well.

FF babies tend to grow more rapidly after about 6 mths; before then, bf babies tend to grow very slightly more rapidly but the difference is very small at that stage.

BMI is not a great tool for infants.

Charts need careful interpretation when used to assess individuals. Many perfectly healthy babies are 'outliers' - at the far reaches either end and even off the charts. In only very rare cases is it a sign something is wrong.

The idea of placing a 5 mth old bf baby who wakes at night to feed (perfectly normally) on a diet and to let her cry is preposterous.

OP something to bear in mind is that as the weeks pass babies' guts mature and are more able to tolerate milk so you may find that she has a more settled tummy now simply because she is a little big older, rather than for any other reason.

Tsk, I mean "a little BIT older"

Good point Petisa

Argh this parenting thing is hard

I always thought the difficult thing with breastfeeding was actually managing to breastfeed, ie. get the latch etc. Never imagined I'd have no difficulty with latch, no pain but still have problems!

tictoc thank you very much for those links. I think the problem might be that the French charts are out of date, they are different from the UK/WHO charts. Doesn't surprise me though, the French have a great health care system in that it is very well funded, but they seem to be 10 years behind the UK in knowledge and awareness.

Barti, it might be worth trying a wheat/gluten free diet for a while. DD is intollerant to dairy/soy & wheat/gluten as well. Was tough at first but I do lots if home cooking/baking so can manage it well. I found dairy made her vomit more, had many an early morning full change, feel for you, and wheat gives her screaming tummy cramps/horrendous wind. She was so reactive even through BM.