8 day old eating 3 - 5 oz EBM 6 times a day

[Andyspencer100]

Hi

Our baby was 16 days overdue, delivered by cesarean and came out at 10lbs 2oz. !

So he's a big boy, not fat just very long.
He started off eating 2.5 oz from day 1, in hospital but now 8 days later he's easily eating 4oz every 3 hours. And has never been sick or anything like that.
He will naturally stop eating at about that amount.

He's back to birth weight and completely happy.

Formula seems to give home severe tummy ache so he's on EBM all the time.

Is this normal, as all the calculators everywhere say his tummy should only be able to hold 2.5oz. Is it because he's already 16 days overdue plus the now 8days?

1st time parents you can prob tell

I think you're over thinking this!

If your baby was getting his milk straight from the source you would have no idea what he was having. You'd go on whether he seemed content and was pooing.

There are no hard and fast rules (my dd1 did not lose weight after birth for example), so ignore the calculators. He is happy, that's good enough.

Congratulations, by the way!

Congratulations
My boy was 10 pound 2 two!
He fed on demand round the clock so probably something like every 1- 2 hours day and night. They really have tiny little tummies. So little and often is good
Are you able to feed him yourself? For me i found it liberating not having to count oz or measure time.

My wife is expressing as the brestfeeding is so painful.

Thanks for replying its kinda settled our minds a bit, any good winding tips?

Winding tips...
Sit baby on your lap and lean him forward slightly with one hand under his armpits. Using the other hand rub up and down the left side of his back quite firmly. You can pat it too. If this isn't working, gently tip him all the way back, and then all the way forward, so he's bent in half, then sit up straight again, again continue to rub the left side.
This works a treat with my refluxy baby. I do not stop untill I get a burp, otherwise I get covered in sick about 20 minutes later!

Have you heard of paced bottle feeding? It's a way of responsively bottle feeding a baby which is less likely to lead to overfeeding (not saying you are overfeeding your baby but if you are worried about the volumes being consumed it makes sense to use paced bottle feeding so you know there isn't overfeeding).

Also, this may be useful for your wife - way to increase milk yield by 48% and this website is for exclusively expressing mums/families and has lots of info on EEing.

Has the reason for the painful breastfeeding been investigated by a bfing professional? Reasons for pain during bfing may include shallow latching, tongue tie or lip tie (in baby), not optimal positioning or attachment amongst others. If your wife wanted to go back to bfing directly 8 days is not too late at all (my DD1 was 8 WEEKS old before we got back to bfing directly all the time!) and there is a lot of bfing support out there it's just a matter of finding it!

I expressed for a couple of days qt that age (4.5kg ds) and he'd take 100-150ml a feed (every 2-3 hrs) for a total of 1l in 24 hours... i also read about stomach size, but apparently ds has a lot of space... he did occasionally bring a little back up, so we paced the feeding a little to give him a chance to feel full.