5 wk old weighing 14 lb confused about feeding

[steppyhen]

Any advice ds is 5 wk old and weight 14 lb. Was on 5 oz every 4 hours but seamed to always scream an hour before next feed so decided id give him 6 oz every 4 hours in which he seams so much more settled.
Said to health visitor yday and she said im over feeding him Giving him 6 oz?
Im very confused to what im meant to do im a first time mum and dont know what to do for best .

What did he weigh at birth? Is that through the night as well? Not an expert but feeding every 4 hours seems like a very long gap for a 5 week old.My DS is mix fed but was feeding every 2-2.5 hours at that age-with perhaps one longer stint of 3-3.5 hours in the night. Maybe try feeding less but more often??

He was 10lb 9 at birth. Tried breastfeeding but due to a very complicated birth and being sore I relied on my husband to do the first week feeding as I missed the first week on pain relief. We had been feeding him on demand as he always seamed hungry but he was awake every hour throughout the night and was exhausted. Called health visitor as was going out of my mind and she come in and said the 5 oz every 4 hours to get him into a routine and told us not to feed at all inbetween. Really dont know what to do for the best.

This sounds like quite old fashioned advice, My MIL is of the "every four hours-no more no less" generation but I think that they must have put their babies out of ear shot! It's really hard to know what to do but the most important part of infant feeding is that the infant is fed-I really wouldn't let a 5 week old go hungry just to get them into a 4 hour feeding routine. Is he generally settled and happy? Could there be a reason other than hunger for the crying?-Reflux? Is the level of weight gain really a problem-has he gone up 2 centiles?

she is very old school and a lot of peoplei know dont like the way she is. no dont think its reflux hes off the scale in the centile chart but was on the 99.6 centile and has continued to stay their but for height when he was born he was on 91st and now hes off the scale. When we were just feeding him when he was crying he was taking so much milk in a short space of time and dont think his tummy was ready for all the milk?

That sounds very old fashioned. I think I'd give him as much as he wants, whenever he wants it. You can over feed a bottle fed baby, so don't encourage him to finish a bottle or feed more often than he wants to.

Congratulations!

A 14lb baby is going to need about 35oz of formula a day (you can multiply weight in lbs by 2.5 to get no. of oz in 24 hours) so 6 feeds of 5-6oz sounds ok to me.

Does he have a dummy? Bottle fed babies need to be able to comfort suck without overfeeding on a bottle.

Do you also try to feed him slowly? Taking lots of breaks, winding him, switching the side you're holding him etc. Try to make the bottle last so he gets to know when he is full - if he chugs a bottle down in minutes then he can take more than he actually needs.

4 hours is a long time between feeds at that age. My 2 only went 2½-3 hours between feeds at that age. If he is hungry before 4 hours has passed then feed him.