Questions about bottle feeding

[macneil]

I give as much ebm as I can make to my baby, but she's mostly ff, at least for the purposes of my questions - she gets maybe 1/3 ebm.

1. she was born at 5lb 11 (38 weeks) and is now over 12lbs at 11 weeks. Dr said she was not overweight, but was 'up there'. I thought they doubled birth weight in SIX months? It has taken my little plumpy HALF that time? I'm worried I'm overfeeding her. She takes 830-900 mls most days, but 2.25 oz per pound of body weight works out as 800mls on the dot. She throws up a LOT, all day long, so I wouldn't say she in any way held down more than 800. Doctors seem to think as long as she's healthy and growing there's nothing wrong, but they all chortle about how fat she is.

2. She has six feeds, usually every three-four hours from about 6am (or a little before) to about 11.30pm, sleeping most of the night. Is this a typical number or should I, at 11 weeks, be trying to stretch out the time between, OR feed more regularly and not, as it tends to be, when she cries? I tend to make her wait at least 3 hours if she cries at 2 hours and does her little hand in mouth I'm hungry sign. I use a dummy so I know when she's hungry and not just looking for something to suck.

Any sharing of similar or dissimilar routines greatly appreciated - thanks.

I really don't think you can overfeed them that easily, especially if she's throwing up. I fed ds on combination of ebm and formula from the start. He was 9lb 5oz born and more than doubled his birthweight by 4 months. Did get a lecture from one health visitor (who wrongly assumed that as I'd weaned early he must be eating too much solid food for the amount of milk he was still consuming), but at 12 months he still hasn't quite tripled birthweight, so it al evened out. We have a friend who was 5lb something when born and she had tripled her birthweight by about 8 months, so I think it all evens out in the end. I weaned early to avoid the stage 2 formula, but obviously that's personal choice. Oh, and ds was still milk-feeding every 3 hours by 4.5 months. Never managed to persuade him he could wait 4 hours. Easy to say with hindsight, but think you should be guided by baby and if drs not lecturing you, so much the better. And every time I felt cross with someone for 'criticising' my 'bonny' baby, I only had to think about some of the tiny scraps we met at the clinic to think better of my healthy bouncer! Will your dd take larger feeds less often do you think?