Is he getting too little or too much??

[sweetjane]

Ok I have precisely the opposite problem to Mossie on the other thread .. basically at the moment 4month old ds only seems to feed for a few minutes each side every 3 or so hours. Can anyone reassure me that he is getting enough?? He used to feed for much longer, but now he fusses after a couple of minutes and pulls away, so I burp him and then he roots again but pulls away almost immediately, and keeps doing it.

The other thing is that he is and always has been a very sicky baby and he brings up loads after every feed no matter how long he has fed for. Thus far he has been putting on weight and plenty of wet nappies so no one seems to regard this as a problem (although they probably would if they had to change their baby's clothes 3 times before 9am!)

He sleeps ok at night and is otherwise ok, but never seems satisfied after a feed apart from the 7pm feed, the dream feed and the middle of the night feed, and that's because he is half asleep!

Am I worrying about nothing??!!

If he seems well, he's fine. They do suck more efficiently as they get bigger (if he was on bottles, you'd be changing teats to help the milk flow faster, of course breasts do this automatically ).

My dd also feeds for short periods, a long way apart. She is gaining weight well, so I assume she is just a very efficient little hoover. She drifts off into oblivion though rather than fussing and pulling away.

I wondered about reflux when I read your post - have you had this checked out?

dueat44 - did wonder about reflux but doesn't seem to have any of the other symptoms - he sleeps well at night and is gaining weight reasonably well.

My DS2 was also a puker, but as he wasn't unhappy with it, I didn't bother getting gaviscon etc, as I felt it was a laundry issue, not a medical issue.

And he ended up puking less and less, and stopped by the age of one (I think).

Both of my children were sicky babies but this got better as their digestive systems matured. I would say that if your baby is gaining weight , has wet nappies and is fairly happy then he is probably getting enough. My second baby didn't feed for as long each feed as my first but he gained huge amounts of weight. Perhaps your baby is very efficient and your milk very good! If it was me I would just keep an eye on the weight etc..

Oh ds1 was terribly sicky. It was just awful. We had cloths draped round the house in readiness. But he grew out of it at about 8 months. If your little one is putting on weight, and seems alert and bright then I wouldn't worry.