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Infant feeding

Get advice and support with infant feeding from other users here.

Original poster

Can you overfeed a bf baby?

15 replies

hotcrumpets · 13/09/2007 10:42

Just a quick one

DS is 4 wks old and putting on over 1lb a week? HV is now talking about 'over feeding', asking how much I am feeding him etc etc

I always thought the reason I managed to feed DD so well was I never worried about how often she had fed or for how long etc, I just fed her.

Am I doing it wrong now then? I always thought you couldn't overfeed a bf baby?

OP posts:
belgo · 13/09/2007 10:45

no you can't over feed a bf baby (don't think you can over feed with formula either).

You're doing very well, it's normal for a breast fed baby to put on a lot of weight at this stage, his weight gain will change as he gets older. Babies don't always follow the same growth curve as the HV's have.

Ignore your health visitor and carrying on doing what you are doing.

belgo · 13/09/2007 10:45

It's annoying thought that the HV has made you worried and is looking for problems that aren't there.

belgo · 13/09/2007 10:45

though not thought

Original poster
hotcrumpets · 13/09/2007 10:46

Thanks Belgo

I just looked at DDs book and she put on tons of weight at first and then settled down.

Would be nice if they could just say well done for once!

OP posts:
belgo · 13/09/2007 10:46

yes it would be nice.

so I'm saying it instead:
well done!

laundrylover · 13/09/2007 10:47

You did fine feeding your DD and you are doing fine with DS too. I guess that you are feeding on demand still at 4 weeks as is recommended by the NHS etc?!!!

Don't listen to the HV, listen to yourself and have confidence in your experience. What centile is he on the charts just out of interest?

TBH I hardly ever got DD2 weighed which ruled out any HV incompetence!

magnolia74 · 13/09/2007 10:48

You can't really and if he is happy, healthy and alert he's fine
ds1 is now 9 months and fed for England and put on lots of weight, it turned out he had reflux and would feed all the time to sooth it. Once he was on meds it slowed down.
But there are babies who feed lots and thrive without any other reason than they just love to feed And maybe you just have super duper mummy milk

Original poster
hotcrumpets · 13/09/2007 10:49

Does feeding on demand = all the time , if so then yes, he's on the 95 centile I think and going up!

He was born on the 75 centile though and didn't lose anything after so i'm not surprised he's gone up so high

OP posts:
Overrun · 13/09/2007 10:50

YOur HV is talking rubbish, I was lucky to have a really nice one with my dts, and they put a lb on each for a few weeks. My HV was very complimentary and made me feel very proud.
Whenever I see her again, if she has a student with her, she introduces me as her champion breast feeder
Just ignore yours, the old stick in the mud

laura032004 · 13/09/2007 10:51

I found that DS1 could over-feed when he was comfort feeding, but then he'd just throw it all up again. I didn't worry about it though - it meant I got to sit down and watch TV in peace while he fed (first baby ). He piled the weight on too, but soon settled down. Enjoy feeding your baby - well done

NineUnlikelyTales · 13/09/2007 10:55

What the others said.

My DS was born on the 75th centile, put on a lb a week for a while, went up the centiles, then started to drop centiles after about 8 weeks. He is now round about the 25th - 50th and for a while the HV was talking "Failure to Thrive"

Learn this important lesson: You literally cannot win with HV and most of them have no clue what they are talking about regarding BF.

PinkMonkey · 13/09/2007 11:01

This happened to a friend of mine, she was told to space the feeds out more. It ended up a nightmare, her dd screaming all the time. In the end she just went back to demand feeding and her weight settled down after a couple of months.

belgo · 13/09/2007 11:06

this reminds me of a placement I did with a HV eight years ago. One women was bfing her newborn baby and coping with a hyperactive toddler. The baby had put on one pound in the last week and the HV told her she was bfing too much! She implied that the baby would carry on putting on a pound a week and would weigh 60 pounds at the age of one

I knew at the time what she was saying wasn't right, and in particular I felt sorry for the mother, but I didn't have any knowledge about bfing at the time so couldn't say anything.

DaisyMOO · 13/09/2007 11:41

Your HV is almost certainly talking rubbish. The only caveat is that occasionally greater than average weight gain can be due to an oversupply of milk. However, if your baby is happy and not gassy, very sicky and is producing yellow poos rather than green ones, then there is no problem! There's some good info on it here

Emzy5 · 13/09/2007 13:24

imo if you overfeed a baby they'll just throw up the excess. sounds like you're doing a great job to me

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