Is my baby getting enough?

[NatiBarden97]

Hi,

Just wanting a bit of reassurance really.

My baby is 17 weeks today and around 16lb. I'm taking him to be weighed next week.

We offer him 5 x 8oz bottles a day, roughly 3 hours apart. He used to finish the majority of them but for the past week he has been leaving about an ounce. He's been having between 35-38 Oz a day and when I've worked out what he should be having for his weight, it should be around 40oz.

Is he getting enough? There is absolutely no way I can get anymore down him without waking him up in the night and he sleeps from around 8.30pm to 7am so I don't really want to start doing that. If he doesn't want anymore he blocks his face with his hands and you can't get the bottle to his mouth.

I'm just worried he isn't getting enough to gain weight and he's just going to maintain.

Anyone else been in a similar position?

If he's happy and alert at times and is meeting his milestones, I wouldn't be overly concerned but yes, get him weighed next week and ask them to plot the centile in your Red Book, just to make sure he's on track

How are you both getting in now @NatiBarden97?

Thank you for asking.

We've experimented with the temperature of the milk. He used to like them cool/room temperature but it now seems he likes them warm. So we solved the problem of him pulling away but then he was getting really sleepy. We've been up and down teat sizes all week as he started brill with the bigger one and then started to struggle, but wouldn't finish his bottle with the smaller one.

We've persevered with the bigger one and yesterday he finished 4/5 bottles and the dribbling is getting better. If he finishes them all today we're going to add an ounce.

I think we may have finally turned a corner! It's only taken 8 weeks of fussy feeds!