Advice needed on how much a big baby needs!

[izzybiz]

My 4 week old DS was 10lb 10oz at birth, at 2 weeks old he weighed 11lb 11oz.

My concern is, how much milk should he be having? He is formula fed, and the tin says for his age he should be on 4 oz milk 6 times a day, but his weight puts him at 2 months old and 6 oz milk!

He is unbelevibly hungry all the time! At the moment he is on 5 oz every 3-4 hours. Sometimes its a struggle to get him to go 3 hours between feeds.

The HV and MW worried me by saying "try not to give too much" how can you refuse a newborn who is screaming for food?
If he was BF it wouldn't be a problem would it, you are told to feed as much as baby wants.

What I really want to know is can I really "overfeed" my Ds?

Has anyone else had a big greedy baby?
TIA

Why are you trying to make him wait 3 hours?

Why not feed him a smaller amount more frequently? The current advice is to demand feed formula fed babies not just breastfed ones. So perhaps try giving him a 4 oz bottle every time he asks to be fed, rather than feeding him big bottles every three hours.

Also, bables like to suck for comfort, so perhaps he's not always hungry, does he take a dummy?

I always use breastfeeding as the baseline, and if you look at the way a breastfed baby feeds and sucks, then try to emulate it. They feed little and often, and at this age very much for comfort. They nurse off to sleep, but let go of the nipple once they are asleep. So, try feeding him little and often, hourly if need be, but not big bottles. When he stops actively sucking, replace the bottle with a dummy, if he is comfort sucking he will be happy with the dummy, if he is really still hungry he will look for more milk. But when he has the dummy, don't put him down, hold him and and cradle him, when he is properly asleep ease the dummy out of his mouth the way you would a nipple if you were bf him.

Does this make any sense to you?

Is there no chance of getting him back on the breast? After only 4 weeks it shouldn't be terribley difficult to stimulate your milk supply to kick in again, and whilst it wouldn't be easy to get him to learn to breastfeed it isn't impossible, and I have known older babies go back to being fully breastfed. That way you wouldn't have to worry about if you were over feeding him!

Thats the thing, I was demand feeding from the start, and he was draining a four oz bottle but would still want more! He was feeding every 2-3 hours to begin with, he has gone longer on his own.
The reason I try to make him wait is once he has had his 5oz milk, if he feeds again too soon he will be quite sick, so I know hes had too much.

He does have a dummy, and I do give it to him after a feed.

Thanks very much for your advice, I think I am doing pretty much what you have suggested, I will see if I can get him to take less more often, but will have to follow his lead and stop worrying so much!

I agree with GreenMonkies. Feed him on demand. If he's screaming for food then feed him. He needs roughly 24 to 36oz a day according to the tin so be guided by that. If he's draining a 5oz bottle with ease try giving him 6oz. Or give him 4 oz every 2 hours. If you overfill his tummy he'll throw up the excess anyway.

Why don;t you experiment with the amount and frequency you feed him until you find a combination you are both happy with?

X posts!

Maybe keep him on 5oz bottles then and feed on demand but if you feel he's wanting more too soon then try him with the dummy. He'll soon make it clear if he's hungry .

The other thing I wondered about was the size of teat you were using. You could try keeping him on (or moving back to) the newborn slow flow teats so he has to work a little bit harder to get milk, rather than lying back and letting it pour down his throat.

Thanks Olihan, I was thinking about the teats actually, I am using Tommie Tippie closer to nature bottles and the teats are very soft, I tried him on an Avent bottle today and he had to work a bit harder as the teat was alot firmer.