Exclusively bf a 'big baby' - your experiences please!

[Picante]

DD is a month old. At birth she was 10 pounds 7 and a half !

I'm bf at the moment and fully intend to continue as long as possible. I've already had my 'that baby will need weaning early' comment, which has got me worried that I'm not going to be able to make it to 6 months without either topping up or weaning early .

Any success stories? Any tips? She's feeding about every hour and a half during the day, cluster feeding in the evenings and going 3-4 hours without a feed at night. Is this normal? Will it carry on like this or can I expect her to go longer between feeds?

What about the notorious 4 month growth spurt?

Any advice welcome!

My dd was huge. Born at 7lb15 but by six months was about 21lb. (2 stone aged 1, but is normal size - just tall - aged 5).

People do say that big babies need early weaning but - just cos you're big, doesn't mean that your liver, stomach is anymore developed than a small baby.

So I carried on exclusively BF until 6 months and then started weaning. Your milk just adapts to feed a hungry baby, you don't need to supplement. Infact, if you do supplement your milk supplies reduce.

(Oh, I hate this British obession for weaning babies young. It's almost like they want them independent of their mothers as early as possible)

My other daughter (who is tiny) I also didn't wean until 6 months. She just took in far less milk.

Just another comment..I never found that weaning helped mine sleep. It actually made them worse sleepers because they started doing proper poos/getting nappy rash etch.

So, please do not let people persuade you that weaning helps babies sleep.

A few friends started bottle feeding to get some sleep. This didn't work either!

Hurrah for all the big bf babies and their mummies! Ds1 was 10 pounds 3 oz and was exclusively breastfed until 6 months. He fed pretty much like your baby does and would go through phases of feeding more or less as and when it suited him. He put on weight very well. He never slept well though and it worsened from 4.5 months until he was 20 months old and finally started to sleep through!!

Brilliant work so far! I was always amazed at my body's capacity to 'step up' to the demands of a hungry boy.

DS1 was born 7 lb 7 oz, lost too much weight and got dehydrated and ended up on formula, then grew absolutely huge, but I didn't introduce solids until 6 months.

DS2 was born 10 lb and after a lot of problems early on, we returned to exclusive bf from before 6 weeks to 6 months, and have been doing baby led weaning. We did get a hv suggesting weaning before 26 weeks, as his weight gain was slow and took him down the centiles quite a lot. He's now guzzling milk and food with enthusiasm, food hasn't helped him sleep, and although he's suddenly grown hugely I think it has more to do with continuing breastmilk consumption than food. Compared to other babies of the same age he seems very tall but on the skinny side.

Well remember we can produce twins and triplets naturally (obviously more too but not as common) - and before formula was invented, nature would have expected those two or even three babies to survive on breastmilk alone

My babies seem pretty small compared with some of these one - 8lb 3oz and 9lb 5oz, but both successfully breastfed for mre than 6 months.

Whenever I heard comments along the lines of "breastmilk not being enough for a big baby", I would remind people (and myself!) that a woman's body is capable of feeding twins or even triplets.

X-post with BerieBotts. Sorry!

Been there, got the T-shirt. a 10 pounder, 9 pounder and nearly 9 pounder here... All pretty much exclusively BF for 4-6 months (DS1 born when weaning was advised at 16 weeks )

And, there was LOTS of feeding in months 5-6 but it was fine. I found one advantage was they sucked like buggery at the start, so I had an oversupply, but that meant they moved into a 3, then 4 hour routine really quickly, pretty much by themselves. With just the odd growth spurt.

i just ignored all the 'oh he's huge, you're going to struggle' comments from well-meaning relatives. Like the Penguins in Madagascar, just 'Smile and Wave...'

Another "success" here. DD was exclusively BF from birth at 9lb 2oz and with a consistent weight between the 91st & 98th centile.

She fed well but wasn't "hungry". Although physically well developed in some ways (crawled at 5.5 months) she wasn't showing signs of being ready to wean any earlier than the 6m mark.

Agree with all the advice to relax, feed on demand, ignore the dire mutterings and just go with the flow. Good luck

DS was 9lb 9oz and was exclusively BF until 6 months. Never showed any sign of needing anything else. Still BFing now - plan to continue till at least 1. (BF DD till 13 months) DS now 7 months and on solids - seems to be self-regulating milk intake. Always been a speed-feeder (10 mins total time for each feed!) but now has enough after 3 or 4 mins. B*ggers up my plans to settle down with a cuppa and TV over a feed lol...

Just keep feeding - women make plenty of milk for twins so one big baby is fine. Use it as a good excuse to eat chocolate .

DD was nearly 9 pounds born (so a midget compared to yours lol) but shot up the charts and straight off it - used to put on a pound a week so by 8 weeks I had a 16 pound baby...

I just kept feeding her and she was fine - EBF til 6 months. She did feed a lot but Im not sure that was to do with her size. Bigger babies have bigger tummies.

Well done - sounds like you are doing a fab job - just stick your fingers in your ears and sing 'la la la'

My DS was 10lbs 1oz at birth, regaining his birth weight by day 5 and exclusively breastfed to 6 months (on or above the 99.9 centile all the time)...no bottles or topups needed.

Plus I was tandem nursing his older toddler sister at the same time. Our bodies can produce a lot of milk when needed.

My two were huge and I exclusively BF them to 7 months and 6 months with no problems.

9lbs 3ozs DD2 exclusively BF to 6 months

DS off the centile scale (in the big direction) EBF (apart from about 7 bottles of formula in the past 6 months during failed experiments!). Now 6 months and still going strong, still not that interested in weaning. Haven't weighed him for a while but I think he must be getting on for 12kg now (nearly 2 stones! ouch my biceps and back)