My 1.5 week old baby has gone from under-eating to eating huge amounts in a matter of days. We had a hellish first few days in hospital where he wouldn't suckle at the breast, he became dry-lipped and hysterical (I felt awful). On the day I got him home I gave in to formula, I had a hysterical newborn and was at my wits end (midwife didn't turn up for her next day visit as hospital lost my discharge form!).
At first he had 10-20ml max, for about a week. We left him too it and just fed whenever he wanted more. He was alert and producing nappies so I didn't worry. Now he's suddenly hit the other end of the scale, nearly doubling the recommended amount on the tin! Tin says 90ml every 3-4 hours, he has this every 2.
Are we over-feeding? We never force a bottle on him, just feed when he roots and sucks his hands and cries. He wants a 90ml bottle around every 2 hours, rather than every 4, and he finishes them. He's not bringing any up afterwards so he doesn't seem over-full. We take the bottle away when he spits it out (often 5ml-10ml left) and I use a slow flow teat. Is he just making up for the bad start where he was near-starved (at the insistence of hospital staff, I was clueless why he was the only baby not sleeping, he latched for the first day which was enough for them, but he has NEVER sucked at the breast). I express as much as I can (about a third of his intake) but he's having 10-12 feeds in 24 hours, rather than 6. He seems content and well and nappies are normal.
I would have loved to breast feed but we never managed, without support we got into a cycle of getting stressed and after having my boob shoved in his mouth many times by hospital staff he cries if I so much as show him a nipple. I have large flat nipples which I think contributed to our problems, and left to it we didn't manage to sort it out