hungry baby :/

[K8eee]

my baby is just over a week old, but she seems quite a hungry one. currently she's on cow and gate stage one, but sometimes finishes a bottle and sometimes falls asleep mid feed. would the next stage be too much for her this early? If she falls asleep mid feed she tend to wake up am hour to an hour and a half later for another feed. Would it help her to sleep longer of a night time too?

Hi OP - are you asking if you should be moving your baby on to follow-on milk? I would say definitely not - first infant formula is the only milk babies need if they are not being breastfed. In fact, the NHS advises that follow-on milk is never necessary for babies, even when they are 6mo+. It's great that your little one is feeding well, and falling asleep during feeds, and feeding regularly sounds totally normal. From your post it doesn't sound like you have anything to worry about! What is it that's concerning you, exactly?

Can you not get a hungry baby formula for newborns?

You really shouldn't use hungry formula at all. It just contains more milk sugars to fill up quicker but no more calories. So it's better to just feed more often.

At a week old I would expect to feed a tiny baby 4oz every hour approx during the day ie 7am-11pm.

How much is in the bottle? Your baby is tiny so feeding every 1 1/2-2 hours is totally normal. Plenty of wet and dirty nappies?

At a week old , just feed stage 1 milk on demand . There is no routine to follow yet just feed when needed . Congrats on your new baby x

how much is in the bottle? hungry milk isnt really suitable for newborns and is more for when a baby is closer to weaning age and is taking 8/9 oz per feed and is still looking for more

Hungry Baby milk has its place, but not at 1wo. She just needs more milk.

She's producing plenty of wet and dirty nappies definitely! I'm making up 4 oz bottles, and as I say sometimes she takes it all sometimes she doesn't. If this is perfectly normal ill stick to what I'm doing, she's my first so I am still learning

I think hungry baby.milk isn't recommended until 6wks min, though HV (and mn) don't really recommend it at all. Tbh I think it is fairly normal for being so tiny but if LO was a few weeks older there are a couple of things that could be considered...

Which bottles are you using? I had Avent ones and my DS needed the next size teat after two weeks! He was a 10lb 4oz hungry whopper though...

Also has DC been checked for tongue tie? Just if it was a struggle to suck maybe that would make them sleepy.

But as pp have said baby is so tiny that they just feed little and often and very irregularly at this age.

Congratulations on your lovely baby :)

if she is only taking 4oz bottles then she doesnt need hungry baby milk. The amount she is taking sounds normal so i would just give first milk as and when she wants it.

This is all normal OP. My DS fed every two hours day and night for weeks before settling himself into a routine of 3 hourly feeds.

She's only a week old, she doesn't need hungry baby milk and definitely doesn't need follow on milk. In fact follow on milk is just an advertising gimic as they aren't allowed to advertise 1st stage milk.

Don't forget her stomach is tiny, about the size of a marble. So feeding regularly is normal as you need to keep refilling her tummy as it empties.

WRT the falling asleep during feed, what type of teats are you using? My DD is 4 weeks old and I have had to move her on to vari flow teats as the stage 1 ones were too slow - she is a guzzler! Definately do not change her milk, DC will only have a tiny stomach at 1 wo so will take little and often to begin with.

We've got her on avent bottles. She has a tongue tie but the breastfeeding nurse who spotted it said that it shouldn't affect her feeding from a bottle as we tried her on a orthodontic teat whilst we were in the hospital. She is a guzzler but what I'm worried about with moving up on the teat size is that she'll guzzle it down then will throw it up as she'll take too much down at once.

That is a possibilty, DD quite often voms after guzzling way too fast. This might seem unhelpful but I think you'd be best 'waiting it out' as feeding really improves with age/weight gain. DD is 4 weeks and feeding is really starting to improve.

I don't know much about FF as I BF my dc. I just wanted to say though, please do get that tongue tie checked out again, and if you have the option to get it snipped, I would do it.

My ds1 had a tongue tie, it never affected his feeding at all but as we found out too late, severely affected his speech. He's just had it cut at nearly 5 years old and had to be put under for it. It's much easier to have it snipped when they are tiny.

Ds1 has now just turned 5 and will be having speech & language therapy for a while because of the tongue tie.

Congratulations on your dd, you sound like you're doing a great job.