Are bottle-fed babies generally bigger/heavier than breastfed babies?

[birthofawoman]

I met a 6-month-old very cute, very chunky baby the other day (my DS's cousin) - much chunkier than I imagine my 6-week-old will be at 6 months (although me not being able to imagine it doesn't mean he won't be). My DS has always been on the smaller side... I carried and measured small during pregnancy, and he weight 6 lbs 10 oz at birth. Currently, he's gaining weight perfectly but is still considered a more petit baby.

The 6-month-old baby is formula fed, and it got me thinking (just out of curiosity) whether bottle fed babies (whether fed breastmilk or formula) generally gain more weight than breastfed babies? If that were the case, I imagine it'd be because they're made the finish a bottle (someone else's idea of how much they should feed), whereas breastfed babies take exactly as much as they wish/need and stop once they're satisfied that they've reached that point? I could be completely off the mark here, I'm just curious!

Or could it be to do with what's in formula? When I told my mum about the chunky baby, her first comment was "He'a on formula, isn't he?".

Would love to hear your responses! It's 4am and my curiosity has gotten the better of me tonight!

Well one of mine won't take a dummy and I'm quite happy to comfort her myself to be honest.

Oh come on Game you must be a troll?! No one actually thinks like that do they?!

I was wondering why some mothers would prefer to act as a human dummy, rather than offering a dummy?

Entirely irrelevant to me, as neither of mine would take a dummy. They just spat them out.

Why would you want to be tied to your baby 24/7 when they'd be perfectly happy with a dummy - it speaks to a need in the mother/martyrdom

Oh that’s absolute bollocks. So because people are comforting their child with their breast (which is one of their intended purposes) they’re martyrs and doing it for their own benefit rather than the child’s?
What a frankly weird attitude you have.
I don’t know a single person who has their child attached to their breast 24/7, and I know a lot of breastfeeding mothers.

If you have to pick your grizzly baby up to give it a dummy and a cuddle to placate it what's the difference between that and giving it a quick feed, same amount of effort, the BFing mother is not being a martyr.

Although I’m not sure why I’m feeding the troll.

My DS followed 90th centile when breastfed when I switched to formula he dropped to 75th. He soon picked back up when weaning solids became established. But I had always that the same as OP until I breastfed my DS.

@wigglybeezer Not at all! If a baby is grizzly and looking for comfort, popping a dummy in suffices - they are perfectly comforted. No need to pick up every time - it's important to learn to read your baby - when they're hungry, when they'd like a cuddle, when they'd like to suck on something. Not just shoving the tit in their mouth every time. This is why feminism is f*cked in this country - women martyring themselves to motherhood when it's completely unecessary (i.e. of no benefit to the child).

Agree with SoyDora, exactly that

Game tends to pop up on bfing threads like a bad penny. Full of offensive twat-ery. The other day it was about bfing in public. Yawn.
I’m more than happy to offer comfort to my child; I’m his mother, that’s part of my role.

Well, my baby definitely knows the difference between boob and dummy and will definitely reject the former if he's upset, e.g. after his jabs. Of course I will comfort him if I can, he's tiny baby and he can have whatever he needs-I love being able to give that to him.

^LATTER I meant the latter!

Ha, and now you try to make it about feminism Game? How about respecting other women’s choices? Get over yourself. Hairy hands much?

@NoSuchThing I wonder if you have me confused with someone else? I've just checked my "I'm on" history, and I can't see any posts about public breastfeeding. I have zero issues with public breastfeeding!

Does hairy hands mean you think I'm a man? How odd! Nope, I'm a woman with two children.

How on earth is bf not about feminism? Women shackling themsrlves to their babies (unecessarily - like for providing comfort instead of a dummy) - that definitely speaks to a martyrdom version of motherhood.

I ff one baby and bf the other...

I imagine it'd be because they're made the finish a bottle Have you ever tried to "make" a baby finish a bottle? What makes you think that they can be forced to take more than they want over breastfed babies?

How do you make a baby finish a bottle? They just throw it back up if they overfeed. Just another way to make ff mums feel crap I think. My kids are all chunky babies (not small when born either) and slim out in toddlerhood like all kids I know (1 EBF, 1 mix fed and 1 FF).

Mine were breastfed, my friend ff her dd, my twins were smaller to start with and born a tad early. Her dd overtook mine fast

Her older daughter is big for her age though so thinking genetics have a lot to do with it too

Thinking about it most little ones I know the breast fed ones are smaller 🤔

Apologies Game if I’ve mistaken you for someone else on a particular thread. Your name has obviously stuck in my mind as someone who has an issue with bfing mothers. I think you are trolling, and delight in getting a reaction. Hence your more outlandish comments. Holding back feminism? With my tits? Yeah right.

Well, personally, I found breast feeding easy so it didn't make me feel like a martyr,. I did use a dummy sometimes but it wasn't easier or harder just different. I work freelance from home and used to work and feed at the same time. Also, to get back to the OP, all my BF babies were fat but are tall and slim teens who don't snack constantly.

This is a really judgy shitty thread.
oP you're implying that ff mums force feed their babies. As other posters have said, that's actually quite hard to do. And a really fucking offensive implication.

@differentnameforthis I wasn’t saying that was my opinion and said I don’t know if there’s any truth in it! I’ll find it with my next child as I’m going to formula feed!!

out*

Both of mine were chubby babies - they were both 10lbs at birth - and continued that way. I formula fed. However, I was having this same discussion in work - whether BF babies are leaner than FF babies (I work in a creche) with other staff and the perception is that bf babies tend to be leaner than FF babies but it evens out after weaning. The funny thing was as we discussed it we realised that out of the last 8 babies in the creche - 5 were breastfed and 3 formula - the chubby ones were all breastfed. Not all BF babies were chubby . We had noticed however, that the chubby BF babies tended to be BF once they were upset about anything - so BF to sleep, for comfort, for thirst and hunger (of course) for anxiety (even stranger anxiety), any upset really. The point I'm making is that FF babies were fed only for hunger and thirst whilst BF babies were fed for other reasons too - and those were the babies who were the chubby BF babies.

The FF babies were comforted with hugs, rocking, soother, blankey and close contact. The BF babies had these along with being fed.