Dr says I’m overfeeding

glen101

New member
My 9wk old girl was 9.9 lbs at birth and she went down to 8.5 before we ever left the hospital. We had issues with my supply and her latch so we had to supplement & it took her 4 weeks to get back up to her birth weight so she was a month old at 9.15! At her two month check up she weighs 12.13. She eats 4 oz a day since she was 5-6 wks old and she’s started to seem more and more fussy after the bottle went away so I tried to give an extra oz and so not every bottle but some times she needs an extra oz and my mom says I should be giving her cereal cus she’s a big girl who needs that to hold her over. My baby’s doctor on the other hand thinks I’m overfeeding her and she should only be getting 3-4 oz a feeding. He said 3 pounds is a lot in a month. But 3 oz definitely won’t fill her. I’m just curious what do your 8-9 wk old LO eat and how often?
 
@glen101 Do not give your 9 week old cereal. There's lot of comments here about ignoring tour doctor, but you also need to ignore your mother. She has given you dangerous and unfounded, old-school advice.
 
@mdnich Yeah this needs to be said more. Do not give your 9 week old cereal. It won’t hold the baby over anymore than her usual milk/formula does. It’s highly dangerous as well
 
@mdnich I’m glad to see this since every comment I was reading only focused on the milk amount issue! I had to go back and check to make sure I read correctly how old the baby was! Definitely no cereal!
 
@glen101 Very, very few babies will overeat. So if your LO is eating 4-5oz at a go, then that's likely what she needs. Just make sure you're letting her eat what she wants and aren't pouring milk/formula down her throat. Especially since it sounds like you're combo feeding: you don't know how much she's getting from any nursed feeds.

You should not start baby cereal until LO has good head control. The earliest is 4 months, the average is 6 months. And until your LO is 6 months, any food is just for practice and isn't necessary for calories or nutrients. It's at 6 months when babies start to need more than just milk and/or formula, and when their digestive systems are really able to utilize that food.

Most guidelines for how much a baby should eat, on average, is about 2.5 oz per pound of body weight. But that's formula, which isn't a one-to-one replacement for breastmilk. 3 lbs is a lot to gain in a month, but it's entirely possible that if you're combo feeding, you just make some creamy milk and cutting out an oz of formula here and there isn't going to do much.
 
@luis729 I agree. My experience is that babies in general will eat what they need. Our son was born with only 2 kg and at about 3-4 months our pediatrician also said he was weighing too much (after complaining for 2 months that he was too light). He was really chubby at that time but he had a growth spurt shortly after and was all thin again. A child will signal what they need and if food is neither glorified nor condemned, they will keep this healthy relationship with food.
 
@luis729 Even at 6 months solid foods and anything other than formula/breast milk is still just for practice, exposure, and fun with textures. Formula or breast milk is an infant’s main source of nutrition until 12 months of age.
 
@glen101 Literally ignore this advice unless she’s spitting up all of her feeds or something. I had one exclusively formula fed baby and one exclusively breastfed baby. Both babies gained multiple pounds every month and we like above the 100th percentile for height and weight. Huge, fat babies lol. I got a lot of bs about over feeding my formula fed baby. She ended up an incredibly tall and thin child, who still has a large appetite and is over 100th percentile in height. My breastfed baby was even bigger lol. So clearly genetics. I really wouldn’t worry too much about over feeding a baby. I tried to cut out feeds initially for my daughter, but was not going to watch my baby cry in hunger. It sounds like she’s catching up on some growth since it took her longer to get back up to north weight.
 
@strange1 No not at all. He had a great latch and my supply was fine. I didn’t have a supply issue with my daughter either, just a lot of latch issues. I didn’t respond to a pump so dried up pretty quickly with her being formula fed.
 
@rsduncan I'm sorry if this is personal, you can absolutely say you're uncomfortable replying! I had so many latch issues with my son so we did formula as well, and I am hoping to have a second. Did you do anything special with your son that the latch issues didn't show up or was it just not even a thought he just latched? I have a lot of anxiety surrounding it because of how expensive formula's gotten and I don't want to go through the trauma of dealing with the lactation consultants again if I don't have to.
 
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