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I'm worried my 6 week old bottle fed baby is over feeding and may get fat..
A
The current recommendations
are that bottle fed babies should be fed on demand. However as you may have already
noticed they do tend to settle into a 3-4 hourly pattern but they may often require
additional feeds and this will not make them fat.
As your baby is only 6 weeks old they have a lot of growing
to do. They have frequent growth spurts and like ourselves hungrier days so
they do require more calories which they get through their milk. As a result
your baby may need to be fed more regularly during the first few months.
The best thing is to be flexible, use your baby as your guide,
and make sure you establish cues as to when your baby is truly hungry or just
wants attention and affection. Babies as you have found out, will suckle and
drain a bottle whether they need it or not. This is part of their developmental
phase and sucking is a strong reflex.
You can see then that some
babies will feed whether they need it or not and this can compound the problem.
The more they feed, the more uncomfortable they become and the more they cry,
so the more we feed them! One way to tell if your baby is taking more feed than
they require is to see if they regurgitate more of the feed than normal. Most
babies bring back some of their feed, but if your baby is soaking a few bibs
at each feed then they may be taking too much.
health visitor
back to faq's - Infant Feeding & Nutrition |
