Am I over feeding my baby?

According to my judgmental mother, I’m feeding my child too much. My October baby is my second and he was born 8ibs, never lost his birth weight and has continued to grow at a fast rate. At 4 weeks he was 11ibs😭! 0-3 months is very snug now so he’s in 3-6 month clothing. I express my breastmilk and give one bottle of formula just before bed. With my first, he ate every 2/3 hours diligently. Not a minute before. With my latest; there’s no pattern, sometimes it’s an hour, sometimes 45 mins, sometimes 3 hours which was hard to adjust too at first but I’m rolling with it. I didn’t know it was possible to cluster feed on bottled breast milk but here we are. I am responsive feeding, if after an hour of having his last bottle, he’s routing, I’m not going to say ‘oh it hasn’t been 2 hours yet I’m not going to give him a bottle. So my mother has inserted her opinion and says that I’m feeding him too much. I’m personally not sure if I’m supposed to ignore him routing or practically chewing my face off if he’s hungry. Is there such thing as over feeding a baby?

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Babies can be overfed when bottle feeding but if you are paced feeding, he isn't spitting up or trying to refuse the bottle then I don't think you are overfeeding him, maybe he's just a hungry baby.

Not that I think you’re over feeding at all, but have you thought that his routing is looking for comfort? Does he always finish a feed? My little girl would route a lot, but she would never finish her bottles so she clearly wasn’t hungry, she was constantly looking to suckle for comfort xx

@Aimee yeah I’ve definitely thought about this! A dummy would probably solve the issue. With my first he’s almost 2 and we’re really struggling to get him off, so I decided against this time 😭😭 What did you end up doing? x

Omg! Don’t 😂 so I’m a first time mama, and I was so against giving a dummy, but when my partner went back to work and he works nights, I gave in and it really helped me get her settled through the night and basically allowed me to sleep. At first we were just fighting through it 😂 But now I am worried I’ve started something haha

All babies grow at different rates as long as he is finishing feeds and his height and weight centiles are in proportion (within 2 lines of each other I think) I’d tell MIL to shut her mouth maybe the age old addege if you have nothing nice to say don’t say anything at all. If your health visitor is not worried about it (you can go to a walk in clinic). I’d say he is happy and healthy. As for dummies or thumb sucking as long as you change out the dummies for the correct size and make sure they are ergonomically correct , it’s safe to use till adult teeth come in most kids wean naturally by 3/4 a peds dentist can help make sure their mouth and palate are growing properly and give resources to help wean if it’s a problem later on.

@Aimee ooooh no it’s fine! It actually helps in so many ways. I was against the dummy with my first too but he was given it whilst in the NICU. Looking back I would have probably taken it away around 6 months because he didn’t really care for it that much then. Otherwise definitely around 1. Plus now, I don’t want him seeing the baby with a dummy when we’re trying to wean him (sorry baby 😂).

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