Feeding On Demand

klak819

Our little man is 2 weeks old, and we are formula feeding "on demand". I am struggling to recognize when he is hungry (I've read about the signals a million times). Not to mention he sleeps all of the time! Our doctor told us not to wake him if he is asleep, but I don't want to over or under feed him either. Advice to calm this first time mom's fears...

oklahomamom09

I EBF so what I tell you may not be the same for FF baby. My LO starts opening his mouth and smacking, puts his hands in his mouth, if he is on someone's chest he pokes around and looks for boobs, if none of that gets him food he screams.

*edit: apparently my phone thinks boobs are boons lolol

Dumbgurl04

With my LO we kind of do the feeding on demand we are also FF.  It took some time to pick up on her hungry cry.  She does have a different cry when she is hungry usually she opens her mouth and shakes her head and will put her hands up in her or around her mouth

shan24

We bottle feed on demand using pumped breast milk and a formula supplement.  The doctor told us that the idea is that they get 2.5 oz of formula for every pound of body weight per day.  At our appointment, LO weighed just about 10 lbs, so the 2 oz every 2 hours we were giving him made sense.

At the same time, the doc, the public health nurse we saw and our lactation consultant all told us that it's hard to overfeed a newborn.  As long as you aren't holding the bottle upside down, they'll stop when they're full.  A trick we were taught was to feed with your baby sitting up.  The bottle should be nearly parallel with the floor, with a slight tilt to let the liquid into the nipple.  In this position, the baby needs to do the work to get his/her food and it's easier for them to let you know when they're full.  William will spit the bottle out when he's had enough.

You'll learn to recognize hunger cues with time.  It can be trial and error.  William will stick his tongue out and chew his hands and his hungry cry is kind of a cough-cry.  I learned the hard way that his whiny cry doesn't mean he's still hungry.  It means he has gas and giving him more food will result in eruptive spit up.

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turtles7

DD is almost 6 weeks and goes from 0 to 60 when she is hungry. Doesnt really give me signals that she is hungry before she starts screaming. Dont feel bad that if takes you awhile.