Not eating enough!?

[Fadetoblack]

My son was a preemie born at 34 weeks. Now 7 weeks old and doubled in weight he has been eating 5oz every 3 hours. The doctor told us to stretch it to every 4 hours. We thought for sure the jump from 4oz to 5 would be enough to go the extra hour. But still every 3 hours sometimes alittle earlier he is screaming for more food.

I've read that he shouldnt be eating more then what he is already. Don't know what to do.

Any tips . He is on pumped breast milk and supplementing with similac sensitive

 

[Rainbow82]

Why does the dr want you to stretch the time between feeds? Does he go longer between feeds at night? How much does he have over 24hours? Do you burp him and give him a few minutes break every couple of ounces when feeding?
TBH a baby is unlikely to over feed himself, if he's hungry feed him, if he was breast fed you wouldn't know how much he was having. Seven weeks is still really young some babies are still feeding every two hours at that point. Babies are very good at self regulating their intake and he won't take more than he needs. My DS ate like a horse till about 8 weeks then didn't change how much he had till about four and a half months so his weight evened out.

 

[Fadetoblack]

No he does not go longer at night .

Yes burped halfway through the 5 oz then burped after finished again

5 oz every 3 hours so that's like 40 oz in 24hours

 

[MindUtopia]

I would feed him as much as he wants whenever he wants it. I wouldn't try to follow a schedule, unless he wasn't interested in eating and you wanted to make sure he was eating enough. He knows better than anyone when he's hungry and what he needs. So I wouldn't listen to your doctor's advice, personally. My daughter was also on the early side (37 weeks, but just barely), was small and struggled to gain weight. We were put on a feed at least every 3 hours schedule for the first month just because her natural instinct was not to eat as much or as often as she should have (she would have gone 4+ hours if we hadn't offered it, but she was losing a lot of weight). In my experience, early or small babies often really take off in growth between 2-4 months and catch up with themselves to make up for the growth they didn't get in the womb, and it makes perfectly good sense that they would need to eat more to make up for that. So I would just keep feeding him on demand, as much as he wants as often as he wants. It will likely even itself out as he gets a bit older.

 

[Rainbow82]

Honestly don't worry, he has gained weight nicely, he was a preenie. You are doing a good job. If you are happy and he is happy there's no problem.

 

[Fadetoblack]

yes happy just wanted to try and stretch out the night feeding a bit. During the day isnt so much of an issue.

So we should not be trying to get him on a schedule yet

 

[Fadetoblack]

should i try increasing to 6oz and see how he does? i am sure he will finish the 6oz

 

[noon_child]

should i try increasing to 6oz and see how he does? i am sure he will finish the 6oz

I'd be tempted to stay with smaller bottles as often as he wants rather than aim for a specific gap between large bottles. If he eats too much in one go he might sick it up and that is a waste of money/time/you've got to clean it up etc. Obviously if he drains the bottle and is still hungry straight afterwards that might be different, but honestly even as an adult I'd really struggle to go 4hrs without a drink because it was what a doctor told me I was "supposed" to be doing!

 

[sil]

I agree more frequent is better. Four hours seems like a really long stretch to me. My DS is 5 months now and breastfed and he still eats every 3 hours in the day, sometimes every 2 if he is hungry. It is rare we get a 4 hour stretch; maybe about once or twice a week.

He did start getting longer stretches in the night time at about 3 months, but in the day time it's always been every 2-3 hours. I don't think day time length between feeds will impact night time length between feeds? If anything I wonder if it'd have the reverse effect. Baby won't get as many calories in the day due to longer spacing of feeds, so he will try to make up for it in the night.

I know that when my DS was that age, the times he cluster fed at night (fed every 30 min to an hour for the last few hours of the day) were the times we got the biggest chunks of sleep at night.