feeding

my son is three months and he weight 15lbs 6oz i’m concern that I may be breast feeding him too much help me. i am also thinking about making his own food when the time comes but i dont know if that is a good idea seeing that he seem big for his age. So does anyone make there babies food if so when did you start.

I am not an expert, but I breastfed my baby and he was a pretty good size for his age and everyone acted as though he was the biggest baby they ever saw before in their lives. :rolleyes: He slowed down growing around 8 months and now he is small for his age. Often breastfed babies thrive very quickly because they are getting a lot of the best food for them, and they will go on to be perfectly normal sized toddlers. I don’t believe you can breastfeed too much, only if he is giving you signs of being overfed such as spitting up a lot. Otherwise, I would not worry at all, just feed your baby if he is hungry. When he starts crawling and walking and getting around, and acting like he is too busy to be bothered to eat, you will be stressed because you feel like you’re not getting enough food into him. lol If you just keep him away from fast food and soda, and let him get as much exercise as he feels he needs, he will not be overweight.

Don’t worry, some babies are just big :slight_smile: I don’t think there is such a thing as overfeeding with breast milk :wink: As long as you have enough and don’t go underweight yourself.
I made my babies’ food, never used commercial ones. They started eating anytime from 4mnth (my boy) to only at 1y.o. (that’s a bit late, but my first loved breast milk :biggrin:and we were traveling ) Start with banana, apple, vegetable purees… One at a time and give a week or two to get used to it. I am sure there are charts you can find (even commercial baby food companies offer them for free and you can see when to introduce what foods)

he sounds like he’s a healthy boy! i think your pediatrician would tell you if there was a problem with him eating but i very much doubt that there is anything wrong. keep breast feeding on demand and he’ll do just fine.

i have to recommend ‘super baby food’ by ruth yaron. its a bit of a mess when it comes to editing but it is jammed packed with all sorts of information that lasts well beyond the 1st year of eating. it is so easy to make your own food! this book teaches you all sorts of nutritional information and allows you to decide what is important. even though we are well beyond the baby food stage i still check back into it for great recipes from crackers to bubbles.

the road through breast feeding can be up and down. you may always question if you are doing something right. try to just be patient with yourself and listen to your body and your baby.

You must just have a big baby. How much did he weigh when he was born? Do you supplement with any formula? My son is breastfed, and he has always been very small. I’m sure your doctor would tell you if there is a problem. I wouldn’t start feeding any solids, cereal or baby food, until he is at least 6 months. Starting solids too soon can lead to obesity , diabetes, and other health problems. When you do decide to start solids, I recommend making your own foods. It is cheaper and healthier. This is a great site that we all love http://www.wholesomebabyfood.com/

I don’t think you can “breast feed too much”. There should be standardised weight-height growth curves for children of various ages in your country. If your child may be in the 90th centile for weight, but if he is also in the 90th centile for height/length then it doesn’t matter. However, as an example, if your child is only on the 25th centile for height then you should see a paediatrician because of the significant discrepancy between height and weight. If you’re at all worried you should see your family doctor/general practitioner/community health physician rather than getting advice from an online forum.

Here is the link to the article about introducing solids by Sears

http://www.askdrsears.com/html/3/T032000.asp

It explains about the timeschedule for it, ideas, ways to do it. It also explains the reasons why it is not so good to introduce solids too early due to possible allergies. There are also some ideas about what to introduce first, and how to know when you baby is ready.

With breastfeeding you definetly can not go wrong, as it gives baby the best possible nutrition start. So I would not worry too much about that.

my baby started gaining a pound a week from the 1st week that he was born and up until he was 6 months old, he was in the 95-99 percentile in both height & weight. we tried to start solids at 4 months but the doctor recommended to postpone solids as long as i can. i tried to start it again at 6 months but he wasn’t really ready until he was 7 months old. now that he is 8 months old, he is now only at 75 percentile on weight.

Thank you all for your advice I am now at ease with the whole breastfeeding and waiting for cereal and other foods. You all said something I wanted to hear and thank you my lil man will be just fine. lol :smiley:

no he wasn’t - like I said, he was getting enough and was 95-99 percentile for both height and weight. it was only when we started solids that his weight gain started to taper off

Hi, my comment seem a bit late… hope it still helps. Personally, i think it is good to start solid anytime around 4 to 6 months. We should start teaching them to read early but should not rush to start solid if they r not ready. I make my own baby food, i ve nvr bought any processed baby food. I did mine with steaming or feeding them purees. Sometimes, wehn i make vegetable soup, i would just mash the vegetables n also feed with some soup. I usually make chicken,carrot,potatoe, onion soup. The whole family loves it. I steam fish too… especially cod fish, just put in some ginger to reduce the fishy taste. I reccomend deep sea fish. I did a mistake in introducing processed fruit juice, i should not have fed her those. Until now, she refuse drinking water. So i suggest that u should also start feeding baby water early. 2 weeks ago, i stop giving her sweet juice, started giving her tea, she is doing fine, she still prefer the sweet juice but i just dont give her anymore. Once a while, i squeeze her fresh orange juice, adding a little bit of water. She is ok.Also, should encourage baby to take in vegetables… For mine, i dont give sweets and chocolate. I dont intend to introduce it for as long as possible, whish me luck! All the best to u too! They ll eat very little in the beginning, but he will fine, would reduce breast milk eventually! :slight_smile:

Besides our current baby, all our children were exclusively breastfed until at least 10 months (our little guy started just before 6 months). Well, a couple of our children in particular surely filled out quickly! The one born at 8lb12oz, she was 20lb when she was 4 months old, and chubby, chubby, chubby (she had 3 or 4 chins!)… at 5 months exactly she started crawling on her hands and knees, walking at 11-1/2 months… and at a year old she was 21lb… average weight, average height… now she is 12yrs old and has a nice healthy slim figure. Our 5yob was the other ‘fatty’ little baby… he’s a normal average healthy size now. Why did we start feeding our current baby so much earlier? He didn’t start off nursing quite as well (he had a poor latch) and I think he just never got as efficient at getting lots of milk, also affecting my milk supply I think… he didn’t seem content like the others did, and he wasn’t the chubby baby that I was used to having. Besides the fact that I’m totally happy to be expecting another little blessing now so soon already (they’ll be 16-1/2 months apart… a result of introducing solids much sooner than the others), I do wish that I hadn’t started the food so early. I can see it that it isn’t as healthy as breastmilk is… his muscle tone isn’t the same, it took him longer to recover from a cold a couple of months ago, and he doesn’t gain as well as the others did… he was 10lb5oz at birth and now he’s 19lbs at almost 1 year old. So my advice is, breastfed babies can get quite chubby but it is not an unhealthy chubby, and it is best to wait until they are in the second half of their first year to introduce solids (that’s medically recommended nowadays too).

I agree that breast feed for a long period is good. I breast fed mine till she was 1yr 6 months old. However, we should encourage solid at the right time. There is a boy we knew, only 1 day younger than my girl, he still breast feed at about 10 times a day, n endless times at nite, n he refuses solid. Up to that extend, perhaps it is a little bit too much?

Yeah, the longest I let a couple of my happy little nursers do it exclusively was shortly past 1 year… then I ‘cut it down’ for a couple of miserable days so they were more hungry and they really took to eating solid food after that and I went back to not restricting their nursing. I don’t think they were nursing 10 times in the day plus at night, but it was once in the night and maybe 7 or 8 times in the day. It was working for me, working for the baby… who’s to say how often is too often. In some indigenous cultures they nurse way more frequently than that even. I know my first child nursed very often like that, but the second had her little thumb-friend, and with the third I was quite busy with 3 kids and unless I knew he was hungry, I would tend to carry him around if he was hurt or upset or tired. Maybe some babies who are nursed that often aren’t just nursing for nutrition, but also for comfort. I don’t know if this is wrong, but with more children it just wasn’t going to work that way for me. I think that is an important thing to consider when talking about the hows of breastfeeding… it has to work for both the Mom and the baby. If the Mom is feeling frustrated with nursing her growing child so often still, then it is definetely time to start cutting back on the nursing because the baby can sense the Mom’s tension and that isn’t good either. Anyways, I’m sure everyone will agree that the MOST important thing that the baby thrives on from Mommy isn’t her breastmilk… it’s the love she gives her baby. There are many valid considerations in deciding when to introduce solids, and the right time is an individual thing to every nursing relationship.

(But if you want to talk medically recommended for introducing solids, the current recommendations are waiting until after 6 months to introduce solids. They used to recommend 4-6 months, but with newer research the recommendations have changed.)

The Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine has this in their Position on Breastfeeding:

Optimal infant and young child feeding is exclusive breastfeeding
for 6 months, and continued breastfeeding for at least
1 and up to 2 years or longer, with age-appropriate complementary
feeding. This is in accord with the World
Health Organization (WHO)/UNICEF’s 2002 description
of optimal feeding and as interpreted in the policies
of the American Academy of Pediatrics, American College
of Obstetrics and Gynecology, American Academy
of Family Physicians, European Union Blueprint on
Breastfeeding, International Federation of Gynecology
and Obstetrics, International Pediatric Association, and
many other physician groups.6

I am only telling my own personal experience, so for a really great page with lots of breastfeeding questions answered by the experts:

http://www.llli.org/nb.html

excellent post, momtomany! :slight_smile: k2u

I breastfed both of my daughters and they gained weight very quickly for the first 6 months. For example, when I took my 2nd daughter to the pediatrician for her first checkup after the hospital 4 days later, she was back at her birth weight! Usually that is hoped for when your baby is 2 weeks old and why you go for another checkup then. Needless to say, we didn’t have to go for that visit! My 3 month old babies were the size of 6 month old babies. But that started to slow and by 12 mos. they were average. Every baby is different and you have to do what you think is best. I didn’t worry about overfeeding them while breastfeeding. Your milk is made especially to meet your baby’s needs, and adjusts accordingly. I just looked at it as nature’s way of making sure I had a strong and healthy baby.

I also made my own baby food and used the book “Super Baby Food” by Ruth Yarin. http://www.earlytolearn.com/2009/reviews/books/super-baby-food/ I loved the page where she gives you an idea on what foods are appropriate for each month. I firmly believe both of my daughters are such good eaters (meaning not picky eaters) because they have had ‘real’ food from the beginning and have always just eaten what we are having for dinner too.