Amount to feed?

My wife and I are confused about how long she should nurse. She has a
gut feeling our son isn't getting enough. On average the feedings last
about 20-25 min. There are times though, that he will nurse for an
hour. Should we stop him after a certain amount of time? When we feed
him her milk in a bottle, we start with 3oz, but he always seems to want
more.

"Wrangler 4x4" skrev i en meddelelse
...
My wife and I are confused about how long she should nurse. She has a
gut feeling our son isn't getting enough. On average the feedings last
about 20-25 min. There are times though, that he will nurse for an
hour. Should we stop him after a certain amount of time? When we feed
him her milk in a bottle, we start with 3oz, but he always seems to want
more.


Nurse until he lets go - he knows when he's finished. And feed him as often
as he will nurse.

Why do you feed him milk in a bottle? It can lead to nipple confusion.

Tine, Denmark

On Mon, 22 Mar 2004 00:42:16 -0600 (CST), (Wrangler
4x4) wrote:

My wife and I are confused about how long she should nurse. She has a
gut feeling our son isn't getting enough. On average the feedings last
about 20-25 min. There are times though, that he will nurse for an
hour. Should we stop him after a certain amount of time? When we feed
him her milk in a bottle, we start with 3oz, but he always seems to want
more.

The amount of time taken to feed may depend on the age of the baby,
and the time of day. I never stopped my baby feeding - if he was
hungry he would (and still does) feed till he's had enough. If he's
tired and just sucking for comfort the kind of sucking is different -
and if I mistake this and try to unlatch him he starts searching for
the nipple immediately and sucks hard when he finds it again.

As for feeding him with a bottle, I've never done that. What makes you
feel you need to?
--
Linz
YB: 5 months, 17lbs

I keep going with the twins until they stop feeding. If I think they are
sucking for food rather than comfort then they soon let me know when I
unlatch them.

As far as bottles go, how old is your baby? Mine are almost 6 months old
now, they will easily take 5 oz of expressed milk from a bottle and
sometimes more. Although they don't have bottle feeds as often as they would
nurse (and only when I'm at work), if I'm home I always nurse them to avoid
any confusion. Plus if your baby is younger than 6 weeks I would avoid a
bottle completely.

Ellie

"Wrangler 4x4" wrote in message
...
My wife and I are confused about how long she should nurse. She has a
gut feeling our son isn't getting enough. On average the feedings last
about 20-25 min. There are times though, that he will nurse for an
hour. Should we stop him after a certain amount of time? When we feed
him her milk in a bottle, we start with 3oz, but he always seems to want
more.

I would stick with gut instinct .... you don't say how old your lo is?

My dd (20wks) tends to nurse every 2.5 to 3hrs during the day for around
20mins, but the last couple of days she's been nursing anything between
10mins and an hour ...gives me chance for a lie down .. lol.

As for giving your lo an ebm bottle, my dh does this regularly as he loves
to be able to do something for Elisabeth, (apart from the nappy changes of
course ..lol!)
However, I wouldn't recommend it earlier than 6wks or so, due to nipple
confusion, and getting your wife's supply fully established.

Elisabeth tends to take around 6oz from bottle, although in the "early" days
she only wanted 2-3oz, and once again I guess it depends on time of day.
Obviously I have no idea how much she has from me ... but she soon lets me
know when's she's had enough.

Also, as long as your lo is content within themselves, producing plenty of
wet/dirty nappies, growing happily ... then fret not.

DH always tended to do the last feed of the evening. Although she's been
sleeping through for the past fortnight, and has missed "their" nursing time
together...

HTH.

(remove the no spam after the at if you want to reply)

"Wrangler 4x4" wrote in message
...
My wife and I are confused about how long she should nurse. She has a
gut feeling our son isn't getting enough. On average the feedings last
about 20-25 min. There are times though, that he will nurse for an
hour. Should we stop him after a certain amount of time? When we feed
him her milk in a bottle, we start with 3oz, but he always seems to want
more.

My wife and I are confused about how long she should nurse. She has a
gut feeling our son isn't getting enough.

What makes you think that? How old is your son? How is his weight gain? How
is his diaper count? Does he seem content at the end of a feed, however long
it lasts? These are all more reliable signs of 'getting enough' than the number
of minutes he feeds.

On average the feedings last
about 20-25 min. There are times though, that he will nurse for an
hour.

Very normal. Some babies will occassionally have times when they will want to
nurse for long periods of time. This is most common in the evening, but can
happen at any time. Sometimes the baby will then go on to sleep a little
longer than usual before the next feed, sometimes not.

Should we stop him after a certain amount of time?

If your wife is getting tired/frazzled, and you are getting the sense that baby
isn't getting much milk any more but is nursing for comfort, she CAN stop the
feed if she wants to, but there is no reason that she has to, or 'should', if
she is otherwise willing to continue with it. (And if she's getting tired, you
can help here by making sure that she has everything she needs to be
comfortable during these long feeding sessions -- the remote, snacks, something
to drink, etc.)




When we feed

When we feed
him her milk in a bottle, we start with 3oz, but he always seems to want
more.

As others have said, you aren't saying why you are bottle feeding some feeds.
With a young baby, this usually isn't a good idea. (If she is getting ready to
return to work, you will, of course, need to start teaching baby to take a
bottle at some point, but, unless she is returning very early, it can usually
wait until baby is 6-8 weeks old. If baby is younger than this, I probably
would stop the bottles. The time and trouble spent on pumping will just tire
your wife, and if there are concerns about feeding or baby getting 'enough',
the possibility of nipple confusion will just make things worse.
But ... to answer this particular question ... babies will often take more from
a bottle than from the breast. Maybe the ease with which the milk flows makes
them want to take more than they would normally. Or maybe they drink it so fast
and then they want to keep sucking for the pleasure of sucking, so you think
they are still hungry when they really aren't. For a youngish baby, 3-4 ounces
sounds pretty typical to me. If he wants more, give him more. (But don't start
with a large amount, because then if he DOESN"T take it, you will waste it, and
pumped milk IS liquid gold...) But again, unless there is a really good reason
to be doing so, I probably wouldn't be bottle feeding at all.

Still, it sounds to me like your baby is doing great. Your wife should be
nursing as often and as long as baby is hungry, and he will take as much milk
as he needs to grow.


Naomi
CAPPA Certified Lactation Educator

(either remove spamblock or change address to to e-mail
reply.)

Wrangler 4x4 wrote:
My wife and I are confused about how long she should nurse. She has a
gut feeling our son isn't getting enough. On average the feedings last
about 20-25 min. There are times though, that he will nurse for an
hour. Should we stop him after a certain amount of time? When we feed
him her milk in a bottle, we start with 3oz, but he always seems to want
more.


Those feeding times sound normal, but the best ways to tell whether a
baby is getting enough to eat are the # of wet/dirty diapers and weight
gain. If there's enough output, there must be enough input. You don't
say how old your baby is - at 3 or 4 weeks, my son would drink about 3
oz. from a bottle, and by the time he was 2 months old, he'd drink 4-5
oz. However, I think sometimes babies will drink more from a bottle
than they really *need*, because they keep on sucking for comfort even
after their hunger is satisfied.

Clisby

Wrangler 4x4 writes:
: My wife and I are confused about how long she should nurse. She has a
: gut feeling our son isn't getting enough. On average the feedings last
: about 20-25 min. There are times though, that he will nurse for an
: hour. Should we stop him after a certain amount of time? When we feed
: him her milk in a bottle, we start with 3oz, but he always seems to want
: more.

OK. Your question raises a lot of other questions in what it doesn't say.
Let's start with "How old is yoru son?" Is he a newborn, or is he an
"older" baby. How many times a day does your wife nurse, total? How
often do you feed EBM (expressed breastmilk) in a bottle? Who does the
feeding? Do you ever supplement with formula?

Actually, everything you say in your post sounds within the range of
normal, including the 25 minute feeds, and the occational hour nursing
session. The best way to tell if you are feeding enough in the short
term is to count wet (not poopy) diapers. If he is having 6 (dispoable)
to 8 (cloth) wet diapers a day, (as a newborn) that is good.

Other than this, how is nursing going. It it relaxing for baby and
mother, or is is stressful. Does she feel comfortable with the process.

Larry

Thanks everyone. My son is about 5 weeks old now. The reason for the
bottles is because my wife is returning to work next week (full time).
I'm going to be a proud stay home dad. He has been doing good so far
going back and forth from breast to bottle. If he will need more than
my wife can pump (3oz.) aren't we going to run into trouble soon? The
reason she feels he isn't getting enough is because when we feed him
more from the bottle, he seems to sleep better and have a happier
disposition all around.

Wrangler 4x4 wrote:
Thanks everyone. My son is about 5 weeks old now. The reason for the
bottles is because my wife is returning to work next week (full time).
I'm going to be a proud stay home dad. He has been doing good so far
going back and forth from breast to bottle. If he will need more than
my wife can pump (3oz.) aren't we going to run into trouble soon? The
reason she feels he isn't getting enough is because when we feed him
more from the bottle, he seems to sleep better and have a happier
disposition all around.


All babies are different, but no, I wouldn't expect a 5-week-old to go
for 8 hours on just 3 oz. of expressed milk. How often does your wife
pump, and what kind of pump is she using? Will she be able to pump
once or twice at work? If she's not already using a double-electric
pump, she should rent or buy one and try that. I got the best results
from pumping at about the same time every day, rather than randomly
doing it whenever I had a few minutes.

Clisby