She eats (and a question)!

DD2 is 7 months old (in a few days) [...] She will go about 4-5 hours,
usually, during the day between feedings,

This is the only thing that worries me a bit about
your DD2. 4-5 hours is an extremely long time between
feedings, do you mean nursings, but she gets food (what
little she eats) and some water in between also?

I think it's unusual, but not worrying, I'm pretty sure DD was doing
something similar to that at this age, she was sleeping through the night
and having 4-5 feeding and had been on that rough pattern from about 2
months, she was never the most willing nurser and nursed purely for
nutrition having big feeds, relatively quickly, then not showing any signs
of needing anything more for another 4hrs and at this stage she was piling
on the pounds.

Anne

Anne Rogers wrote:
DD2 is 7 months old (in a few days) [...] She will go about 4-5
hours, usually, during the day between feedings,

This is the only thing that worries me a bit about
your DD2. 4-5 hours is an extremely long time between
feedings, do you mean nursings, but she gets food (what
little she eats) and some water in between also?

I think it's unusual, but not worrying, I'm pretty sure DD was doing
something similar to that at this age, she was sleeping through the
night and having 4-5 feeding and had been on that rough pattern from
about 2 months, she was never the most willing nurser and nursed
purely for nutrition having big feeds, relatively quickly, then not
showing any signs of needing anything more for another 4hrs and at
this stage she was piling on the pounds.

My DD is about the same. She's been in a 4 hourly feeding pattern since
birth. I tried to make it 3 hourly and she just wasn't interested before 4
hours. She does about 4-5 breastfeeds a day and sleeps through the night.
Growing like a weed - she's longer than her brother was at that age.

Engram

"Irrational Number" wrote in message
link.net...
xkatx wrote:

DD2 is 7 months old (in a few days) [...] She will go about 4-5 hours,
usually, during the day between feedings,

This is the only thing that worries me a bit about
your DD2. 4-5 hours is an extremely long time between
feedings, do you mean nursings, but she gets food (what
little she eats) and some water in between also?

It's almost all nursing, and it seems to vary with each day. She also seems
to power-nurse. Obviously with nursing, it's nearly impossible to tell how
much she eats in X amount of time, but she seems to suck it back in record
time. Goes on both sides for probably about 7 or 10 minutes MAX each side.
Then she's full, and she's content.
She sometimes will have other food in between. Not much, though. She will
eat the cereals, and is definitely getting better with the barley cereal.
She doesn't take water. I have tried a bit from a beginner type sippy cup,
but she doesn't seem to want it or like it. She still will not take a
bottle, but then again, we haven't tried a bottle in a very, very long time.
I've given up and decided it's really not that important to push for the
bottle (of EBM or water) She's far too thrashy and distracted for me to
even want to try on a regular cup.

Her weight gain is fantastic, she's growing and seems to be just fine.
She's started crawling and pulling herself commando style across the
floor. She seems to be doing fantastic with 98% of her diet being breast
milk.

But if she's gaining weight well and on track developmentally,
then there's nothing to worry about.

She sure seems to be. Her weight gain is perfectly fine. Her weight on the
curve scale has even raised slightly from what she was on when she was born
and the first few months. I can't remember exactly, but she was right
around the 50%ile for weight from birth and now she's around about the
70%ile for weight. Her height has stayed right around the 70%ile from the
start, so I really can't say her weight gain is a concern at all. It seems
to be fantastic. Ped still insists I am NOT feeding her breast milk. He
insists it's moose milk! (just a joke he's always thrown in)

My mom (and a few other relatives) are driving me insane telling me she
should be eating food, but, it seems, that she is just fine without a
more food-filled diet.

This is your third, fourth child? Haven't you heard
enough advice from your mother and other relatives by
now? With Pillbug, I did worry a little about
what I was doing, but now that I have Rocky, I've
stopped listening to anybody and only trusting my
own research and my gut.

-- Anita --

Oh, I know. It just doesn't seem to get any easier with the next. Also, it
seems, things have changed quite a bit even since DD1 was DD2's age, and
she's only almost 22 months.
It seems everyone is so pushy, and I actually did tell one relative (SIL)
that if she wants to do this or that, she needs to have her own baby to do
what she wants with. Her reply: since I can't have any more, I'll just take
yours! Yeah, ok. I'm not too crazy about her haha
I find places like here to be a lot more helpful than a lot of other
things/people/places. Much more support, ideas, pointers and help! And
coming from those who have definitely BTDT or are there and doing that!

"Engram" wrote in message
u...
Anne Rogers wrote:
DD2 is 7 months old (in a few days) [...] She will go about 4-5
hours, usually, during the day between feedings,

This is the only thing that worries me a bit about
your DD2. 4-5 hours is an extremely long time between
feedings, do you mean nursings, but she gets food (what
little she eats) and some water in between also?

I think it's unusual, but not worrying, I'm pretty sure DD was doing
something similar to that at this age, she was sleeping through the
night and having 4-5 feeding and had been on that rough pattern from
about 2 months, she was never the most willing nurser and nursed
purely for nutrition having big feeds, relatively quickly, then not
showing any signs of needing anything more for another 4hrs and at
this stage she was piling on the pounds.

My DD is about the same. She's been in a 4 hourly feeding pattern since
birth. I tried to make it 3 hourly and she just wasn't interested before 4
hours. She does about 4-5 breastfeeds a day and sleeps through the night.
Growing like a weed - she's longer than her brother was at that age.

Engram

DD1 was kind of similar. She slept right through the night the day we
brought her home. She slept a good 6-7 hours from day 1 and then by about 6
weeks, she was sleeping about 8 or 10 hours a night. By 3 months, I know
for sure, she was sleeping about 12 hours through the night. She was
feeding almost hourly the first month or so, I think to catch up, and then
she slowly went to a feeding every 2 or so hours. I don't think we had the
time to establish much of a supply due to her sleeping so well right from
the start, and it was when she was about 5-6 months that she started to lose
weight and it became a major, major concern for me (and a major concern for
her ped)
DD2 is a lot like DSs - they all seem to eat in very similar ways at similar
ages.

In article R3L3i.27167$g63.14714@edtnps82, "xkatx" wrote:

Very little, but still. Over a few days, she ate one baby food jar of those
wax beans (the ones that she was finding it funny to 'gag' on) and she has
now been alright with the barley cereal, which she eats every now and then.
DD2 is just about 7 months old, but I find that my mom is constantly
hounding me on the issue.

Haven't read the thread, but I am sure that you are perfectly right in what
you are doing. Back in your parents' day they started solids much earlier. A
baby's diet should be more breast milk than solids until about a year old, so
there is no need to rush the solids. My DS1 was probably 14mo when he was
taking in more food than milk, and he's now a strapping 6yo.

IOW you have a Mother Management problem, not a baby feeding problem!

My older relatives responded well to scientific authority: "They now know
that babies don't need orange juice/solids/blah blah..." Other people might
respond better to sarcastic remarks like, "Yep, she's plainly starving!" or
flat requests to mind their own business.

--
Chookie -- Sydney, Australia
(Replace "foulspambegone" with "optushome" to reply)

"Parenthood is like the modern stone washing process for denim jeans. You may
start out crisp, neat and tough, but you end up pale, limp and wrinkled."
Kerry Cue

Irrational Number" wrote in message
This is the only thing that worries me a bit about
your DD2. 4-5 hours is an extremely long time between
feedings, do you mean nursings, but she gets food (what
little she eats) and some water in between also?

All three of mine went around 3-4 hours between feedings. Not in the very
beginning, but after a while and at 7 months, every 3-4 hours seems fine to
me.

Sue

Many babies aren't eating solids at all at 7 months. William was 98%
breastfed until he was close to two! You shouldn't worry a bit.
She'll eat when she's ready and until 12 months breastmilk has all the
nutrition she needs.

Leslie

xkatx wrote:
Very little, but still. Over a few days, she ate one baby food jar
of those wax beans (the ones that she was finding it funny to 'gag'
on) and she has now been alright with the barley cereal, which she
eats every now and then. DD2 is just about 7 months old, but I find
that my mom is constantly hounding me on the issue.

When YoungBloke was that age I could get three meals out of one jar of baby
food, and have leftovers to throw away! It's all about tasting and having
new experiences at this stage, not about major nutritional intake. YB's main
source of nutrition remained breastmilk for a few more months - a major
relief when he had some dietary intolerances and I had to cut all solids out
for a week when he was about 7-8 months old.