[runnybabbit]

I've heard it said so many times that you can't overfeed a breastfed baby, but why is that? If the baby is sucking for comfort rather than nutrition, and gets extra calories incidentally, might that not lead to overfeeding? If a formula fed baby can be given too many calories by being given more milk, can't a breastfed baby be given too many calories as well?

Just curious -- it's what my husband and I were mulling over at stupid o'clock.

[cinnabubble]

Breastfed babies may nom on the nipple a bit, but they tend not to extract and ingest milk when sucking for comfort.

[lovealpacas]

I don't know about extra calories, but until last week, whenever DD2 was crying or upset I BF her, which was about every 2-2.5 hours during the day. She is 5 mo, and turns out all the feeding was causing her to get tummy pains, and to cry, and then I fed her again and so the cycle continued. She now feeds every 3-4 hours and has been settled, sleeping during the day and much happier. So in our case, yes you can overfeed a BF baby.

[Lucretia Borgia]

Well...and I should warn you....this theory isn't popular on EB...but according to the hospital Paed who I saw after DS2 was born - you can.....he reckoned DS 2 was comfort sucking, was getting too much of the lactose rich fore milk as a result, and that was making him colicky and windy. The Paed told me to retry a dummy (he wouldn't have a bar of it) and failing that, a bottle of cooled boiled water...NOT for hydration, but to satisfy his sucking reflex without letting him take in the milk when he didn't need it....

TBH, I tried the bottle of cooled water a couple of nights, I don't think DS ever took to it, the colicky issues resolved, he continued to cluster feed in the evenings.....I don't really know if the Paed was on the money with his advice....but you did ask!

[Just Another Cat]

Breastfed babies may nom on the nipple a bit, but they tend not to extract and ingest milk when sucking for comfort.

I think this is true. Also, it's much easier for a baby to get milk from a bottle

Plus some parents keep persisting with feeding even though the baby is full just because there is milk left in the bottle.

[Pooks*potters]

You can over feed them. It's not as easy as with a ff baby but yes, you certainly can. I was at the LC once and another woman there had so much milk, that came out so fast, that her son was coughing and spluttering and throwing up some excess, and had tummy pain. I, on the other hand, couldn't get enough milk into my baby. We joked that she could have fed them both. In eras gone by, perhaps it would have been a good solution!

[libbylu]

Perhaps in the short term a baby might overfeed if they are doing a lot of comfort sucking, but I think over the long term it tends to even out.
I guess the saying comes from looking at babies weights - breastfeeding doesn't tend to create obese infants but occasionally bottle feeding can, but this might be more about parent behaviour than baby behaviour - not sure. Perhaps some parents are encouraging the baby to finish off the bottle when they don't really want it. I reckon there is some kind of built in desire in mothers to see their kid 'finish off' what is on their plate and I guess this might extend to the bottle as well. It obviously can't extend to the breast as you can't see what they are taking.

[Pooks*potters]

Yes I had a mum in my mothers group who would spend 2 hours trying to get her baby to finish her bottle (ew), I would not have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself. I think the stats for weights get skewed by this kind of behaviour. I think there needs to be more education about how to bottle feed, like with this sort of thing and with the flow of the teats, not feeding baby lying down.

[*mylittleprince*]

I used to believe this but I think you can. If you misinterpret their hungry cues and use boob for everything, then maybe you can overfeed?

I have 15 week old twins which are exclusively breastfed. I feed them both when one wakes or is hungry. My girl twin is usually the one who wakes to feed and is hungrier before her brother. My boy twin coudl probably do with less feeds but the nights that I've fed her and left him sleeping, he's woken up a little while later and then I've been up all night. He weighs more as a twin baby than my other son at the same age! (He is 15 weeks old and around 7.5kg).

[Starletta]

Yes I had a mum in my mothers group who would spend 2 hours trying to get her baby to finish her bottle (ew), I would not have believed it if I hadn't seen it myself. I think the stats for weights get skewed by this kind of behaviour. I think there needs to be more education about how to bottle feed, like with this sort of thing and with the flow of the teats, not feeding baby lying down.

Ugh my daughter is like this. She hates eating, I swear!