seriously, kid...how much can you eat?!

Camden looooves to eat. Not directly from the boob, clearly, but he sure does like his milk. Bottle feeding causes the milk to flow faster and easier so they say you can overfeed your baby with the bottle. Kind of how if we eat too fast, our bodies don't quite know we're full until we give it a few minutes for our brains to catch up to our stomachs.

The rule of thumb is to feed your child 2.5-2.7 oz per pound he weighs. Right now, Camden weighs 9 lbs 11 oz. So according to this rule and assuming he gets 8 feedings a day, he should get about 3 oz per feeding. Uh, not so much.

I try my best to keep his feedings to 3 oz but he just wants more! This last week, we've upped it to 3.5 per feeding (I alternate between 3 and 3.5 depending on how long he's gone in between a feeding) and even with that sometimes he still seems hungry. If he fusses, I try to give him a few minutes (the whole brain catch up to stomach thing) but if he reeeeally fusses, I sometimes give him another ounce and he seems good. Other times when I do that, he spits it back up. Hm.

Then there are times (mostly at night) when he takes in 4-5 oz after he's done a longer stretch of sleep. Like just now....he ate at around 7:45pm, finally fell asleep around 8:45pm and slept until 1am. When he got up to feed, I tried giving him 3.5 oz of breastmilk and leave it a that. He SO was not having it. He cried a hungry cry and tongued like crazy. I fed him another ounce. He seemed better but still looked like he wanted more. So, I gave him another half ounce which puts him at 5 in one feeding!! He then seemed content and fell back asleep.

They say you can't really overfeed a baby. That he'll just spit it back up if you've given him too much. But I wonder sometimes! I suppose it's better that he's gaining weight than not. And some kids do just eat more than others. That doesn't stop me from somewhat worrying about it though.

But I guess if he's anything like his daddy, he'll be a good eater for life! ;)