Do you know the size of your babies stomach?

One of the reasons that many women stop breastfeeding sooner than they wanted to is due to a perception that they couldn’t produce enough milk. While there are occasionally biological or underlying reasons why this happens a lot of women also worry unnecessarily about their supply. 

As a society we have a misconception about how much volume baby needs and this is exacerbated by the fact that when we breastfeed we cannot see the volume of milk our baby is taking. The reality is that baby is born with a very small tummy and are designed to feed smaller volumes frequently rather than taking larger volumes less often. Giving baby larger volumes than they require stretches their tummy and while this MAY mean that they go for longer periods between feeds it causes discomfort, digestive issues and can increase the risk of long term conditions such as diabetes or obesity. When 

Responsive bottle feeding is a little different to responsively breastfeeding as the baby will signal for the breast for many more reasons than simply feeding. 

Responsive bottle feeding involves:- 

• Offering a feed in response to baby’s feeding cues 

• Gently inviting baby to take the teat 

• Pacing the feed 

• Avoiding forcing the baby to finish the feed 

All of these things can make the experience as stress-free for baby as possible and reduce the risk of overfeeding.