How do you know if a newborn is eating too little or eating too much?

One of the first questions that parents have with their newborn baby is how often they should be fed.

Oliver Thansan
Oliver Thansan
14 March 2023 Tuesday 03:21
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How do you know if a newborn is eating too little or eating too much?

One of the first questions that parents have with their newborn baby is how often they should be fed. The answer is that you have to offer the breast on demand. This means that there are no fixed schedules or durations for shots. It will be the baby who decides when to eat, when to stop and how much.

The Spanish Association of Pediatrics (AEP) explains that "breastfeeding works optimally when it is done on demand. For this reason, it is recommended to offer the breast to the baby when he requests it and for as long as he wants, until he releases it spontaneously.

In this way, milk production is regulated according to the child's needs, milk intake is ensured at the beginning and end of feeding, whose composition is different, and a good emptying of the breast is achieved. Unnecessarily delaying the time of feeding causes avoidable suffering for both the baby and the mother."

But how can you tell when the baby is hungry? You have to pay attention to certain signals, for example moving the head to one side and the other, opening the mouth, sticking out the tongue, bringing hands and fists to the mouth, rubbing the mouth against the mother's chest or showing the search reflex chest.

Likewise, there are signs that the baby is satiated and doesn't want more, for example when he begins to suck more slowly, shows loss of interest in the breast and begins to move away. In those moments you can end the shot.

To know if the baby is eating little, the main sign will be the weight. In the first five days they can lose up to 10% of the weight they had at birth, which they will recover in around 2 weeks. Later, the pediatrician will control the weight gain to assess if it is adequate. In addition to this, there are other signs that can give us clues as to whether the baby is eating little and with which we can consult a specialist, including:

In these cases, it will be necessary to go to the pediatrician to weigh it, compare it with the previous weight and, if necessary, look for the causes that may be leading the baby to eat little.

Sometimes the opposite happens, that the baby is eating too much. In babies who are breastfed this does not usually happen, it is difficult to overfeed them. It occurs more often in children who are bottle-fed, since it is easier to give them more than they need. The signs that can tell us that she is eating too much are:

In these cases, the pediatrician will also have to be consulted, and with the weight it will be confirmed if he is having an excessive gain, in which case he will recommend to the parents that they reduce the amount of bottle they give the baby at each feeding .