eating too much?

my boys are 10 months old today, which makes them 8 1/2 months adjusted. we've been doing solids (purees) since they were 6 months actual. we did one meal a day at 6 and 7 months, 2 meals a day at 8 months and 3 meals a day at 9. so now we're up to 3 meals a day, along with 4 bottles. here's how it looks:

6:30 a.m. - wake-up bottle (5-6 oz)
8:30 a.m. - breakfast solids - cereal and fruit (3-4 oz total)
10:30 a.m. - morning bottle (8-9 oz)
12:30 a.m. - lunch solids - meat and veggies (3-4 oz total)
2:30 - afternoon bottle (8-9 oz)
4:30 - dinner solids - dairy and veg or fruit (2-3 oz total)
6:30 - bedtime bottle (5-6 oz)

so all totaled they typically get 28-30 oz of formula and 8-10 oz solids per day.

someone at daycare suggested in a not-so-tactful way that we're overfeeding them because owen barfed during his dinner bowl yesterday. she suggested that we were giving them too much food during the day and he couldn't handle it and i suppose her assumption was that he was exploding from overeating. <_< i've always heard that you can't overfeed a baby, when they're done they stop eating. i asked her if they were respecting their signals to stop and she reassured me that they were. so everything i know about feeding babies (which, admittedly, you could fit into a thimble) tells me it's not an overeating problem. they eat as much as they want and they clamp their mouths shut when they're done.

am i totally wrong here? am i overfeeding them? i should mention that they're still small. owen is 16 1/2 lbs and jacob is 17 lbs.


the barfing issue is that both boys really hate texture. it's taken a while but we're finally doing thicker cereals and a just little bit of texture in their meats. but yesterday they had cottage cheese (homemade with very small curds) and they just act like they're gagging as soon as anything with more texture than a puree enters their mouths. they're both reluctant to self-feed as well. owen will pick up yogurt melts and put them in his mouth but unless it dissolves very quickly he'll spit it back out. i've tried doing tiny pasta stars in their veggies but they spit them out like watermelon seeds and refuse to swallow them.

my concern is that i've read that preemies are at a higher risk for swallowing disorders and that a hypersensitive gag reflex could indicate a problem. so now i'm trying to figure out if they need to be evaluated for this or whether it's normal for a 10 month old (or 8 1/2) to still be gagging to the point of vomiting on textures like cottage cheese.

help! between reflux issues and bottle resistance and now gagging on solids i am SO SICK of feeding issues! :gah:

 

I don't think you are overfeeding them. I think babies know when they are done, and they do not have a weight gain issue. I think adults like to project their own issues onto children.

 

I just wanted to let you know I feel for you. I don't have the exact same issues you are having, but I did have the thought put in my head yesterday that I fed my son too much for supper and that's why he puked it all up. I believe we know our children the best and we know what is right for them, and we don't need others telling us what is right or wrong. Twenty-eight ounces of milk seems great to me; yesterday my little guy barely had 24. Sometimes I wish I was breastfeeding since I haven't heard of a breastfeeding mom worry much about quantity of milk their babies are getting. Your schedule looks very similar to mine, the only difference being my babies will eat anything I put in front of them. Perhaps you could try the food mill grinder from kidco. I used it at first and it made the food a bit chunky but still just a step up from pureed and the babies soon loved it. It will get better soon, I promise.

 

agreed. i feel like ounce markers are a curse.

 

I don't think you are overfeeding them. Their weights are fine & you aren't feeding them more than they want. It can't hurt to talk to your ped about the texture issues. Maybe he/she will have some recommendations to help you.

 

i don't think that you are feeding them too much and you are right about them stopping eating when they are full. babies don't eat for the same reasons adults do, and know when they are full.

my DD has a pretty sensitive gag reflex too and i have had to be really careful about texture in her foods. she will still gag and barf if i give her something too thick/chunky. in fact she barfed on cottage cheese the other day too! i had put the cottage cheese through a strainer so it was very fine curds which i thought she would be able to tolerate, wrong... i tried it again a couple days later without mushing it up and she did great with it, i think she could identify the larger curds as something that needed to be chewed instead of just swallowed. have you tried any soft finger foods like bits of pancake? that may help them get the concept of chewing and help with the gag reflex.

if you are concerned about the gagging, i'm sure it wouldn't hurt to talk to their pedi about it. you have a pedi GI too right? maybe they could put your mind at ease...

i am right there with you on the frustration with feeding, i can't wait until they are past all this and can feed themselves. but then i'm sure it will be some other concern about whether they are eating enough/right foods/etc...

 

we do have a pedi GI but i wasn't fond of him so i'm not sure we'll be going back unless something medical comes up. we've done PT for torticollis (expecting to be discharged next week, actually) so we have a PT resource and i know their organization has PT/OT for chewing/swallowing issues. i just don't want to head down another therapy path if this is something that babies sometimes do. this totally falls into the "new mom has no idea what's normal" category of behaviors.

i haven't tried anything soft like pancakes or toast. owen does fine with teething biscuits. jacob isn't interested in feeding himself at all yet (another thing to worry about?).

they both get this disgusted look on their faces when they have anything with texture in their mouths. this weekend jacob ate some cottage cheese but he actually squinted his eyes and shuddered with every bite like it was disgusting. i keep reading about people with 6-month-olds that are eating table foods and self-feeding, and my guys hate everything except purees. they haven't gotten the sippy cup thing down and they make the same disgusted face on the occasions when they do get it into their mouths.

they've never been big chewers and they started refusing pacifiers entirely at about 7 months. they don't suck thumbs or fingers or anything. they have the opposite of an oral fixation!

 

If you already have a resource for PT, it couldn't hurt to talk to them & maybe get them evaluated for the texture issues, then see where to go from there.

 

:rofl:

Too true! I highly doubt you're over-feeding them. Nate still spits up/barfs almost every morning, and it's not dependent upon how much he eats for breakfast. He's just got a loose sphincter or whatever and sometimes the food won't stay down.

I'm sorry, but this makes me chuckle! OMG, you should visit the Breastfeeding Forum sometime!! We can be *obsessed* with weight gain and how we "know" how much our babies are getting every feed. I think this sort of worry is inherent with having children, whether you formula feed or breast feed.

My boys are over 11 months old, and it's only in the last month that Jack has really learned to feed himself. Nate did great from the beginning, but Jack would grab a puff, "miss" his mouth with it and end up with his thumb. Then he'd sit forlornly looking at a pile of puffs on his tray and sucking his thumb. He's also still not really big on texture. He will spit out large chunks in any foods we feed him (like stage 3 foods), but he does a lot better if he feeds himself.

So I just wanted to say that your guys don't sound a lot different than Jack at that age. And my guys are small too; I don't think they're even 20 pounds yet.

I would definitely talk to PT to put your mind more at ease, but I think you're doing great! You've been introducing textures/thicker foods gradually, and it sounds like that's helping. You can try to tempt them with some different soft finger foods like pancakes, and see how they do with them.

I think feeding issues are the WORST! Good luck! :hug:

 

A few random thoughts.. I'll jsut list them to make it quick.

1. You can overfeed a baby. Especially when bottle feeding. I know because I've done it, and had to correct it :faint: I don't know that you are overfeeding them, but I'm just saying it can be done. One very big problem I had at that age was that my boys were getting too much milk and not enough solids, and it was causing them to reject many types of solids, except for puffs. Go figure. One thing I tried was to feed them their solids first thing in the morning before a bottle, so they would be hungrier.

2. It probably is more of a texture issue, but I got a great tip from someone on this site (Maybe Becky5 or DATJMom), who suggested skipping stage 3 foods all together, and it worked great (once I cut down on the milk). Even to this day, one of my boys spits out the lumps in many soupy foods. I just went ahead and started giving them table foods, especially frozen peas (which I cooked of course).

3. If they have a problem with the hand mouth coordination, you can help them a little by putting it in their mouths.

4. It really doesn't sound like they have any problems. I think some of what they are doing is perfectly normal for that age. My guys didn't do well with solids, but they caught on quickly once I adjusted a few things.

Don't worry. You're doing a good job.

 

Jack loves his thumb, but I he really wanted some puffs. Here's an example:

http://www.dropshots.com/Tslisher#date/2009-05-10/13:27:19

Nate is on the left enjoying his puffs. Jack is on the right sucking his thumb and looking sad. I think if you look hard enough you can see a puff stuck to his fist.

It sounds like you've gotten some good suggestions from PPs. Keep us posted on how it's going and if you decide to talk to PT. I'm always interested in how people are doing with feeding issues because of all the problems we've had with our boys.

Good luck!

 

our 9 month wellness appointment is tomorrow so i'm definitely going to be talking to the pedi about this. i've been nervous about cutting back their formula in the hopes that they'll be hungrier for solids because i don't want their growth to slow down (the preemie mom's dilemma). i'm hoping the pedi will have some good ideas. our PT appointment is next week and i'll probably mention it while we're there to see if anyone thinks they should be screened.

i may try making baby pancakes this weekend and seeing if they're interested in trying them. they haven't yet shown any interest in the cooked sweet potato cubes i made them but they're definitely getting interested in anything on our plates. at least interested enough to grab and squeeze the food, if not taste.

 

Good luck at your appointment, let us know how it goes!