how much formula does your three month olds eat?

I have three month old girl twins. both of them are often hard to feed, i keep track of what they both eat to remember who ate when, and i try and get them to eat about 20 ounces each day- but it's not easy! i uhsually make 4 ounce bottles, about every 4 hours during the day, sometimes 3-4 hours, and at night i let them go until they wake up, but sometimes one or both will just take half a bottle then look around and get distracted and when i try and give the other half she wont take it and starts getting fussy and screaming. sometimes she even does this after half an ounce. ushually i give her a break and eventually have to rock her or actually stand and walk around the house, to get her to eat. sometimes she'll take it if i take her by a window, but only if i'm standing. is this normal? when she was first born she was the good eater, so easy to feed, her sister was harder. her sister got easier for a while, but is now starting to also get really fussy after half a bottle, and needs a break before she takes more, sometimes she gets so upset she spits up. when should i just say ok it's enough, they don't need it right now? how much did your babies eat at 3 months over the course of a day?

 

Mine are not quite 3 months and we have B/G twins, so my story may be a little different than two girls. My DS usually finished a 6 oz bottle with no problem. My DD can finish a 6 oz bottle twice a day...it's usually 4 oz bottles. This morning she made it through 2 oz and didn't want anything else. She'll probably be starving when she gets up from her nap and take a 6 oz bottle. It's never the same with her. I think girls are more finicky and have to have optimal conditions to be good eaters (at least at this age). Who knows? I'm still trying to figure it out...hopefully more experienced Moms will help you out more than I have! Oh, and they eat 5-6 times a day. Good luck!

 

thanks for responding - wow 6 ounce bottles, one of my girls had one once, but then she vomited so i realized it was just to much for now, so i started only make 4 ounce at once again.. since that is often still hard to get them to take anyways..
oh my girls are actually 3 and a half months already! time is flying..

 

My ladies have actually been taking LESS bottles than before [used to eat EVERY 1.5hrs!!]. Now we are on a 2-hr schedule and are finishing about 7-8 bottles consisting of 5-6.5 oz every day. So they're eating 35-43 oz each day.

 

QUOTE(Suzy! @ Nov 13 2008, 03:10 PM) [snapback]1069178[/snapback]
My ladies have actually been taking LESS bottles than before [used to eat EVERY 1.5hrs!!]. Now we are on a 2-hr schedule and are finishing about 7-8 bottles consisting of 5-6.5 oz every day. So they're eating 35-43 oz each day.


wow-- do they also wake up throughout the night? i'm lucky if i ge my girls to eat 4 ounces every 4 hours during the day... should i be worried they aren't eating enuf?

 

QUOTE(someone @ Nov 13 2008, 02:26 PM) [snapback]1069204[/snapback]
wow-- do they also wake up throughout the night? i'm lucky if i ge my girls to eat 4 ounces every 4 hours during the day... should i be worried they aren't eating enuf?


I have 3 month old B/G twins, and they eat 4 oz bottles every 3-3 1/2 hours (5 bottles), and sleep through the night. Last night was the first time, but DS took 5oz for his last bottle, and I'll probably continue that because he slept longer than had before. He used to wake up around 4:30 ish, and those days he'd get 6 bottles. DD was taking her full 4oz bottles just fine for a few weeks, and then for the last week and a half she's not been finishing all her bottles, and in fact, her last bottle last night she only took 2oz, and still slept all night til 8:30 am (10-11 hours). *shrugs* She's kinda doing the same as yours...sometimes, she seems to be distracted and not want to eat, though she's turning her head in towards me, so I just think she doesn't want it...I don't really know why.

 

any other responses?

 

wow...my story is a lot like yours! I posted my story...I think my post is something like "going crazy! help! eating and reflux issues.
My babies are a little younger, 2 months. But dd was consistantly taking 3-3.5oz but then started really struggling and was diagnosed with reflux. Now she takes anywhere from .5-3oz. Like your dd sometimes she will take an oz then she gets fussy and cries. And just today ds started eating a lot better if I was standing with him or walking around.
I try to get them to eat 2x their body weight but recently that isnt happening at all.
Sorry I dont have any advice or anything, just wanted to let u know your not alone!
Its frustrating!

 

At that age, mine were eating 4-5oz every 4 hours and would have 5 bottles a day. I used to encourage them both to eat 5oz at the last feed but it made no difference to how long they lasted.

I also used seperate charts for each baby to keep track of when and what they ate plus other info. I still use it too and its a great help especially with illness.

 

QUOTE(Hsuter @ Nov 17 2008, 05:14 PM) [snapback]1074408[/snapback]
wow...my story is a lot like yours! I posted my story...I think my post is something like "going crazy! help! eating and reflux issues.
My babies are a little younger, 2 months. But dd was consistantly taking 3-3.5oz but then started really struggling and was diagnosed with reflux. Now she takes anywhere from .5-3oz. Like your dd sometimes she will take an oz then she gets fussy and cries. And just today ds started eating a lot better if I was standing with him or walking around.
I try to get them to eat 2x their body weight but recently that isnt happening at all.
Sorry I dont have any advice or anything, just wanted to let u know your not alone!
Its frustrating!

yeah it is frusterating.. we are going to the doctor tomorow for a well visit so i am going to ask.. do your kids taking meds for reflux? they also thought that mine had reflux, we tried malantra, didnt do anything, then we changed formulas to gentelease - for one, not my other daughter because at the time she was doing well.. i don't see much of a difference though, dont really want to get prescritpion meds though.

i also keep records in seperate notebooks of feedings, and when they pee/poop..

 

I'm interested to hear how your well visit goes. Our well visit is Wednesday and I have lots of questions/concerns.
my dd is on .8ml zantac 3x a day and 7mg prevacid 1x a day. We also thicken her formula with rice cereal. Ds is on .6ml zantac 3x a day. I absolutely HATE having them on meds and shoving all of this stuff down dd's throat, but if a medication is going to help I'm willing to try it.
We've changed formulas a few times. We started on Similac advance w/early shield...they got painfully gassy and strained during bm's. Then we tried gentlease...that is actually when dd's reflux symptoms started, she did terrible on it. So then we tried good start and I think they did ok on that but still lots of gas, we eventually switched to soy....I think just to see if dd would do better on it and we've just stuck with it for now. But I do want to get them back on a milk based product eventually and I think they did ok on the goodstart.

I too keep charts of eating times, amount, bm/pee, and when I give meds.

 

I have b/g twins and they are taking between 4 - 6 oz, every 3 to 3 1/2 hours. They do 5 feedings a day, and they sleep from 7/7:30pm to somewhere between 4 - 6am. Every day is different. If they wake up at 4 I feed them and put them back to bed like I did last night. If they wake up at 6 then I open up the shades, get them dress, feed and play with them. Basically declare the day has started. Hope this helps.

Oh, and my dd has reflux. We give her 1.5mil of zantac - 2x a day. It helps tremendously!

 

My babies had reflux(one was a silent refluxer), and they were VERY difficult to feed. 20 oz at that age was a great day for us, and took a lot of work to get it in them! We were still at 3-4oz at that time(with added rice cereal).

 

Wow my boys are Piggy's LOL they are at 5-6oz every 3 hours during the day and the sleep about 7-10 hours through the night and wake up starved LOL

 

Austin and Alyssa are 3 1/2 months old and they take 5-6 4oz-6oz bottles a day.

 

I just got on to ask about this - my singleton is 2 months old tomorrow and already taking 4-5 ounces SEVEN times a day. I've been trying to figure out if he was getting enough because he's still getting up for a middle of the night feeding. If I go to five ounces this would be 35 ounces per day!!!

 

for those of you whos babies are on zantac: does it help? the doctor said if starting a new formula doesn' really help, my daughter(s) might have to go on zantac.. but i heard it can also cause insomnia. what weere your experiences?

 

Both of my boys were on Zantac for a few months - it really helped their reflux. It didn't cause any insominia in them that I noticed.

 

QUOTE(kcole @ Nov 19 2008, 12:53 PM) [snapback]1077243[/snapback]
Both of my boys were on Zantac for a few months - it really helped their reflux. It didn't cause any insominia in them that I noticed.

how did you know for sure that they had reflux?

 

I think for zantac its just a trial and error thing. It works really well for some babies but I've heard a lot of women say prevacid works so much better...so you just have to find what works for you I guess.

 

Our doctor told us it was reflux. We even had them both tested for a puloric stenosis (totally butchered the spelling of that, I'm sure). It is when it the opening to the stomach doesn't fully open and causes the food to come back up. They were projectile - not just spitting up. They did an ultrasound on them while taking a bottle to see if the food was emptying correctly. It was - so that wasn't the problem.

 

My dd takes about 5-6 oz every 3-4 hours, my ds 5 oz every 3-4..... they are already 12.10 and 14.5 lbs!.. bronat 3.9 and 4.9
They eat better now after I started to warm up their formulas more.-- THey don't sttn :-(