Do you think it's easier to over feed / create an obese baby when you use a bottle to feed them?

My thoughts are that your student needs to learn how to properly feed a baby (it’s easy to tell when they’ve had enough) and possibly switch her formula because that could be the reason she is spitting up too. Yes, I think it’s easier to overfeed with a bottle but when done correctly it’s not a concern.

Definitely but I also think it is easy to overfeed breastfed babies too. I have a friend who feeds her kid constantly, as a comforter. The kid is mighty chubby.

@Stinley Man, she must be tied down like a ball and chain @Stinley! She must never go anywhere or do anything…unless she’s pulling the car over to breast feed, or dropping everything at the grocery store to feed him!

Gosh, why doesn’t he just feed the baby less? It seems so obvious.

I don’t have children, but one thing I have observed is breastfed babies rest and play while feeding. They pause, pull away, then go back to eating again, seems to be a slower process than bottle feeding? Maybe I am wrong on that? Also, from what I understand bottle nipples release more milk faster when the baby sucks, but maybe that is from way back in the day and they have improved it.

Seems like a parent might more easily use food as a way to quiet a baby if it is done with a bottle.

There must be studies on this I would think, but the studies might not mean anything if they have not accounted for social class, parent’s weight, and other things.

I think bottle feeding makes no difference and here is why.

Our first child was a boy. He was fed exclusively by a bottle. He never was obese as a child and is not obese as an adult.

Our second child was a girl. She was fed exclusevely by breast feeding. She was never an obese child and is not obese as an adult.

As you can see, there was no difference in feeding a child from a bottle, compared to feeding a child by breast milk.

Both of our children are happy and in good health.

@john65pennington I didn’t say a bottle fed baby would automatically become overweight. I said it’s possible depending on the parents.

I would guess that you and your wife don’t focus on food for any reason other than to eat when you’re hungry. I’d guess that you never tried to get your kids to eat more even after they’d signaled that they were done. As @JLeslie said, it would depend on the parents.

@JLeslie Yes, the milk does come out more slowly in a breast plus it takes more work on the part of the baby! And yes, my babies tended to stop and play awhile, then go back to eating until they were really done.

I really don’t have a problem using a bottle for comfort reasons…as long as it only has water in it. It’s no worse than a pacifier (which none of my kids ever used. They didn’t like the plastic taste me thinks)

Some babies throw up when they are given formula. My oldest son was like this. I started giving him formula once I was done nursing and he threw up every time he had a bottle. He was never overfed. The formula upset his tummy and we had to find a special formula that worked for him. A baby will usually let you know when they have a full belly and they don’t want anymore (this is my experience with my three children. I guess it could be different for others).

@jonsblond Sure they do! Sure they tell us when they’re done! But the problem comes in when the parents want them to eat more anyway. They’re the same ones who are going to nag, “Eat this, eat that, try this, you can’t leave the table until you eat all of your hog’s ears….” Or the same ones who give them a box of crackers 30 minutes before dinner, then get bent out of shape when the kid isn’t hungry at dinner time. It depends on the parents. My grandkids were bottle fed. None of them are anywhere close to overweight.

I agree with Dutchess, some parents have very bad judgement about food portions and food expectations.

@Dutchess_III You mentioned a five month old baby. This was the age group I was thinking of when I answered. Of course as the children get older it is easier to overfeed them with junk food and sugary drinks. With a very young baby though, it will close its lips tight and refuse a bottle or breast nipple if he/she doesn’t want it.

But I’ve seen parents who persevered anyway, @jonsblond, because they’re just so sure the baby didn’t get “enough to eat.” They may wait five or ten minutes, but they’ll be back trying to get the baby to drink more. Or a baby cries and the instant reaction is to stick a bottle in their mouth…

@john65pennington Your two children are wonderful examples, but that’s anecdotal. In terms of what is generally true of the human population, the way your children developed is meaningless. Except to you, of course!

Quite simply, it is much easier to overfeed a baby with a bottle than with a breast. However,if the baby is spitting up the extra, he or she might just be a chubby baby. Only a pediatrician can really say what’s going on here. If it were my baby, regardless of whether I was using a bottle or breast, I’d talk to the doctor about the baby spitting up like that.

Also, keep in mind that a baby spitting up can look a lot worse than it really is. What seems like “tons” of thrown up milk can be as little as an ounce or two. Spill a couple of ounces of water on yourself and you’ll be surprise how much of a mess that makes!

Comfort feeding is different when you breastfeed, by the way. Once the breast is empty, it takes time for the mother’s body to refill it. If the baby is upset and wants to nurse for comfort, the amount of milk is limited by what the mother’s body has produced since the last feeding. It’s quite a bit different from being able to always offer the baby a full bottle. Also, formula has a constant fat and calorie content. Breast milk does not. A baby who nurses for a short time for comfort isn’t getting the richer “hind milk” that has a higher fat and calorie content.

Anyway, it’s hard to tell what the real problem is here. It could be the baby is just naturally chubby. They may need to switch formula, or what seems like a lot of throwing up to new parents could be normal spitting up. They may not be burping the baby often enough during a feeding. Maybe they are pushing too much formula on the baby, or maybe not. The best you can do is politely ask, “What did the pediatrician say about that?” Encourage them to at least call or bring it up at the baby’s next check up.

FYI, and this is more anecdotal evidence, all three of my kids were breastfed. One was always small for her age, one was a monster, and one always average for his age. Now they’re still kids, but they’re all well within healthy weights for their height and age.

@MissAusten Excellent @MissAusten! Thanks.

It is fact that we are all born with a certain number of fat cells. Some more, some less. I think 90% of weight issues have a genetic cornerstone. Not that with proper nutrition and regular exercise there can’t be some modulation, but…all in all, everyone has a baseline of fat cells that either grow or shrink, but never change numbers.

I breast fed and bottle fed my daughter, and I was a bottle baby, we both have to watch our weight, but, it’s more of a genetic thing, I come from a stout line of german fraus…lol

I am sturdy pioneer stock, if I were a horse I’d be a light draft breed!

@Coloma I thought that science decided we can add fat cells up to a certain age? It seems possible that the moment we are born does not turn off that mechanism.

@JLeslie

I am not aware of that. I have always understood that we are mostly predisposed to how many fat cells we have.

Who really knows, other than, there is truth to the genetic thread, you can no more turn a Greyhound into a heavy weight Lab than you can turn a duck into a goose. lol

Look at the varying animal breeds, some are far more prone to obesity than others.

And, of course, we should not forget that in the old days, if you couldn’t breast feed, the infant died. Better a chubby alive baby than a dead one. ;-)

Hmmm…I was just googling a little. This implies the fat cells are set by adolescence. I read another that sakd even in adulthood they can be added, that the fat cells swell and swell and eventually divide into two knew cells that can swell and swell and so on. I can’t find that page again now. It seems to me science is still studying it.

@JLeslie

Hmm..great, sooo this explains ‘middle age spread’ maybe? lol

Fat cells, the building blocks of brick houses. hahaha

@Coloma Yeah, it seems gluttony is the sin, because if you overdo you permanently change your body, because the fat cell numbers don’t go back down. Although, fat cells do die off and get replaced from what I understand. Again, it seems like the research is still a little up in the air.

@Dutchess_III She does.

Who does what @Stinley?

@Dutchess_III Sorry been offline. She feeds the baby all the time.

@Stinley Ultimately it all goes back to the parents…