Bottomless Preemie Pit

When we came home from the Special Care Nursery, Morten was drinking 50 - 60 ml per feeding.  In the last few days, we've up-ed that to 70 ml.  He doesn't have another appointment with the pediatrician until Monday, and Jim and I have kind of been wondering if we're feeding him enough now.  While Morten cries a little just before his next feeding, he doesn't make the noise that a full term baby that's hungry would, so we've been a little perplexed.  So today I decided to try a little experiment.

At his 8:00 feeding, I gave him 70 ml, and he was still kind of biting at his burp cloth, so I filled his bottle with 40 ml more.  He drank that up, no problem.  That total is just over 3 1/2 oz.

At his noon feeding, we try nursing, with which he has actually been doing really well.  Normally I nurse and then give him 35 - 40 ml to top him off.  Today I up-ed it to 50 ml.  This is also after about 45 minutes of nursing - not constant nursing, but a suck-suck-suck, pause, pause, suck-suck-suck, etc.  I have no idea how much he is getting from the nursing, but he is definitely getting something.

I don't actually remember what I gave him at 4, but I think it was the normal 70-ish ml, and then Jim prepped his bottle and fed him at 8.  Probably the normal amount also.

Then at midnight the last few days I've been doing a second nursing, since he's been getting a lot better with the noon one.  Tonight he breastfed for at least 45 minutes, maybe even closer to an hour.  Then I gave him 60 ml in the bottle.  I thought he was getting tired at that point, but when I went to burp him, again he was sucking at the cloth.  So I gave him 60 ml more.  (120 ml = 4 oz).  Finally at the end of the second bottle and after almost a 2 hour span of eating, he got tired.  But he finished the whole thing. 

Yikes - look at those big cheeks!

I'm not entirely sure what this means - have we been starving our little one??  Or was he just particularly hungry today?  Is it possible to overfeed a baby - will he just continue to drink whatever we offer him?  He certainly has been a member of the Clean Bottle Club.  All questions for the pediatrician, I'm sure...  Meanwhile, I'll continue the experiment tomorrow, and Morty looks like he's starting to fill his long body out a little more.