“My baby cries a lot because he’s hungry.”
“He cries after he nursed because he’s hungry.”
“He wakes up every 2 hours because he’s hungry.”
“When I give him a supplement, he sleeps rested because he was VERY hungry!”
Clarification: All babies cry! Crying is the only form of communication they have at their disposal. If we count the hours that we speak or express ourselves by gestures and facial expressions, perhaps the baby does not even cry as much. The baby cries because he is hungry (right) but also because he is too cold/hot, has a dirty diaper, wants attention/rest, or stimuli or is stressed by excessive stimuli. Summing up: it cries for everything and anything else.
Crying after breastfeeding is very common, especially in the more active babies. Just as we do when we eat in a hurry, we delay to feel satiety, so do babies. Between the stomach being full and the brain receiving this information go a few minutes (even 1/2 hour). Therefore, it is not usually a sign of hunger, but rather a sign of too much avidity in breastfeeding.
Breastmilk is the only food your baby is prepared to digest, so it is natural that in 1h30 it has already digested it all and wanted more. Giving supplementation only makes them sleep more because the digestion effort is so high that it ends up giving drowsiness. Realize that it is not a healthy sleep, it is another compulsory siesta so that the baby can digest the artificial milk. The breastfed baby is able to establish better and faster the sleep routine (it is understood to sleep all night) than a baby fed with artificial milk, which alternates between feeding and sleeping naps, day or night.
The hunger/good feeding of babies is not evaluated by crying but by the number of diapers soiled per day and weight gain (whether 5 g / day or 60 g / day, if increased, it’s growing and feeding well). By the way, babies do not always get fat every week, not even in proportion to what they got from food, but to the level of growth at that time. Growth works by peaks and it’s not an exponential increase.
So NO, your baby is NOT HUNGRY!
