Am I overfeeding my baby?

[mummybee]

My daughter, now 16 months old, has grown to have an extremely good appetite. She has been polishing off her congee every meal but recently my in-laws came to visit and ocmmented that we may be giving her too much. My question is: can you overfeed your baby????

She is now 10kg not fat/overweight for her age group, but the problem is that it is true she eats a lot. She eats 2 full coffee-mugs of thick congee (not the watery ones in restaurants but lumpy and thick with chicken, vegetables) and this amt, even to me, seems much for a little tummy to store!!! Her congee is made up of 1 full cup of rice + 1.5 cups of water + half chicken breast + 1 chicken drum + vegetables (only give little bit of chicken meat to practise chewing).

My questions are:
(1) She never turns away from her food not even at the end of 2 mugs of congee, so does this mean she is not full? should I keep feeding her until she says no? ie would a 16-month old tell you if she is full?? her tummy seems like it is gonna explode at the end of it all...
(2) I spend 45mins feeding her. is this too long?
(3) How much does your toddler eat?

[Grace Bellis]

I don't know the answer if you could over-feeding your baby. However, the food quantity that you described sounds like lots of food to me in one meal. My daughter is almost 1 year old. I think her weight is around 10 kg as well. Here is what she has on a normal day.
Morning
- 6oz of milk
- half bowl of cheerio/shreedies
- half Gala size apple
Afternoon
- 1 bowl of thick chuk (made out of 1/2 handful of rice + 1 eye yolk + 2-3 oz meat + 2oz veg)
- 1 bowl of baby yoghurt or 1/2 oz of cheese
- 3-4 tablespoon of oat cereals or 1/2 small sweet potato
Bedtime
- 7 oz of milk
- Plus 4 oz of milk in the middle of the night

Instead of feeding the baby such big meal. I don't know how often you feed your baby. Instead of giving him such big meal, could you split them into small meal. When I see my daughter finishing her bowl of chuk, her tummy is hugh. Being able to eat 2 bowls of chuk just sounds a lot to me. You might want to talk to the peadiatrician when you see him next.

Grace

[mummybee]

Thanks, Grace. Internet has been slow to say the least and it has been so tedious trying to surf the net. Yeah, I have recently cut down on my baby's food. Her tummy is SO HUGE I thought it is surely gonna explode! I now split her meals into smaller meals and I am far mroe comfortable with this. Her feeding schedule is nothing extraordinary - breaskfast of cereal/pasta and fruit at 9-ish, followed by congee+meat+veg lunch at 12-ish then same food at 6.30pm dinner. Now I "underfeed" her the main meals by 1/2 a bowl and substitute with teething rusks and snacks in between, at 11am and 4pm, which she enjoys very much in front of Sesame Street. HaHa.
Her paed visit is not due till 2 months time (he doesn't wish to see her 'cos he said I bring her in too often and there is no need to as she is healthy and not fussy) and the last I weighed her, she has put on 1.5kg the last month, from 9kg to 10.5kg. This means a sharp spike upwards on her gorwth chart. The last time we saw the paed, he told me to feed her until she says no but the problem is she never says no!