Do they stop when they've had enough - how can you tell?

Hi

Hope you ladies can help.

I am predominately breast feeding my baby who is now 4.5 months old but for a number of reasons am giving him a formula top after two of his feeds - his last one of the evening before his bath and bed and after his 10.30pm feed which I wake him for.

I offer him the breast first of all and then the top up. My question is will he stop when he has enough as I have read that bottle fed babies don't regulate how much they take like breast fed babies. I don't know if this is correct or not.

I am trying to work out when he has had enough but it can be difficult as he appears to give some conflicting signs. He is not a baby that easily signals that he is still hungry and rarely cries for food. I normally find that he kindof starts to play with the teat and then pushes the bottle away with his hands though I am not 100% certain if this is deliberate or not. At 4.5 months could he make a action like that deliberately? However if I take the bottle away and reoffer it a moment or two later he will open his mouth and start to suck. Once he has started to play with the bottle I take it as sign he has had enough.

This evening I had breast fed him at 5.15pm and then offered him the bottle after his bath at about 6.00pm he took 90mls or so and didnt appear to want more. He was happy to go to sleep after this however woke up and wouldn't resettle at 7.00pm (probably one sleep cycle as he was asleep for about 40/50 minutes) I eventually offered breast again at 7.45pm which he took? Does this mean he would have taken more than the 90mls and I just wasn't reading him properly or that he'd had enough then and just wanted a little bit more a little bit later? Just want to make sure he isn't snacking.

For mums that are bottle feeding how do you tell when they've had enough and how do to you make sure they just don't keep drinking.

Hope this makes sense.

Thanks

ds is on formula(been on it for 2 1/2 months) and pushes the bottle away when he doesnt want anymore, usually i'll offer it to him again but usually doesnt want it.

hope that helps a little

I can tell when DD has had enough, more often than not these days she doesn't finish a bottle. When she has had enough she'll just play with the teat, it might be in her mouth and she might suck occasionally but will spit/dribble it out her mouth or chatter away with the teat in her mouth. She'll also push the bottle out of her mouth and turn her head away if I try and offer it again. Basically she will let me know if she isn't interested...if she's hungry she will drink without interruption, so if she's just playing around with it she isn't really hungry.

Both my children push the bottle away, or play with it when they have had enough.

I normally wait 10 mins or so and offer again (dayfeeds only), and if they don't take it, then that is all for that feed. Nothing to say I am not making another bottle in 1/2 hr or hours time though ;)

Night feeds, DS falls asleep while drinking (not always a full bottle though), and lets me burp him and put him back to bed.

Thanks ladies looks like he is pretty much doing the same thing so I was right in thinking he just had enough.