Questions re Bottle Feeding

Hi, I've a couple of questions re bottle feeding a newborn. I EBF'd DS FOR 3 months so by the time he went onto bottles, he just took straight to them and fed every 4 hours and started sleeping through the night! However, the breastfeeding has not worked out with DD who is 4 weeks old tomorrow so she has been on bottles exclusively for the past week. I have been more or less feeding her on demand. Sometimes she'll go 3.5 hours between feeds, other times it'll be only 2 to 2.5 hours. The PHN told me to try and get her in more of a routine this week and to try and placate her for a while if she is looking for a feed early rather than give her a bottle the minute she wakes crying. She is taking about 5oz and will sometimes even take 6oz so is consuming a good amount. My main question is regarding number of feeds. The Aptamil carton gives a guideline of 5 feeds in 24 hours. But I'm wondering how can this work?! As that does not seem enough to include the night feed? For example if you fed her 4-hourly as follows: 7am 11am 3pm 7pm 11pm That's 5 feeds. However, she wakes during the night around 4am for another feed. So that means she's on one more feed than the guidelines... Does that matter?! My DS fed as per the above schedule but was 3 months old at that stage. He slept from the dreamfeed at 11pm through to 6am or 7am. The million dollar question is, when should I expect DD to drop the 4am feed? Also when should I expect her to be more regular with the gaps between her feeds as at the moment it's a bit random! Thanks Mamabear

My DD is 12wks tomorrow and she is only gone onto 6oz on the times you mentioned , DD dropped her middle of the night feed (3am/4am) at about 4/5 wks at that time i was giving her 4oz at every feed and then when she stopped waking up for the feed i moved the rest of her bottles to 5 oz. would you try maybe giving her a larger feed at the last feed abd slowly wean her off the middle of the night feed ?

My DS is 17 weeks tomorrow and its only in the last week he's dropped the middle of the night bottle.. I'm still not sure if this is a permanent move he's making or whether he'll go back to wanting that feed again. He used to take quite a small feed in the mornings no matter how hard I tried to get more into him he refused to take and the only way to get it into him would have been to force the feed and I wasn't willing to do it.. He's started taking a bigger feed in the morning now and throughout the day so he's getting what he needs into him to sleep from 11 to 7 without waking.. I had a panic about those guidelines on the box too and I asked the Pharmacist, my gp and my phn and the one thing they all told is that those guidelines are just that.. guidelines.. There was no reason to worry just because my ds wasn't doing what the box said he should be. She'll drop the middle of the night feed when she's ready too I reckon, you can try to increase the amount she takes in her other feeds to see if that will help, but if it doesn't I would just keep going with her until she is..

Thanks guys, Bizarrely, she slept through until 6am this morning! Still a bit worried about the amount of bottles she is on. Today it has been: 6am 9am 12pm 2:30pm 5pm 8pm So that's 6 bottles and if she has another at 11pm, that will be 7 bottles in 24 hours whereas she's only supposed to have 5. All the above were approx 5oz except the 2:30pm which was about 3oz and the 8pm which was 6oz. Is it normal for her to still be feeding very much on demand at this stage or should she be on more of a schedule? What happens at the 6 week growth spurt then?! Mamabear

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[quote="ructions":xliheedr]Mamabear I breastfed for three months but when I switched to formula I was freaked at the amount DS was putting away. I rang my sister who's a mum of three, and her answer was "he's hungry, feed him." So from then on I said fvck the guidelines on the carton and go with the flow. If your LO is happy and sleeping just follow her lead.[/quote:xliheedr] Very true. Also, if they don't take a feed don't freak out (as I have been known to do in the past!) if they are hungry they will feed.

Ructions, your post made me smile. I like your attitude! Sometimes I think it is so easy to get wound up about what the 'guidelines' say or the PHN says etc. DD is the right weight etc so I shouldn't really be worrying. Will relax a bit me thinks !