Bottle Feeding With Safety and Love

This article provides information on how much, how often, scheduling, reading your baby's cues, preparing formula, combo feeding: breast and bottle, sterilizing, mixing formulas, the right mix, bottle feeding tips, giving the bottle, burping baby, safe feeding tips, and weaning from the bottle.

How Much? How Often?
How much formula your baby takes depends upon your baby's weight and rate of growth, metabolism, body type, and appetite. The following guidelines on feeding volumes are meat to satisfy your infant's basic nutritional requirements. Your baby's individual desire may change from day to day and sometimes may be more or less than the average recommended volumes.

You may use the following rule of thumb for how much formula to feed your infant from birth to six months of age: Two to two-and-a half ounces of formula per pound per day (125-150 milliliters per kilogram per day). If your baby weighs ten pounds for example, me may take twenty to twenty-five ounces per day. Don't expect your baby to drink this much immediately after birth. Many newborns need and take only an ounce or two (30-60 milliliters) at each feeding for the first week. Use the following as a general guide:

* newborns: 1-2 ounces at each feeding

* one to two months: 3-4 ounces per feeding
* two to six months: 4-6 ounces per feeding
* six months to a year: up to 8 ounces per feeding

Small, more frequent feedings work better than larger ones spaced farther apart. Your baby's tummy is about the size of his fist. Take a full bottle and place it next your baby's fist and you'll see why tiny tummies often spit the formula back up when they're given too much at one time.

Sometimes baby is thirsty and not hungry. Offer a bottle of water if you think baby may be thirsty. Because formulas are more heavily concentrated than breast milk, it is advised that parents give their baby at least 4 to 8 ounces of water a day (breastfed babies do not need extra water).

Scheduling the Bottle Feeding Baby

Formula-fed babies are easier to schedule than breastfed babies. Because formula is digested more slowly (the protein curds are tougher) the interval between feedings is usually longer for bottle fed babies.

There are two types of infant feeding practices: demand feeding (or "cue feeding"), in which baby is fed every time his little tummy desires, and scheduled feeding, when baby is fed at certain fixed times during the day, usually every three hours, and when awakening during the night. Cue feeding is for infant satisfaction; scheduling is for your convenience. (The term "feeding routine" is preferred rather than the more rigid-sounding term "feeding schedule.") Your overall infant-care routines, especially feeding, are challenging negotiations between baby's needs and yours. Tiny babies have tiny tummies. Most babies do best on smaller, more-frequent feedings. Giving your baby a bottle every three hours (rather than ever four hours) is most in keeping with a balance between baby's satisfaction and parents' lifestyle. Most bottle feeding parents arrive at a compromise, or semi-demand type of schedule, giving baby one or two feedings at specified times each day, interspersed with cue feedings.

During the first few weeks, awaken your baby for feeding if he sleeps longer than four hours during the day. Allowing baby to sleep longer than four hours between feedings during the day may result in the exhausting day-sleeper-and-nigh-feeder routine. Try to arrange for the longer stretches of sleep to occur at night. More frequent feedings during the day and bottles at 7:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. generally seem to be the most comfortable feeding routine for most parents This allows parents some free time in the later evening; and giving baby a bottle before you retire will often satisfy baby until 3:00 or 4:0 a.m., requiring just one waking for you.

Reading Your Baby's Cues
Tempting as it is to give your baby a bottle every time he cries, using formula as a pacifier may lead to overfeeding. Learn alternative ways of comforting rather than automatically reaching for formula at the first whimper. Baby may need only holding, a playful interaction, a bottle of water when thirsty, a diaper change, or simply a change of activity. Bottle-feeding mothers actually need more of a variety of baby-comforting techniques than do breastfeeding mothers. Using breastfeeding as a pacifier is less likely to result in overfeeding

Preparing Formula
Always remember to wash your hands thoroughly before preparing formula and baby food, and be sure all the equipment used in preparing formula is clean (see instructions on sterilizing, below). The feeding supplies you will need include bottles, nipples, and miscellaneous utensils.

Bottles.

Start with four four-ounce (120-milliliter) bottles, and after you and your baby have decided on the favorite type of bottle and baby is taking more than four ounces a feeding, you may need as many as eight to ten eight-ounce bottles. Glass is easiest to clean, but breakable. Besides traditional bottles there are plastic nursers, holders with pre-sterilized disposable bags that hold the milk and collapse as baby feeds, lessening air swallowing. For older babies there are clever bottles designed in a loop for baby to hold during self-feeding. The use of these self-feeding bottles is not advised because they encourage baby to walk around holding a bottle and deprive baby of valuable social interaction during feeding.

Nipples.

Latex and silicone nipples come in a variety of shapes and flow rates that are designed to deliver expressed breast milk, formula, or milk in a way that is most comfortable for your baby. For the full-time bottle feeding baby, experiment with various types of nipples to see which one works best for your baby. If baby is both breastfeeding and bottle feeding, see "Combo Feeding: Breast and Bottle," below.

To avoid baby's choking on a nipple, follow carefully the manufacturer's caution advice on the package. If the nipple becomes cracked or torn, discard it. Some nipples come with a variety of hole sizes to fit the type of liquid and the age of the baby. The nipple hole should be large enough for formula to drip at one drop per second when you hold a full, unshaken bottle upside down. Larger nipples and nipple holes are available for older babies.

If your baby is not getting enough liquid through the nipple, you can enlarge the nipple opening by using a needle approximately the same thickness as the hole size you desire. Heat the tip of the needle until red hot and insert the needle through the hole from the inside of the nipple. Pull the needle out of the nipple hole with a quick, straight pull. Repeat if the hole is not large enough Attempt to enlarge the nipple hole in latex nipples only. Do not attempt to enlarge a hole in silicone nipples, as this may cause tearing.