11 week old baby feeding just four times a day

[FrizzyFrazzled]

My DD is 11 weeks, and is so far a really chilled out baby, and loves her sleep which is a god send. She started sleeping through the night (about 9pm to 6am) a little while ago, which I know is fantastic. She is now formula fed, and has four 200ml bottles a day. She is growing well, but I've just read a few things which say she should be having five bottles in 24 hours, not four. Is this something I should worry about for an otherwise very healthy baby?
She feeds generally at 7am, 11am, 3pm and then around 8 - 830pm. She always finishes her bottles and doesn't get hungry between these feeds - if she did, I would of course feed her! She has just slipped into this routine of her own accord. At our last doctors appointment, she was on the 50th centile for height and weight.
My DS, now two, always had a really big appetite and I am sure he had five feeds a day at this age - but he was bigger, always up at the 80th or 90th centile or so.
Should I worry, or count my blessings do you think??

I am sure she would let you know if she was hungry. Is she putting on weight ok?

Have you tried offering milk between her current feeds (just out of interest?) or adjusting her mealtimes as that's 1/5 less than she 'should' get every day.

Worth bearing in mind though that if she was BF, you'd have no idea how much milk she was getting in comparison to the 'recommended' amount, and the main things to consider are weight gain and meeting developmental milestones

Hi there. My dd was just the same. She was breast fed 5 times a day (because that was all she wanted), from about 4 weeks and slept all night from 5 weeks. In fact i barely saw her for her first year as she slept a lot. I was worried too, but all was extremely well and she is a very happy, healthy 7 year old now.

Count your blessings, not something to worry about on its own.

Thanks all.
She is putting on weight, and when she started to sleep all night, I tried feeding her every three instead of every four hours during the day so she could get an extra feed in but she didnt want a bar of it - was really unsettled, left half of all her bottles, cried etc.
I guess I'll just keep an eye on things and count my blessings for now. I always find it so much easier when they start solids!!

Like others have said I really wouldn't worry so long as she is gaining weight. Just count yourself lucky! I bf so don't know about actual amounts, but my DD1 slept through the night (i.e. 11 or 12 hrs without waking or feeding) from approx 8 weeks and from then on she only fed 4 times in 24 hrs - i.e. when she woke, twice during the day and before bed. She was happy, she shot up the centile charts (having started out as v tiny she zoomed up to 90th) and I generally counted myself lucky to have such an easy baby. My DD2 and DS also followed a similar pattern as they slept through early and then had just the 4 feeds, but with both of them at around 3 or 4 months I started adding in a fifth feed in the afternoon as they would get v hungry and ramp up the feeding in the afternoons (so fed approx 7am, 11.30am, 3pm, 5pm, 7pm) so just watch out for signs that she doesn't start wanting more as she gets a little bigger.

Nelly you can't really do a mix - BLW is exclusive self feeding, if you're doing spoon feeding and a bit of self feeding then that's 'traditional' weaning so don't worry about impeding progress !

Somehow I've managed to post on the wrong thread - ignore me

My ds's took 5/6 feeds at that age because they were still up half the night but didn't finish bottles. I don't think they ever took 200mls at a time. If she's putting on weight then I'm sure she's fine.