Changing to formula

4 replies

toomuchtooyoung · 18/02/2011 09:13

My 5 month old dd has been bf on demand during the day witha bottle of formula at bedtime and one overnight.

Need to transition to formula but dd won't take more than 120ml, sometimes 150ml at a time. The cow & gate info indicates she should be on 210ml 5 times a day.

Obviously fed on demand meantittle and often but even trying to feed every 3 hours she starts off hungry but will rarely finish a bottle

Situation not helped by jet lag after trip to Australia and now waking again every 3 hours at night

Any advice on getting her to increase her intake?

OP posts:

RunningOutOfIdeas · 18/02/2011 09:23

Do you need to try a different teat? If the one you are using is too slow for her she might give up. Apart from that, all I can think is that you need to give it more time. You will be weaning your DD soon, so her milk intake might change then also.

When DD came back from Australia it took a few nights to get over the jet-lag. I think you have to resign yourself to a few 2am parties.

InspirationalBreadbin · 18/02/2011 11:21

She might just prefer little and often. My ds used to have 6 formula feeds a day ( sometimes 7 if he woke at night). Babies don't always follow what is written on the box. Also volumes may be different for big/ small babies - my ds was a big boy and drank 1.3L a day!

theboobmeister · 18/02/2011 14:09

toomuchtooyoung I do think you need to be careful about possibly overfeeding your baby, which is easy to do with formula/bottles. As the PP said, babies all have different needs at different times and you should be guided by her rather than by what Cow & Gate think. A 5 month old baby is not going to starve herself, she will be taking exactly what she needs when she needs it.

Original poster

toomuchtooyoung · 18/02/2011 15:18

She'll definitely not starve, nor be overfed! Once she's had her fill she'll just refuse food - breast or bottle. She's on the 3-6month TT teat so don't think that's an issue. She's also on the small side anyway, although gaining weight healthily. As long as she's happy.....

Been a week since we got back now and whilst I can get her back to sleep she just won't stay asleep for linger than a few hours. I however could sleep for a week! Ironically, thx day before we left she slept through from 7 to 6.30

Oh well

OP posts:

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