Cold turkey from breast to bottle: How much milk should my (small) baby drink?

[Gundy100]

Hi
I am new to Mumsnet so sorry that I am not down with the abbreviations yet! And if I provide too much info.

I am looking for some advice. My little girl is 6 months tomorrow, she was born on the 50th Centile but dropped steadily in her first month and has been steady on the 9th since. She currently weighs 13.6lb. I have EBF her but really want/need her to take the bottle. It took me about 6 weeks of trying before she would take the bottle, the first time she drank from it she took 2oz s I started to drop a feed a day. For the first few days sometimes she would only take 2oz and sometimes unto 4oz, never more. I figured she preferred the breast and took only enough to keep her going and held out to feed fully at the next breast feed. (I feed her every three hours, five mins at a time and she wakes 1-2 a night, in total 6-7 feeds a day.)

I did one bottle a day for about 2 weeks however when i tried to drop another feed she was having none of it and stopped taking the bottle altogether!

Today I decided to go cold turkey off the breast and onto the bottle as i feel combination feeding is not going to work with her as she has a preference. However i am worried she is not drinking enough, she only took 2-2.5 oz of formula per feed (4 of them) in the day and took 6oz of expressed milk before bed. Is this enough??? She will most likely have another 2 feeds during the night which will be BF as I can't be bothered with bottles at 3am!

She has never been that interested in feeding and distracted very easily ( i haven't bf in public for about 5 weeks as it is pointless as she is so nosey to her surrounding)

Anyone else done cold turkey from breast to bottle with a 'small' baby and how much milk did they take?

Thanks in advance for any advice!

the general rule of thumb is 2.5oz per lb of body weight so in your case it would be roughly 2.5 x 13 = 32.5oz per 24 hours, so she does seem to be taking a lot less than that.

Is she taking solids at all as you can make up some of the intake through solid foods? What speed teat are you using? Have you tried offering milk from a cup?

Between 6 and 12 months she needs a minimum of about 17-20oz a day to get enough vitamins and nutrients - if she is taking less than 17oz then you need to supplement with vitamins.

When you say you're going cold turkey from breast feeding, are you not feeding or pumping? Suddenly stopping feeding really isn't recommended as you could end up suffering from mastitis.

I really recommend you head to a breastfeeding support group for some face to face advice. They will give you help and advice so that you can stop feeding gently and not put any strain on your body in doing so.

Dropping a feed every few days is the recommendation, but it changes from person to person according to supply.

As your baby starts taking solids, you may find her milk needs are less demanding of you.

20oz is recommended alongside 3 meals so 17-20oz wouldnt be enough on its own if they werent taking food as well.