Advice needed re switching to formula

[jumpyjan]

DD is nearly 8 months and I would now like to stop breastfeeding and switch over to giving her formula however I don't really know how to go about it.

At the moment she has a breastfeed after breakfast, after lunch and at bedtime. She sometimes wakes in the night for a feed also. Do I just replace each feed with fomula - how do I know how much to give her?

Also confused about how you make up a feed and how you manage a feed if they wake in the night - can you have some water in a bottle/beaker ready or do you have to add formula to boiling hot water and then let it cool?

The other thing is that I have never expressed so DD has never had a bottle - do you think this will be a problem? I would like to go straight onto some sort of cup but she can't really manage the tommee tippee one I tried.

Any advice would be much appreciated as I am a bit confused.

I would personally introduce formula one feed at a time, probably doing the breakfast one first, and then when she's used to that do the lunch, then bedtime.
I make up bottles of boiled water which I leave to cool to room temperarture. I then just have to add the formula to that water when I need it, and because it's not cold it doesn't need to be heated up.
HTH

Thanks Waynetta.

So you can add formula to room temperature water then?

I guess I would fill 3 bottles/beakers with water in the morning and leave on the side until needed then add the formula and give to DD at room temperature - does that sound right? Is there a max time you can leave the water for?

I suppose at night I would fill a bottle/beaker with water before going to bed in case she wakes up so I can quickly just add the formula and give to her.

Does anyone have any suggestions of what sort of bottle/beaker would be good for an 8 month old that has never had a bottle.

Also what sort of formula should I use - are they all the same?

I do the same as Waynetta. I use Aptamil formula. I fill bottles with boiled water every evening for the following day. Then add relevant number of scoops as and when needed. Try offering DD 7 oz water with 7 scoops to begin with at each feed. You might want to offer less first thing so that she isn't full before breakfast!

Try different cups (non-spill would make sense though!) to see which she is able to use. The Tommee Tippee cups spill quite a bit which might not be best for night time feeds. You could also just try a bottle.

Or you could carry on bf during the night if she needs it.

I'd drop one feed at a time if I were you, that will help you to avoid trouble with sore breasts, and might mean it's less traumatic for DD.

one more thing - don't force her to finish a bottle. While she's been bf, she's been taking as much/as little as she wants. It might take a few weeks to work out how much to offer at each meal. Eg. my DS is 11 months now, and he has about 5 oz first thing, rarely drinks any after his nap after lunch (although he's offered 5 oz - ordinary milk though as I was wasting so much money on formula when he hardly touched it at that time of day..), and has at least 7 oz at bedtime (sometimes asks for more, and has 10oz!).

On days when he's refused to drink much milk, I offer him more milk based calcium rich foods like yoghurt, cheese etc.

I used Aptamil too.
I think you can leave the water for 24 hours (well I used to anyway )

Thanks for the replies.

Guess I will just have to see how it goes, perhaps by replacing the feed after breakfast with formula, as suggested.

Still not sure how to give it to her though - think she is still too young for a beaker so will have to see how she gets on with a bottle.