Formula feeding - how do you know when to increase and space out amount?

[H44123]

Hi

I am wondering how do you know when to space out feeds more and increase amounts?

I guess with increasing amounts it’s when baby doesn’t seem satisfied?

For context, my boy is 11 weeks in 3 days, we do a 5oz bottle and he tends to finish it and is happy after. We try to be ahead of the game so no screaming and make a bottle roughly every 3 hours. During the night though he can go much longer, eg last night went to bed at 8pm and only woke at 3am for a feed then slept til 7am.

How do I know when to increase the gap between feeds during the day? Does this go with an increase in ozs of formula?

thank you

I would increase to 6oz now, always aim to have a little left in the bottle (that way you know they have had enough). If they’re consistently finishing a bottle it’s time to go up an oz.
As for timing you should notice this gradually increase as you up the amount.

Agree with previous PP. I always would rather waste and oz rather than them be hungry.

So with mine I notice they either drank the whole bottle or would not go 3/4 hours between feeds which is usually roughly how long FF babies got between feeds.

Go*

If they refuse the bottle at 3 hours then they’re fine to go 4 hours between feeds but I really wouldn’t be purposefully trying to increase the gap. My goal was always to have them consume as many calories as possible during the daytime hours so they’d need less at night! You would usually increase the feed by an oz whenever they’re draining the bottle though.

100% agree with this

Thank you all for your advice.

I will start 6oz bottles and see how we go.

I was worried about over feeding him… I come from a large family so don’t want him to suffer when he is older but 11 weeks is still very young!

Hope you all have a nice day! Xx

Babies are excellent at regulating, you pretty much can’t overfeed them even on formula so don’t worry about that yet!