How many bottles????

[ShinySarah]

How many bottles do you think a 16 week old baby should be having through the day? I'm trying to extend his feed times but I don't want ot leave him short and prone to middle of the night feeds (again!!)

Bottle fed babies should be fed on demand, just the same as breastfed babies. This is in order to prevent overfeeding and to ensure that baby does not loose the ability to recognise hungry/full signs (and therefore promoting good habits in later life and lower risk of obesity - recent research has shown that babies bottle fed on demand drink only marginally more than breastfed babies). If you follow your baby's own cues they will tend to fall into their own rythm. If the time between feeds then starts getting shorter than their established rythm try offering an extra oz per feed and this will usually sort it out again. IME it is not a good idea to try and "control" the amount that a baby is fed since this will just lead to a frustrated baby and you consequently being unhappy too.

I agree with Academicmum, just feed him when he's hungry and he'll get there himself.
My LO was bottle fed on demand and about 16 weeks he started to fall into a regular pattern of how much he would take and when, he dropped the night feed at christmas (5 and a bit months) and now at 6 months he feeds pretty much dead on the same times each day.

He now has 4 bottles a day plus 3 small solid meals, he was on about 6 or 7 at 16 weeks I think and has gradually dropped the feeds himself.

ds1 moved from breast to bottle at about 4.5 months and we fed him on demand.
think he was having about 5 or 6 bottles a day at that point.

I don't bottle feed on demand, although I understand why people do. I started bottle feeding properly when he was very underweight so I gave him a set amount to ensure he was getting enough, and now we are in that pattern. I was giving him 6 bottles throughpout 24 hours. 8, 11, 2, 5, 8, 11. Then he was waking at 4-5 am for a breastfeed. He started waking later recently, 8-9am, and he's 17 weeks. He's also going to bed earlier, 9-10pm, and sleeping through so I've reduced it to 5 bottles, 9, 1, 5, 8, 10 with a morning and evening breastfeed.

He has never had a bottle at night, except a couple of times when he's been going through a growth spurt.