Formula Feeding

By Dr. William Sears

Touch your baby. Feeding your baby is not just delivering milk. Feedings also deliver emotional nourishment. Your baby should always feel that a person is feeding him, not just a bottle. Therefore it is not a good idea to prop bottles. Hold your baby while you feed him, and hold the bottle as though it were coming from your body. Many mothers have enjoyed bottle-feeding more when they maximize the amount of skin-to-skin contact they have with their babies during feedings.

Eye contact. Look into your baby's eyes when he looks up at you during feedings. You and your baby may both have a tendency to let your attention wander during bottle-feedings. Looking at your baby's beautiful face and body will help you keep your attention focused on him.

Interact with your baby during pauses in the feeding. Babies usually feed in short bursts of sucking interspersed with restful pauses. Most babies, breastfed and bottle-fed, feed better if you are quiet while they suck, but they often enjoy social interaction during the pauses. Watch your baby for the times when he is ready for some feeding conversations. Eventually you will develop an intuitive sense of your baby's feeding rhythms.

Cue-feeding. Learn to read your baby's cues in order to differentiate hunger, thirst, and distress. Whether you are breastfeeding or bottle-feeding, your response should be to pick up the baby and respond to his need. The breastfeeding mother offers the breast, and baby can suck according to what he needs, whether for food or comfort. Bottle-feeding mothers have to figure out what the specific need is and offer the appropriate response. It is not always necessary to offer formula--occasionally, you can offer a bottle of water to a formula-fed baby. (Bottle-fed babies should receive extra water because formula is too concentrated for immature kidneys.) [BTW, breastfed infants do not need water supplementation.] And, of course, baby will need other kinds of nurturing and interaction at times when he is not hungry.

How much, how often, what kind? Generally in the first six months when your baby is growing rapidly, he should receive two-and-a-half ounces of formula per day per pound of body weight (or 125-150 ml/kg/day). In other words, if your baby weighs ten pounds, he should take twenty to twenty-five ounces (560-700 ml) of formula daily. From six to twelve months, the daily volume of formula either remains the same or gradually diminishes as your baby's intake of solid food increases. Commercial infant formulas are available in three basic forms: powdered, liquid concentrate, and ready-to-feed. Which form you choose in largely a matter of economics and convenience. Follow the directions on the container carefully when preparing formula and add the specified amount of water--no more, no less. Ask your physician for advice on what kind of formula to use.

Tiny babies have tiny tummies. Smaller, more frequent feedings are best. Because formula is not as quickly digested between feedings, and it may be easier to schedule feedings. Cue-feeding is equally important for bottle-feeding mothers. Even if you schedule feedings every three hours, you will want to be flexible if baby is hungry sooner or sleeps a little longer. And baby will still need lots of non-scheduled, non-feeding nurturing time in response to his cues.

Excerpted from "Growing Together: A Parent's Guide to Baby's First Year" pg 91-93 by William Sears, MD, 1987.
I whole-heartedly recommend any book by Dr. Sears.
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