The basics of infant feeding
Bottle-fed babies usually need around 75 ml of milk mixture for each pound of his body weight. However, he may still need more than this. Usually, the appetite of your baby would be the indicator of just how much milk he needs. On the other hand, breastfed babies would simply consume larger feeds based on his requirements and the milk supply would just be adjusting itself. Your baby’s weight would be the indicator if he is thriving well.
Babies gain around 6 to 8 ounces every week during the first three months; 4 to 6 ounces every week from his third to sixth months; 3 to 4 ounces every week from his sixth to twelfth months. If your baby is steadily gaining weight and seems to be content after each feeding, is sleeping well and has regular bowel movements, you need not worry about anything. If your baby is underfed, he would not be gaining weight, might cry between feedings and have frequent, constipated and small bowel movements. A baby which is breastfed and is receiving sufficient milk would have bowel movements which look like fresh mustard. A newborn baby could have bowel movements almost after each feeding but after a month or so, his movements would be less frequent, like just once or twice in a week. The reason for this is that breast milk is absorbed by the baby’s body easily, making use of all its nutrients, resulting in little waste. Bottle-fed babies generally have bowel movements which are paler and are more formed and happen once or twice daily.
As for the feeding schedule, there are some babies that are fine following a strict schedule, however keep in mind that babies are not like machines. You could probably aim to feed him using a timetable of every four hours. You could also try adjusting the feeding schedule to you and your baby’s needs. For instance, if your baby wakes up a bit earlier and is hungry, you could go ahead and feed him. As a matter of fact, if you are breastfeeding him, this would be the best way to up the supply of your breast milk. However, if your baby sleeps past his feeding schedule, you could just let him sleep. There would be no need to wake him up. You would need to remember, though, that you should not feed him each time he cries. You would eventually have the ability of distinguishing his cries for hunger and his cries for everything else.
At four months or so, your baby would be ready to eat his first solid food. Make sure that the introduction of solid food would be done gradually starting at just one feeding a day and allowing a couple of days for him to be able to get used to the flavor before starting to introduce another kind of solid food. This would also be good in helping you detect any food allergies, unlike giving him all kinds of food at once. If he ends up getting an allergic reaction, you would not be able to determine what the cause is.
As far as weaning is concerned, it could be done at any point that the mother and the baby are ready. Sometime during baby’s fifth or sixth month, he would be able to learn how to drink rather than suck and could then shift to drinking from a cup. Your options would be to feed him boiled fresh milk, evaporated milk or full cream dried milk. If you would be substituting one breastfeeding session every week, your milk supply would be affected as the demand has been lessened. If your breasts become too full of milk, you could make use of a breast pump to express some milk or you could try giving him the next feeding earlier.
Eventually, your baby would learn to eat more variations of food. At six months, he would be able to experiment on chewing his food as his first couple of teeth come in. At around 7 or 8 months, he would probably be able to eat thrice a day. On his first birthday, your baby would be able to eat with the family at the table during meals and could even be able to feed himself.