How Much Milk?
Most babies, given the opportunity, will regulate the amount of their feedings to their own needs. If you are bottle-feeding you can calculate your own baby’s individual needs, which you can do on the following basis: breast milk and properly made formula contain 20 calories per fluid ounce (3 kilojoules per milliliter). Up to five months old, a baby’s daily needs are 55 calories for each pound (500 kilojoules for each kilogram) of his weight. So a baby who weighs 7 lb 4 oz/ 3.29 kg requires 20 fl oz/568 ml a day, and a 10 lb/ 4.54 kg baby needs 27.5 fl oz/780 ml.
If you are anxious about your baby receiving sufficient nourishment, check his weight-gain each week. It is not necessary to weigh him before and after every feeding. By three months he should be getting his requirement with approximately ten minutes on each breast each feeding.
The danger with bottle-feeding is that he may get too much. You must be absolutely certain that you do not make up the milk in too concentrated a form. This will not only give a baby too much food, but it will strain his digestive system and overload him with salt, which can be dangerous. It is also easy to bully the baby with the bottle, jiggling it up and down and encouraging him to go on feeding when he has had enough.
Remember that each individual baby has his own food requirements. It is his general health and vitality which really matter, and which tell you whether he is getting too little, too much, or the right amount.