Hellobee Boards

This was completely confusing for me at first too since I was EBF during my 12 week maternity leave and had no idea how often/much I should plan on leaving with LO when I returned to work. I started by taking note of how often she nursed, napped for, and number of times she wanted to eat. Then I used the popular web formula of dividing 25 oz (avg daily intake for infants) by the number of times she ate. With that formula, LO was to get a 3.5 oz bottle every two hours (!!) for 4 bottles during the day plus one morning and two evening/night nursing sessions. After a week, my mom decided that we should up her bottle to 4 oz and feed every three hours for three bottles so she gets better naps, which LO took well. Even though LO was bottle fed during the week, I had told my mom that LO was to be fed on demand like nursing, so LO was able to control her intake based on her needs. At 5.5 months LO has now worked her way to three 5 oz bottles during the day and nursing at 630am/700pm/500am for a total estimated daily intake of around 28 oz (guesstimate since I'm not sure how much she gets nursing).

Honestly, each baby is so different that I think as long as you baby seems satisfied and sleeps fairly well, then you should be fine. Some babies eat more and others like to snack. =)

@mamajaja: Great question! When I was EBF with my first, we would do 2 oz increments in the bottle. That way if she decided she was full, I wasn't sitting with a 6 oz bottle in the fridge with the countdown clock ticking down. In the unlikely event that she wouldn't finish the 2 oz, we'd put it back in the fridge and she usually wanted to finish it before too long. After a couple hours in the fridge, I had to chuck that bottle, so I was very careful with breast milk.

Now with our second daughter it's pretty much exclusively formula. (I do have 20 pumped oz in the freezer from our other daughter left, but I'm saving it for if M. gets sick or it comes close to expiring).

My mom goes with a similar system as Mrs Jacks. She pretty much feeds her on demand. If M is hungry before the 2hours she let's you know!!!! If she wants more than what's in the bottle she tends to still be sucking vigorously towards the end. And you have to pry it out of her mouth. When she does that we tend to offer another oz and see where it goes.
She's in a system where she drinks 4oz for the first feeding after I leave for work then the rest of the morning is 3-4oz. Afternoon is 2-3oz. Between 8-5:30pm she drinks ~15oz.

there's a formula - something like 2.5 x baby's weight to figure out how much they need daily. around 3-4 months, they can go around 5-7oz per feeding. my kids are about 14 weeks and i feed them anywhere from 3oz - 7oz per feeding. i try to stick with 5 during the day, 6oz for first feeding (around 1am) and 7oz for last feeding (around 7pm).

Just to reassure you, DS is 14.5 weeks, and he's been eating 30 ounces a day since 6 weeks old! My DD didn't eat 30 ounces/day until about 4.5/5 months, so it was big surprise for me, too!