Whether you’re using breast or bottle, you can try responsive feeding. This means watching for your baby’s hunger cues and feeding them whenever they want.
Healthcare providers recommend responsive feeding or feeding on demand, instead of having a set routine or schedule.
To do this you follow your baby’s cues for being hungry or full and respond to them as quickly as you can.
Look out for cues that your baby is hungry. There are 3 stages of hunger cues.
Early cues include:
Mid cues include:
Late cues include:
Feed at an early stage if you can. By the time your baby shows late hunger cues, they may be too upset to feed straight away. Try calming them first with skin-to-skin contact, stroking, cuddling or talking.
Remember that growth spurts can increase your baby’s need to feed.
Breastfed babies may want to feed 8 to 12 times in 24 hours. So you might be feeding every couple of hours, including at night. Some babies feed more than this, especially in the first few days. It’s also fine to give feeds when your breasts feel full – you can’t overfeed a breastfed baby.
Most young babies need about 150ml to 200ml of formula per kilo of weight until they’re 6 months old. How much they want can vary from day to day, but most will still feed little and often.
Read our advice on bottle feeding.
This advice was written by our experienced Parent Talk coaches. Parent Talk is a free online service for parents and carers, provided by the charity Action for Children. For more advice, message our parenting coaches with our online chat.
