Feeding time is a time to set up close contact between parents and a baby. During the first days of life, a kid adapts to the world and the first thing it looks for is protection and comfort. While feeding a newborn, parents give a baby the heat of warmth, soothing, and comfort. Therefore, love and contact are considered the most important part of the process of any feeding. While breastfeeding is a natural process that doesn’t require any specific skills or preparation, you need to take care of some stuff in advance before starting bottle feeding.
The Feeding Position
As with breastfeeding, you should choose the right position in which both you and your little one will be comfortable. For example, you can try the on-the-knees-on-a-pillow technique. Provide a child with a semi-vertical position on your lap. For convenience, you can put a pillow. This position is also comfortable because it allows you to maintain visual contact with a baby. As with breastfeeding, remember to switch sides. If you do it from the beginning, it is quite likely that a kid will not have a favorite side and will calmly eat on the left and right side.
Feeding Preparation
You should also take care of the formula preparation. The instructions printed on the package, which must be followed strictly, will help to prepare the formula correctly. For example, if you add too much water, a kid will not saturate and can stay hungry. One of the most important things before starting bottle feeding is formula selection because a kid should receive a certain amount of microelements, minerals, vitamins, and other substances to grow healthy. Pediatricians advise giving preference to organic formula because it will certainly have all the necessary elements and is unlikely to cause any digestive issues. Furthermore, before feeding a baby from a bottle, you must wash your hands with soap.
How Much Formula Should a Baby Eat?
A bottle-fed kid should eat every three hours, which is approximately 7-8 meals per day. However, these are only recommended indicators, as each kid’s needs are different and depend on age and development e.g. :
- the average norm of one meal for children under the age of 10 days = the number of days of the child’s life multiplied by 10
- the daily rate of the formula for babies weighing up to 3200 kg = the number of days of the child’s life multiplied by 70
- the daily rate of formula for kids weighing more than 3200 kg = the number of days of life multiplied by 80
If you want to learn more about the needed amount of formula to give a kid, you can check this article’s source link.
Which Feeding Bottle to Choose?
Most parents need to know which bottle to buy. However, the right selection depends on whether a kid will be full, and satisfied. The nipple on the container should imitate the nipple of the mother’s breast as much as possible. When feeding, the bottle should minimize the ingress of air into the baby’s body because it will reduce the occurrence of colic. The bottle should be comfortable for the baby’s hand. Because if it is not comfortable for a child to hold a bottle, it will give up without even trying.
There are several types of bottles depending on their material:
- Glass bottles are safe in terms of chemical processing but quite heavy for holding. In addition, at the age of six months to 1.5 years, the child likes to throw everything on the floor, so there is a risk of breaking such a container. Therefore, carefully check the density of the glass
- Plastic bottles are safe because it is quite difficult to break them. They are light and more pleasant to the touch for a child (in the case of high-quality plastic). However, when buying, pay attention to chemical compounds (smells, taste, color), try to buy from a certified store, and ask for a certificate
Bottles can have a different volume for a newborn, 120 ml is enough. Later, you should buy a bigger bottle, about 250 ml. Pay attention to the scale of divisions in millimeters. It is very important to choose a bottle with a convenient nipple. The types are as follows: silicone and latex. It is better to buy different nipples, as a baby may not accept one of them.
