Bring on the formula, Mommy!

For a long time (5 weeks at least), Sabrina has been on the same feeding pattern: 6 ounces of formula every 3 hours like clockwork, except at night since she's sleeping through the night.

I noticed that the daycare center's daily report always showed that she would finish all her bottles. We weren't seeing that same consistency when we fed her at home (sometimes she would finish all 6 oz, but other times it was only 4 or 5).

So yesterday I decided I would try putting 7.5 ounces in the bottles I drop off at daycare every morning to see what happens. This also meant graduating to the larger bottle sizes! Yesterday afternoon I looked at the daycare center report and by golly she drank them all completely. I've probably been under-feeding her for some time... Mommy guilt kicking in now.

So last night I prepared an 8 oz bottle for her last bottle before bedtime. She drank all of it except for maybe 1/4 of an ounce. Wow! I wonder what this will mean for the time she can go in-between feedings. Make no mistake though - she's very good at letting us when she's hungry and by now we know the cues! So we'll see how it goes.

According to her GI specialist, we should delay giving her solid foods until she's at least 6 months. There's a trend to start babies on things like rice cereal or oatmeal by around 3-4 months of age. But for acid reflux babies, it's best to wait a little longer for their digestive systems to mature a bit. For the last 4 weeks we've been using a product called "Thick-It" (mostly cornstarch)to slightly thicken her formula which helps weigh it down so she's less likely to spit it up (along with the painful stomach acids), and it seems to be working really well; unlike our attempt at thickening with rice cereal when she was 6 weeks old, what a disaster THAT was!