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How much should I feed my newborn? My first month experience

In the last weeks of my pregnancy, I researched many websites and online resources and spoke to other mummies about how much to feed a newborn baby. There are many well-written online articles on this topic, and I have listed here some of my favourite ones:

Some of the key recommendations are:

1. Breastfeeding: 
- Feed every 2-3h (based on baby’s hunger cues), 
- Nurse for 20-30mins each time. 
- E.g. 15 minutes per breast, 8 to 12 times a day. 
- You can’t know the total volume baby drinks a day, but babies will take what they need.

2. Formula feeding: 
- Total volume baby requires a day: 2 to 2.5 ounces per pound of weight (roughly 150ml per kg as advised by my paediatrician). 
- Divide the total volume per day across 8-12 feeds for the amount of formula you should give per feed. 
- E.g. A 3kg baby feeding 10 times a day will get 45ml of formula per feed.

3. At least 6 wet diapers a day is an indicator that baby is sufficiently fed.

4. WHO and AAP recommend exclusive breastfeeding in the first 6 months.

How this looked like in practice for me

Notes: 
- Bub was born at 3.3kg. 
- I had no breast milk for the first 5 days. 
- When I had breastmilk thereafter, I opted to bottle feed her expressed breast milk in the day and formula feeds at night (because I had low-ish supply and poor latching technique that made breastfeeding painful and inefficient). Volumes of both expressed breastmilk and formula milk were the same.

Day 1 (in the hospital): Since I had no breastmilk yet,  the nurses had started her with 30ml formula per feed, feeding on demand approximately every 2-3h. (Not sure how they came up with 30ml, or if it's a standard volume they start with).

Day 2-5: Bub was still looking hungry after a 30ml formula feed, so we increased her feeds by 5ml each time until she appeared full. By day 5, she was taking 45-50ml of formula, approximately 8-10 times a day. 

Day 6 - 21: I started to produce breastmilk so bub was on a mix of mainly breastmilk and some formula. Again, by reading her hunger cues, we kept increasing her feeds by 5ml each time. By day 21, we were giving her 70-80ml of milk 8 times a day.

Day 22 - 28: By day 28, bub was taking 80-90ml per feed, 8-10 times a day. This worked out to an appropriate total volume per day for her body weight using the formula above. Her body weight had increased to 4.5kg.

In the subsequent months when my breastfeeding technique became better, I was able to substitute some bottle feeds with latching. Latching helps to keep my milk supply up and is a great way to bond with baby. She also seems to prefer the boob to the bottle because there is some comfort factor to it :)

The most important takeaways for me are:

- Read the baby’s hunger cues and follow his/her lead. This is how I was able to adjust bub’s feeds to an appropriate amount.
- Monitor the number of wet diapers per day to see if baby has fed enough (at least 6 a day).
- Monitor baby’s weight to see if he/she is putting on weight as expected.
- Try to give the baby as much breastmilk as you can, which is best in terms of nutrition, antibodies, etc. I also found that formula milk tended to make bub more constipated.
- Breastfeeding trumps bottle feeding expressed milk, but I recognise that it's not always feasible (especially if you're a working mama).
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