The First 6 Months: Establishing Your Baby’s feeding Schedule
Right from the start, your baby needs the right nutrition to support its healthy development. For the first six months, breastmilk will provide your baby with all of the nutrition that they need.1 However, make sure that if you are breastfeeding, you give your baby a daily Vitamin D supplement of 400 IU. And if breastfeeding is not an option, don’t worry: Infant formula like is designed to meet the known nutritional requirements of babies, so your baby can get all the nutrients they need from formula.2 Use this guide to six-month feeding schedules and the formula feeding chart below to help navigate this exciting time and get your baby all the nutrition they need along the way.
Feeding Highlights from the First Six Months
For the first six months, breastmilk and/or baby formula will provide your baby with all the nutrition they need
Initially, there’s no set schedule for breastfeeding or formula-feeding babies. However, they will settle into more of a routine as they get older.
Whether you are breastfeeding or formula-feeding, it is important to listen to your baby’s feeding cues and feed them according to their hunger.
Around six-months old is when you can begin to introduce solid foods to your baby’s diet
Breastfeeding in the first six months
When it comes to how often to breastfeed your baby, it’s in many ways up to them. You will be feeding “on demand” or whenever your baby is expressing that they’re hungry. Signs of hunger in a baby that come before crying include:
Lip smacking
Rooting, or moving her head in search of your breast
Kicking or squirming
Appearing to be more alert3
Every baby is different, but this could be as often as about every two to three hours, or between eight to twelve times per day.4 Typically, however, the number of times a day in which they feed will decrease over time, as she will begin to consume more during each feeding.5
As far as knowing how much you should be breastfeeding your baby goes, both the amount of weight they gain and the number of wet diapers they have per day are good indicators of proper nutrition.7
Formula feeding in the first six months
Just like with breastfeeding, you’ll begin by feeding your baby whenever they show signs they’re hungry.6 In time, this often settles into a routine. So, ultimately, every six-month feeding schedule will vary according to the habits of each individual baby. However, for a general sense of the amount to formula-feed your baby, refer to this formula feeding chart below:
