How much formula should my baby drink?

Doing the maths

For a 4kg baby, 150–200ml per kilo works out at 600–800ml across 24 hours — typically six to eight feeds of 90–135ml in the early weeks. But treat this as a sense-check, not a target: healthy babies routinely take more one day and less the next, and the tin's feeding table is a starting point, not a prescription.

Responsive bottle feeding

• Feed on cues (rooting, hands to mouth, stirring) rather than the clock — crying is a late hunger sign.
• Pace the feed: bottle roughly horizontal, regular pauses, and let baby draw the teat in rather than pushing it.
• Let baby decide when it's done — coaxing the last 30ml down "to finish the bottle" teaches overriding fullness cues, and leftover formula should be discarded within two hours anyway.

The reassurance that actually counts

Steady weight gain along their centile line (checked in the red book), six-plus heavy wet nappies a day from day five, and a baby who's generally settled between feeds tell you far more than any ml figure. If those slip, talk to your health visitor before changing formula or volumes.