How much/when to give EBM for 8.5mo?

[Love, laughter, & PJs]

Grace gets EBM bottles when I'm at work, which is sometimes for 16h by the time I get there and back.  So sometimes she's more bottle fed than breast fed, which is why I put this here.  Feel free to move, though! 

Anyhow, Grace has (finally!) started only eating once per night more often than not.  But now she seems more hungry during the day, understandably.  She's a refluxer and has always taken smaller feeds more often.  Her reflux is under control with meds so I wonder if I should be giving her bigger bottles but then I worry I won't be able to express enough to keep up/I wonder if she really needs that much?  It's so hard to tell.  She seems satisfied with about 6oz bottles but we can't get her to go more than 4h, sometimes it's less.

Maybe she's a refluxer and this is how she wants to eat and we should just roll with it?  I guess I feel like she "should" be going longer between bottles at this age but maybe it's not an issue.  Just not sure how we'll ever get her off all these feeds!

Here's our rough EASY...

7am - A, E
10:45 - E
11 - S
12:30/1 - A
3ish - E
4:30 - S
5:15 - A
7 - E
8 -S (sometimes if she goes to bed later she might have a small bottle/feed before bed)

So should I not rock the boat?  It's not that big of a deal at home but if I could pump less frequently at work that would be good...

Thanks!

[Lolly]

Sorry - I can't tell how many milk feeds and solids feeds she is having! I think I need more coffee!!

From 6 months they need  a minimum of 20oz of milk a day plus solids so if she is having 4 milk feeds of 6oz plus a night feed then she will be more than meeting that. I think if she is still hungry can you increase her solids?

Laura

[Love, laughter, & PJs]

OH sorry, Laura, I totally forgot to put in solids!  Haha.  I'm so stressed about milk that I didn't even remember. 

So she has solids twice a day - around lunchtime and before bed.  We've been talking about going to 3x, just haven't actually done it.     Austin has a smoothie for breakfast so he doesn't sit down for it anymore. We need to get into the habit for Grace for sure.

That's what I was wondering about how many oz to go for.  Sounds like we should be totally fine, then.  Do you think I could try to shift to bigger bottles and see if she'll go longer?  Theoretically she should, right?  I guess I just don't know if she wants to eat that often out of habit or because she's really hungry.  IF I make the bottle bigger, what would you try? 8oz?

[Lolly]

Try an 8oz bottle and see how she does. Remember though that breastmilk is digested quicker than formula so it may be that making her eat sooner rather than the amount as babies do seem to need smaller amounts of breastmilk in a bottle than formula. You could add another solids meal in too and see if that helps!

Laura

[Love, laughter, & PJs]

Thanks, Laura.  Will try.