Introducing a bottle to an EBF 3 week old

vlcoley

Hi all -

My daughter is 3 weeks old and our pedi recommended introducing a bottle at this time so that if I am ever unavailable/out, a bottle can always be an option.  I have a couple questions for those of you out there who EBF and introduced a bottle successfully at 3-4 weeks...

- My husband gave her the first bottle last night and she did pretty well.  My questions is when can I feed her a bottle?  I heard that mommies shouldn't introduce the first bottle because baby might "smell" mommy and refuse the bottle....so if the first bottle intro went well, how much longer do I have to wait to give her a bottle myself?

- How much should a 3 week old be eating?  We gave her a 3 oz bottle last night but she only got through about 2 oz of it.  Is that enough (she is 9 lbs - don't know if weight influences the amount she should be drinking)?

- How many times a day/week should we be giving her a bottle?  I initially thought we will do one bottle feeding per day, most likely in the evening so daddy can get experience feeding her.  However, I am now wondering if we can do it more frequently?  I would love to have husband give her the evening feeding AND be able to give her one in the middle of the night so I can get a little more sleep.