3 month old baby 4 feeds a day

3- and 4-month-old feeding schedules

At 3 and 4 months old, babies are still eating frequently throughout the day but are capable of going for longer stretches at night. Breastfeeding parents can expect their baby to continue to eat often, anywhere from eight to 12 times a day. If you're formula-feeding your little one, they'll be ready for 4- to 6-ounces bottles six to eight times a day. As your baby grows out of the newborn stage, you may notice them starting to develop a more predictable schedule for feeding, sleep, and play.

At 3 and 4 months old, your baby may be naturally falling into a schedule. You can encourage them by adding more consistency to their days. Keep their naptimes, mealtimes, and bedtime routine about the same from day to day. Babies are awake and alert more now, making it a good time to start getting them on a more predictable schedule.

It can be a big help to see what other moms and dads are doing. Below, you'll find several sample schedules based on those of real parents and reviewed by a pediatrician on our Medical Advisory Board.

As you're creating a schedule for your baby, here are a few things to keep in mind:

The schedule for a formula-fed baby may look different than the schedule for a breastfed baby. At 3 to 4 months old, your formula-fed baby will have around 32 ounces of formula each day over five to eight feedings of 4 to 6 ounces each. (See whether your baby is getting enough formula.)
If you're breastfeeding, your baby will eat five to eight times a day, every two or three hours. (Here's how to tell whether your baby is getting enough breast milk.)
By focusing on longer feedings every three to four hours during the day, you can start encouraging your baby to sleep for longer stretches at night. Babies can go through the night without a feeding as early as 3 months, but it more commonly happens later, around 5 or 6 months

Sample 3-month-old feeding schedule

7 a.m.: Nurse.

8 a.m.: Daycare drop off; playtime.

9:45 a. m.: 4 ounces of expressed breast milk.

10 a.m.: Naptime. (Mom pumps at work.)

12 p.m.: Playtime.

12:45 p.m.: 4 ounces of expressed breast milk.

1:30 p.m.: Naptime. (Mom pumps again.)

2:30 p.m.: Playtime.

4 p.m.: 4 ounces of expressed breast milk. (Mom pumps again.)

4:30 p.m.: Naptime.

5:15 p.m.: Daycare pickup.

5:45 p.m.: Playtime.

6:30 p.m.: Nurse.

6:45 p.m.: Playtime and tummy time.

7:30 p.m.: Nurse, then bedtime routine.

12 a.m.: Nurse.

4 a.m.: Nurse.

Sample 4-month-old feeding schedule

5 a.m.: Nurse, then back to sleep.

7 a.m.: Nurse and back to sleep again.

9 a.m.: Wake up.

10 a. m.: Nurse, then tummy time and playtime.

12 p.m.: Naptime.

2 p.m.: Nurse.

2:30 p.m.: A walk in the stroller.

3 p.m.: Short nap.

4 p.m.: Nurse.

5 p.m.: Playtime.

7 p.m.: Bedtime routine – bath, read a few books and sing a lullaby.

7:30 p.m.: Nurse and bedtime.

1 a.m.: Nurse, then back to bed.

Tips for feeding your 3- or 4-month-old

You may be breastfeeding exclusively, pumping and breastfeeding, exclusively pumping, formula-feeding, or supplementing with formula. No matter how you're feeding your 3- to 4-month-old baby, here are some tips for helping it go smoothly.

If you're breastfeeding, continue to nurse or pump often to keep your milk supply up. Offer both breasts at each feeding to keep signaling to your body that it needs to make enough milk to keep up with your baby's hunger.
It's hard to overfeed a breastfeeding baby, but at 3 to 4 months it's also okay to encourage them to go for slightly longer stretches between meals. By focusing on longer feedings, you can fill their belly and try to avoid your baby "snacking" all day long.
Eat plenty of nutritious foods to keep yourself fueled for feeding your baby. Breastfeeding moms need more calories (450 to 500 extra calories each day), and dieting can decrease your milk supply.
If your baby is nursing exclusively but you're ready to introduce a bottle, it can sometimes be a challenge. Here are some tips for giving your breastfed baby a bottle.
If you're exclusively pumping and you notice a sudden drop in milk supply, try power pumping. The idea is to pump frequently over an hour to increase supply. One commonly suggested power pumping schedule is pump for 20 minutes, rest for 10 minutes, pump for 10 minutes, rest for 10 minutes, pump for 10 minutes. You can power pump once or twice a day.
Practice paced bottle feeding if your baby is drinking formula or breast milk from a bottle. By feeding your baby in a more upright position and taking regular breaks to burp them, you allow them more control over how quickly and how much milk or formula they drink.
Keep your bottle-fed baby safe from foodborne illness by practicing safe bottle feeding. Wash your bottles thoroughly between feedings and be sure you're storing formula safely. Expired or compromised formula can be dangerous for babies, so double-check the label before feeding your baby from a new container of formula.

Learn more:

Your 3-month-old baby's growth and development
Your 4-month-old baby's growth and development
3-month-old sleep guide
4-month-old sleep guide
When can my baby start sleeping through the night?

Formula Feeding FAQs: How Much and How Often (for Parents)

Whether you plan to formula feed your baby from the start, want to supplement your breast milk with formula, or are switching from breast milk to formula, you probably have questions.

Here are answers to some common questions about formula feeding.

How Often Should I Feed My Baby?

Newborns and young babies should be fed whenever they seem hungry. This is called on-demand feeding.

After the first few days of life, most healthy formula-fed newborns feed about every 2–3 hours. As they get bigger and their tummies can hold more milk, they usually eat about every 3–4 hours. As babies get older, they’ll settle into a more predictable feeding routine and go longer stretches at night without needing a bottle.

Talk to your doctor if you have concerns about feeding your baby, especially if your baby is very small, is not gaining weight, or was born early (prematurely).

How Can I Tell When My Baby Is Hungry?

Signs that babies are hungry include:

moving their heads from side to side
opening their mouths
sticking out their tongues
placing their hands, fingers, and fists to their mouths
puckering their lips as if to suck
nuzzling again their mothers' breasts
showing the rooting reflex (when a baby moves its mouth in the direction of something that's stroking or touching its cheek)

Babies should be fed before they get upset and cry. Crying is a late sign of hunger. But every time your baby cries is not because of hunger. Sometimes babies just need to be cuddled or changed. Or they could be sick, tired, too hot or too cold, in pain, or have colic.

How Much Should My Baby Drink?

In the first few weeks, give 2- to 3-ounce (60- to 90-milliliter) bottles to your newborn. Give more or less depending on your baby’s hunger cues.

Here's a general look at how much your baby may be eating at different ages:

On average, a newborn drinks about 1.5–3 ounces (45–90 milliliters) every 2–3 hours. This amount increases as your baby grows and can take more at each feeding.
At about 2 months, your baby may drink about 4–5 ounces (120–150 milliliters) every 3–4 hours.
At 4 months, your baby may drink about 4–6 ounces (120-180 milliliters) at each feeding, depending on how often they eat.
By 6 months, your baby may drink 6–8 ounces (180–230 milliliters) about 4–5 times a day.

Watch for signs that your baby is hungry or full. Respond to these cues and let your baby stop when full. A baby who is full may suck with less enthusiasm, stop, or turn away from the bottle.

Why Does My Baby Seem Hungrier Than Usual?

As babies grow, they begin to eat more at each feeding and can go longer between feedings. Still, there may be times when your little one seems hungrier than usual.

Your baby may be going through a period of rapid growth (called a growth spurt). These can happen at any time, but in the early months are common at around:

7–14 days old
between 3–6 weeks
4 months
6 months

During these times and whenever your baby seems especially hungry, follow their hunger cues and continue to feed on demand, increasing the amount of formula you give as needed.

Is My Baby Eating Enough?

At times, you may wonder whether your baby is getting enough nutrients for healthy growth and development. Babies who get enough to eat seem satisfied after eating and are regularly peeing and pooping.

At your baby’s checkups, the doctor will review your baby’s growth chart, track your little one’s development, and answer any questions. Talk to your doctor if you have any concerns about your baby’s feeding and nutrition.

Reviewed by: Mary L. Gavin, MD

Date reviewed: November 2021

Daily routine of a child at 3 months: daily routine

03/28/2019

By three months, you will already notice how the baby has grown up, adapted to the new world, and his daily routine has become more understandable and predictable. Now comes an important period in the life of a child, when it is necessary to pay special attention to the organization of the regimen, habits and conditions of sleep, so that in the future sleep does not become a problem.

Let's see what to remember when organizing a three-month-old baby's daily routine.

Baby's daily routine

3 months old

At the age of three months, a baby needs about 15 hours of sleep per day. Most likely the child will sleep during the day 3-5 times for a total of about 4-5 hours. The duration of one daytime sleep will be about 1-1.5 hours.

Night sleep reaches 10 hours with awakenings for feeding. This month, the stretches of uninterrupted night sleep are already quite long. And the mode of sleep and wakefulness by the end of the month becomes more stable and predictable.

When organizing a child's routine, it is also worth paying attention to the optimal wakefulness time. By three months, the baby can comfortably spend active time for about 1 hour 15 minutes - 1 hour 30 minutes. Prolonged wakefulness will lead to severe overwork - it will be difficult for the child to fall asleep, and sleep itself will be restless. To prevent this, it is important to watch for signs of fatigue and start putting the baby to bed as soon as they appear.

The day mode is not yet possible to make by the clock. But by 4 months, it is better to gradually shift the time of leaving into the night closer to 20 hours. It is important that the baby wakes up no later than 7-8 hours in the morning. Following these recommendations will thus gradually form the physiological regimen of the child's day in accordance with the biological rhythms of the child's body.

It is better to form a child's day regimen based on the time of wakefulness, taking into account the recommended sleep norms for this age.

Sleep habits of the newborn

3 months

At three months, parents may experience that the baby:

Started to sleep short naps and as a result there is no stable sleep schedule
Responds to any stimuli
Wakes up very often at night
Doesn't get off hands when laying down
Needs a breast or pacifier every time she wakes up
Sleeps only when moving in a wheelchair
Refuses to sleep in crib or wakes up when changing sleeping place

So now is the time to start good sleep habits read the tips below and join the A-to-Z MODE Club:

Enter the ritual before daytime and nighttime sleep, if you have not already done so. A ritual is a day-to-day routine that helps children relax and get ready for sleep: washing/bathing, massaging, putting on diapers and pajamas/swaddling, feeding, reading a story/singing a lullaby, curtaining the windows, and turning on white noise. For a ritual of three months, 10 minutes during the day and 20-30 minutes in the evening are enough.
Create a comfortable sleeping environment: darken the room with thick curtains, use white noise to muffle extraneous sounds and help your child sleep longer. Make sure the room is no more than 25 degrees in summer and no more than 23 degrees in winter.
Try to sleep at home in your crib. In the stroller in the fresh air, the last day's sleep is possible.
Let your baby try to sleep on his own. If you are feeding, rocking, or holding your baby, try not to do this until you are completely asleep. Then put the half-asleep baby in the crib - he should fall asleep on his own. But do not insist if he cannot fall asleep right away. This way of laying down will help the baby learn to independently cross the last line to sleep, which will become an important basis for future sound sleep.

Check our chart to see if your baby is getting enough sleep

Sample feeding schedule for a 3 month old baby

Babies at 3 months will need about 2-4 feedings per night, depending on whether your baby is breastfed or formula fed.

The baby is older and can take more breast milk or formula at one feeding. This means that he stays full longer and the intervals between feedings will be longer, and the duration of one feeding will become a little shorter.

The feeding schedule for this month is still under construction on demand. Your baby will likely eat every 2-3 hours during the day and every 3-4 hours at night.

If a three-month-old baby wakes up very often at night and you think that the introduction of complementary foods will change the situation, then this is not true. At this age, children are not yet ready to switch to adult food - now mother's milk and formula are the most healthy food for a newborn.

Infant development at 3 months

A three-month-old baby can already do a lot:

smile and laugh
keep head steady
imitate certain movements and facial expressions after an adult
take hands in mouth
recognize the face of mom and dad
push off with hands when laying on the tummy
grab toys and shake them

The development of these skills takes place at its own pace, taking into account the individual characteristics of the individual child.

Walking on the street, tell your child everything that you see around him, because he is already very interested in it. Respond to his emotions with care to build trust.

Play with musical and luminous toys and rattles. Feel free to sing. All this will help the child develop hearing. Talk to him, respond to his requests to make it clear that you are near and hear him.

Tell us about your baby's routine this month?

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Diet for a 4 year old baby

Your baby is 4 months old now. He has noticeably grown up, become more active, is interested in objects that fall into his field of vision, carefully examines and reaches for them. The emotional reactions of the child have become much richer: he joyfully smiles at all the people whom he often sees more and more often, makes various sounds.

Are you still breastfeeding or have you switched to formula or formula feeding? The child is actively growing, and only with breast milk or infant formula, he can no longer always get all the necessary nutrients. And that means it's time to think about complementary foods.

Optimal time to start its introduction is between 4 and 6 months, regardless of whether the baby is receiving breast milk or formula. This is the time when children respond best to new foods. Up to 4 months, the child is not yet ready to perceive and digest any other food. And with the late introduction of complementary foods - after 6 months, children already have significant deficiencies of individual nutrients and, first of all, micronutrients (minerals, vitamins, long-chain polyunsaturated fatty acids, etc.). In addition, toddlers at this age often refuse new foods, they have delayed development of chewing skills for thick foods, and inadequate eating habits are formed. It is important to know that, no matter how strange it may seem at first glance, with a delayed appointment of complementary foods, allergic reactions more often occur on them.

When is it advisable to introduce complementary foods as early as 4 months, and when can you wait until 5.5 or even 6 months? To resolve this issue, be sure to consult a pediatrician.

The optimal time to start introducing complementary foods to a healthy baby is between 5 and 5. 5 months of age.

The World Health Organization recommends that breastfed babies should be introduced to complementary foods from 6 months of age. From the point of view of domestic pediatricians, which is based on the big

practical experience and scientific research, this is possible only in cases where the child was born at term, without malnutrition (because in these cases the mineral reserves are very small), he is healthy, grows and develops well. In addition, the mother should also be healthy, eat well and use either specialized enriched foods for pregnant and lactating women, or vitamin and mineral complexes in courses. Such restrictions are associated with the depletion of iron stores even in a completely healthy child by 5-5.5 months of age and a significant increase in the risk of anemia in the absence of complementary foods rich or fortified with iron. There are other deficits as well.

The first food product can be vegetable puree or porridge, it is better to give fruit puree to the baby later - after tasty sweet fruits, children usually eat vegetable puree and cereals worse, often refuse them altogether.

Where is the best place to start? In cases where the child has a tendency to constipation or he puts on weight too quickly, preference should be given to vegetables. With a high probability of developing anemia, unstable stools and small weight gains - from baby cereals enriched with micronutrients. And if you started introducing complementary foods with cereals, then the second product will be vegetables and vice versa.

If the first complementary foods are introduced at 6 months, it must be baby porridge enriched with iron and other minerals and vitamins, the intake of which with breast milk is no longer enough.

Another important complementary food product is mashed meat. It contains iron, which is easily absorbed. And adding meat to vegetables improves the absorption of iron from them. It is advisable to introduce meat puree to a child at the age of 6 months. Only the daily use of children's enriched porridge and meat puree can satisfy the needs of babies in iron, zinc and other micronutrients.

But it is better to introduce juices later, when the child already receives the main complementary foods - vegetables, cereals, meat and fruits. After all, complementary foods are needed so that the baby receives all the substances necessary for growth and development, and there are very few in their juices, including vitamins and minerals.

Juices should not be given between feedings, but after the child has eaten porridge or vegetables with meat puree, as well as for an afternoon snack. The habit of drinking juice between meals leads to frequent snacking in the future, a love of sweets is instilled, children have more tooth decay and an increased risk of obesity.

With the start of the introduction of complementary foods, the child is gradually transferred to the 5-time feeding regimen.

Complementary feeding rules:

preference should be given to baby products of industrial production, they are made from environmentally friendly raw materials, have a guaranteed composition and degree of grinding
Complementary foods should be offered to the baby by spoon at the start of feeding, before breastfeeding (formula feeding)
the volume of the product increases gradually, starting with ½ - 1 spoon, and in 7 - 10 days we bring it to the age norm, subsequent products within the same group (cereals from other cereals or new vegetables) can be introduced faster, in 5 - 7 days
start introduction with monocomponent products
it is undesirable to give a new product in the afternoon, it is important to follow how the child reacts to it
do not introduce new products in the event of acute illnesses, and before and immediately after prophylactic vaccination (should be abstained for several days)

When introducing a new type of complementary food, first try one product, gradually increasing its amount, and then gradually "dilute" this product with a new one. For example, vegetable complementary foods can be started with a teaspoon of zucchini puree. During the week, give the baby only this product, gradually increasing its volume. After a week, add a teaspoon of mashed broccoli or cauliflower to the zucchini puree and continue to increase the total volume every day. Vegetable puree from three types of vegetables will be optimal. The portion should correspond to the age norm. Over time, you can replace the introduced vegetables with others faster.

After the introduction of one vegetable (bringing its volume to the required amount), you can proceed to the intake of porridge, and diversify the vegetable diet later.

If the child did not like the dish, for example, broccoli, do not give up on your plan and continue to offer this vegetable in a small amount - 1-2 spoons daily, you can not even once, but 2-3 times before meals, and after 7 - 10, and sometimes 15 days, the baby will get used to the new taste. This diversifies the diet, will help to form the right taste habits in the baby.

Spoon-feed with patience and care. Forced feeding is unacceptable!

In the diet of healthy children, porridge is usually introduced after vegetables (with the exception of healthy breastfed children, when complementary foods are introduced from 6 months). It is better to start with dairy-free gluten-free cereals - buckwheat, corn, rice. At the same time, it is important to use porridge for baby food of industrial production, which contains a complex of vitamins and minerals. In addition, it is already ready for use, you just need to dilute it with breast milk or the mixture that the baby receives.

Children suffering from food allergies are introduced complementary foods at 5-5.5 months. The rules for the introduction of products are the same as for healthy children, in all cases it is introduced slowly and begins with hypoallergenic products. Be sure to take into account individual tolerance. The difference is only in the correction of the diet, taking into account the identified allergens. From meat products, preference should first be given to mashed turkey and rabbit.

Diets for different age periods

explain how to make a diet, it is better on several examples that will help to navigate the menu for your child.

From 5 months, the volume of one feeding is on average 200 ml.

Option 1.

I feeding
6 hours

Breast milk or VHI*

200 ml

II feeding
10 hours

Dairy-free porridge**
Supplementation with breast milk or VHI*

150 g
50 ml

III feeding
14 hours

Vegetable puree
Meat puree Vegetable oil
Supplementing with breast milk or VHI*

150 g
5 - 30 g
1 tsp
30 ml

IV feeding
18 hours

Fruit puree
Breast milk or VHI*

60 g
140 ml

I feeding 6 hours	Breast milk or VHI*	200 ml
II feeding 10 hours	Dairy-free porridge** Fruit puree	150 g 20 g
III feeding 14 hours	Vegetable puree Meat puree Vegetable oil Fruit juice	150 g 5 - 30 g 1 tsp 60 ml
IV feeding 18 hours	Fruit puree Breast milk or VHI*	40 g 140 ml
V feeding 22 hours	Breast milk or VHI*	200 ml

* - Children's dairy mixture
** - diluted with breast milk or VHI

Option 3.

9000 9000

An approximate daily diet for a baby at 6.5 months on breastfeeding, if complementary foods began to be administered from 6 months:

	I feeding 6 hours	Breast milk
II feeding 10 hours	Dairy-free porridge** Breast milk supplement	100 g
III feeding 14 hours	Vegetable puree Meat puree Vegetable oil Breast milk supplement	100 g 5 - 30 g 1 tsp
IV feeding 18 hours	Breast milk
V feeding 22 hours	Breast milk