At 8am your baby breastfeeds. At 10am you express some milk. At noon someone offers a bottle. By bedtime the notes can look like three feeds—and the totals can feel oddly reassuring or frightening. Which bits did your baby actually drink?
Count milk when it reaches your baby, not when it leaves your breast or goes into a bottle. A breastfeed is a feed, even though its volume is not measured. Pumping is milk expressed for later, not a second feed for your baby. For a bottle, record what your baby drank, not what you prepared or offered. That simple distinction makes a mixed-feeding day much easier to understand.
A three-line example
- 8am — breastfeed: Record the breastfeed. If you find it useful, note the side or time; do not invent millilitres from the minutes spent feeding.
- 10am — express 90 ml: Record the pumping session as milk expressed. This is not 90 ml of baby intake. Pump output alone does not tell you what your baby gets at the breast.
- Noon — bottle offered, 60 ml drunk: Record 60 ml as the bottle feed, even if 90 ml went into the bottle. The remaining milk is not part of today's intake. Follow the NHS instructions for expressing and storing breast milk and its advice on what to do with milk left after a feed; a tracking app is not a storage-safety guide.
The record now says what happened: a breastfeed of unknown volume, 90 ml expressed, and 60 ml drunk from a bottle. Do not add the expressed 90 ml to the bottle's 60 ml and call it 150 ml consumed. Equally, do not treat the breastfeed as zero just because you cannot measure it.
If your baby breastfeeds and then takes a bottle in the same sitting, note both parts if they help you remember the day. It is one feeding occasion with two methods, not proof that your baby needed two full feeds. You can keep the note as simple as “breast, then 30 ml top-up; baby stopped and seemed content.”
What if the bottle is formula?
The same recording rule applies: note the amount your baby actually took. But milk-recording advice is separate from food-safety advice. If you use powdered formula, follow the NHS step-by-step preparation guidance and the product instructions; do not change the water-to-powder ratio to match a number in an app. Feed your baby while holding them, not with a propped bottle, and let them pause or stop. The NHS advises responsive bottle feeding: watch hunger and fullness cues rather than asking a baby to finish a target volume.
You may be combining methods for work, rest, supply support or simply because it suits your family. The NHS calls this mixed or combination feeding. If you want to replace breastfeeds with formula, it advises doing so gradually, because the change can affect milk production and breast comfort. Ask your midwife, health visitor or breastfeeding supporter for an individual plan if feeding is difficult, painful or worrying. There is no moral score attached to a bottle or a breastfeed.
How do I know whether my baby is getting enough?
No app can calculate a true daily milk total for a baby who also breastfeeds directly. The number on a bottle is useful, but it is only part of the picture. Look at your baby's feeding behaviour, wet nappies and weight over time with your health professional. The NHS's signs of enough breast milk include effective feeding, steady weight gain after the early days and age-appropriate wet nappies; nappy expectations change in the first week, so do not apply an older baby's benchmark to a newborn.
If your baby has fewer wet nappies than usual or you are worried they are not feeding enough, seek medical advice rather than trying to correct a chart yourself. The NHS dehydration guidance says a baby with fewer wet nappies may need urgent advice from a GP or NHS 111. A log can make the conversation clearer; it cannot rule dehydration in or out.
What OBubba can—and cannot—show
In the current app, Track → Feed lets you choose Bottle or Breast. The bottle entry records an amount; the breast entry records minutes on each side if you want to use them. Track → Pump records expressed output separately. If you use both feeding methods, OBubba's “Bottle/expressed (24h)” figure is the measured bottle portion, not every drop your baby had that day. Breastfeeds are not converted into guessed millilitres, and pumping is not counted as baby intake.
That separation is useful for a handover: “She breastfed at 8, I expressed later, and she drank 60 ml from a bottle at noon.” It is not a verdict on milk supply or a prescription for the next feed. For a lighter-touch way to keep the first weeks straight, see our newborn feeding and nappy log.
At the end of a mixed-feeding day, you do not need a perfect total. You need a trustworthy story of what your baby actually did. If one calm place for that story would help, download OBubba.
This UK-oriented guide is general information, not a feeding plan or medical advice. Follow your baby's individual advice, especially if they were born early, have a medical condition or are being monitored for weight gain. Speak with a midwife, health visitor, GP or feeding specialist when you have concerns; get urgent advice for signs of dehydration or a marked change in feeding.
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