Good Kitten Nutrition?

Hey there everyone! I apologize for asking 8 billion questions, but I'd rather ask and know than not ask at all.

I will be getting my Kitten on either saturday or sunday this weekend. She is around 14 weeks, give or take a week. (She might actually be 15 weeks.) Anyway, I was wondering how often to feed her.

I will be starting back in school around August 23, where I am gone from 7:15 to about 3:20. I was wondering if free feeding would be best at first for the kitten because she can eat when she wants, and I don't have to worry about her going hungry.

Eventually I would like to get her onto a set schedule of about three/four meals a day, but I realize it's not going to be very practical at first.

After some time I was hoping to be feeding her at 7am, again at about 11:45 am, 4:30 pm, and 8:45 pm. Is going to be an ok feeding schedule?

Also when would be a good age to get her into a schedule?

Side note: from my understanding she currently is fostered by a man who works long hours and currently lets her free feed.

Thanks.

With your schedule, you can already schedule feed wet food at least 3 times a day: before school, after school, before bed. While she is a growing kitten, you could leave some dry food down while you are at school and overnight. However, wet food is much better for cats, so I would not recommend free feeding dry only. Please go to www.catinfo.org to learn more about feline nutrition and related health issues. Written by a vet it has a lot of good information for cat guardians.

For dry food, my vet advised me to free feed at that age.  

For wet food, I agree that the 3x/day feeding schedule you're thinking about sounds good.

Wet food does cause tooth decay in cats if you do not brush the teeth. I would break the time like this morning 6-8am, afternoon 12-1, early eveing like 5-6 and, night 10 pm. You can only leave wet food out for 3-4 hours. So leaving out wet food is not the solution.
 

Wet food does not cause tooth decay any more than dry food. And dry food is not better for teeth than wet. Both are myths without any research to back them up.

Wet food does not cause tooth decay any more than dry food cleans teeth. They are both myths, and very very false.

I agree with vball. Start right out feeding a wet diet on a schedule.

After some time I was hoping to be feeding her at 7am, again at about 11:45 am, 4:30 pm, and 8:45 pm. Is going to be an ok feeding schedule?

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Those feeding times are fine but I would add one more meal right before you go to bed or you are likely to be woken up in the night. Make the other meals a bit smaller to accommodate the final meal.

(edit) LOL vball, we posted almost the exact same words at the same time!:lol3

I'd just like to add that feeding several different brands of food in rotation is best. Just like people need variety, kitties do too. When feeding wet food, it doesn't cause tummy trouble to rotate foods. It does when feeding dry. And I'd like to reiterate that if you want to learn a little bit about feline nutrition from a vet, the site vball91 provided a link to is very easy to read and understand. http://www.catinfo.org