How much is enough breastmilk to feed a baby? Need advice!

[Anonymous]

Hello parents,

So I've returned back to work and have left my baby with my parents to babysit. We keep a quick log of how much my son eats, and have noticed that he has dropped in intake significantly. It's already been 3 weeks since he's been over at grandparents' and it seems like each week he is eating a little bit less. At 11 weeks before I had dropped him off at my parents, there were days he took in 38 ounces of breastmilk. Now there are times he's down to the mid-20's.

I pump and feed him breastmilk exclusively. Seems like there are "guidelines" for formula feeding and age. However, there seems to be no "guideline" for expressed breastmilk? I know it varies from baby to baby, but I like to take a poll with parents who pump and feed their baby breastmilk.

How much breastmilk was your baby eating at 3 months?

[Anonymous]

Is it possible he's nursing more at night? He could just be reverse cycling.

[Meconbear]

My baby definitely preferred the boob and started feeding more in the evenings and at night. Have you noticed an uptick in the number of times/legnth that your baby nurses when you're at home?

[Anonymous]

OP again. I don't nurse him at night. (Maybe I'm a bad mom?!) I pump exclusively and feed him the expressed milk.

[Anonymous]

How much does your baby weigh? Taking 38 ounces at 11 weeks sounds a bit much, but maybe he's a big boy and really needs that much food? Because otherwise, mid-20's sounds more normal.

[Anonymous]

That seems to be a lot of BM in the day for an 11w old. Check out kellymom.com for lots of help, it's a great BF site.
BF babies take on average 25 ozs in 24 hours. I leave my 14 week old with 3 4oz bottles during the day.

[Anonymous]

OP here. I am guessing the 38 ounces was during his growth spurt. The baby is now almost 16 weeks and eating about 25 - 30 ounces of BM each day.

[Anonymous]

Sounds like he is doing GREAT! And so are you! I pumped after going back to work and it is hard work. If you can express that much a day, then you are doing great. My daughter took 4 4-oz bottles of expressed milk at daycare and nursed morning (sometimes) and night (always). So... I think that ended up being about 24-30 ounces depending on if she did the morning feeding, an after daycare feeding and a before-bed feeding.

As long as your baby continues to gain weight and seems happy, then you probably don't have anything to worry about! Babies go through spurts where they eat like horses, but then they level back out.

[Anonymous]

My six month old takes between 12 - 20 ounces during the day at daycare, as well as nurses before I go to work and after we get home. He's growing fine. Your baby sounds like he's right on track. Freeze any extra milk that you have, you never know when you might need it.

[Anonymous]

That amount post growth spurt sounds about right.

[Anonymous]

This is all very helpful. I don't mean to hijack the post, but since this thread is about how much BM is enough, I have a related question. My 5-week-old is on BM with some formula supplement. I am in the process of getting him off of the formula, but the BM (expressed or nursing) doesn't seem enough to satisfy his appetite. I'm told he is in a growth spurt and I wonder if the appetite will level off. He seems to want food a LOT more during the day than at night and sometimes I find that my boobs can't keep up!!!!!
Any thoughts?

[Anonymous]

You should really talk to a lactation consultant for the best way to wean from formula, but if you continue to supply formula, it will be very hard for your breasts too keep up with what baby wants. Breastfeeding is a supply and demand system, where your body makes as much, or as little, as baby wants. You might need to pump more to bring in more supply. Have you looked at the resources on Kellymom.com? It's one of the best breastfeeding websites out there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is all very helpful. I don't mean to hijack the post, but since this thread is about how much BM is enough, I have a related question. My 5-week-old is on BM with some formula supplement. I am in the process of getting him off of the formula, but the BM (expressed or nursing) doesn't seem enough to satisfy his appetite. I'm told he is in a growth spurt and I wonder if the appetite will level off. He seems to want food a LOT more during the day than at night and sometimes I find that my boobs can't keep up!!!!!
Any thoughts?

I hear what you're saying. At 5 weeks, he was latched onto me all the time, and half of that time he spent nibbling and I wasn't feeling as though milk was really coming in. So what I did was I fed him on demand, but I would take him off when he starts nibbling and dozing off. I would pump pump pump literally all the time to bring in my milk supply. My schedule seem like this:

6:00 - 6:50AM breastfeed
6:55 - 7:15AM pump
7:20 - 7:25AM washed pump parts
7:40 - 8:30AM breastfeed
8:35 - 8:50AM - pump
8:55 - 9:00AM - washed pump parts
9:15 - 9:35AM - grab breakfast
9:40 - 10:20AM - breastfeed
10:25 - 10:40AM - pump
10:45 - 10:50 - washed pump parts

11:05 AM - it starts all over again

I did that for 2 weeks straight and milk came in beautifully.

[Anonymous]

You can save some time by not washing pump parts between pumps and only washing once a day. Since BM is antiseptic, you don't need to wash each time - just ziploc and put in the fridge.

[Anonymous]

I nurse my 6 mo old in the morning then leave her with three 5-6oz bottles of EBM during the day and nurse her again once or twice in the evening. I figure she's probably getting about 25oz (or more?) in a 24 hr period.