Exclusively Pumping How Much Milk Does Baby Need
When you lot're exclusively pumping for your babe – or even if you're both nursing and canteen feeding pumped milk – it can be hard to know exactly how much your baby should exist eating. How much should your baby get per feeding? How much should he or she eat in a 24-hour interval?
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Many people feeding pumped breast milk (including me, when I was a new, confused, and sleep-deprived exclusive pumper) refer to formula feeding guidelines for an idea of how much they should exist giving their babies.
All the same, formula and breast milk aren't the same – for instance, breast milk is metabolized faster than formula. And considering most breastfed babies are nursed, there is no way to tell how much they are taking in (short of weighing them earlier and after every feeding with a baby scale).
And then, how to know how much breast milk should your baby exist eating?
I recently did a survey of women that exclusively pumped for their babies, and one of the questions that I asked the respondents was how much milk their babies ate on a daily basis. I'll go through these results first, and and then go through the recommendations for formula fed babies to meet how they compare.
What is the average milk intake per mean solar day for breastfed babies drinking from bottles?
The overall average intake for babies across the offset year was 26.8 oz (792.five ml); after one calendar month of age, the minimum reported daily intake for was 16 oz (473 ml) and the maximum was 48 oz (one,420 ml). Below is a chart showing how the results were distributed:
Hither nosotros can meet that most babies consume betwixt 24 (710 ml) and xxx oz (887 ml).
How many ounces do breastfed babies consume at 2 months, three months, four months, etc.?
As one might expect, breast milk intake varied slightly with the baby's historic period, with it averaging slightly lower in the kickoff month of life and so increasing up to between 26 and 28 oz (770 and 828 ml) until well-nigh 10 months of age.
At this signal, presumably, solids are making up a more substantial function of the baby's diet, and the average drops down to 25 oz (740ml) at 10 months and nineteen.5 oz (577 ml) at 11 months.
I also looked to see if chest milk intake varied by any other factors that I had asked well-nigh in the survey, such as the age of the mother, whether the babe was a get-go baby or a subsequent kid, and race. I didn't find whatsoever statistically significant differences based on maternal or child characteristics, except for the age of the baby as described to a higher place.
The one human relationship that I did notice with regard to a infant'south intake of breast milk was the amount of milk that the female parent pumped. Mothers that pumped more milk tended to feed their babies more than milk.
This could exist for a few different reasons. For example, mothers that switched from nursing to exclusive pumping might be closely in sync with the corporeality of milk that their baby needs. Additionally, women with supply on the depression cease of the spectrum that have babies that too don't demand as much milk might not work to bring it upward every bit much as mothers whose babies take in more than.
How does boilerplate breast milk quantity consumed compare to formula feeding guidelines?
I was curious whether or not the results that I got in survey would be similar to formula feeding guidelines, then I looked upwards the American University of Pediatrics guidelines. Reading them is a chip confusing, as the descriptions of appropriate intake utilize iii ranges – the age of the baby (i.due east., 1-3 months), the amount of formula (i.e., 2-3 oz), and the number of feedings (i.e., every 3-4 hours).
To simplify things, I bankrupt the guidelines down into the below table:
Hither we tin see that the total daily recommended intake is fairly close to the averages reported higher up for babies past age. The recommendation is slightly lower in the showtime, but on par with actual totals for breastfed babies past six months.
The guidelines specifically country non to feed a baby more than 32 oz (946 ml) of formula per day. I'm not sure whether or not that recommendation would besides utilize to breast milk, only over x% of the respondents' babies drank more breast milk than that on a daily basis.
(Including mine! The baby that I exclusively pumped for was a actually big baby who ate 40 oz of breast milk on the regular, so hopefully information technology'south non an issue for breast milk.)
Note: The typical feeding schedule for breastfed babies may be very different from that of formula-fed babies. It's more than common for breastfed babies to consume more than ofttimes and less on schedule than formula-fed babies, likely because (as noted above) breast milk is metabolized more than speedily than formula. This discussion is only almost total intake.
How much breast milk should you lot give your infant per feeding?
This depends on baby'south age and varies quite a bit by baby, but here is a visual that might help you sympathise a newborn'southward breadbasket capacity.
I didn't include amounts per feeding in my survey, but I volition share the amounts in my baby'southward bottles at dissimilar ages (again, this is but my babe and yours might have different needs):
- Start month (subsequently the first week) – 2-3 ounces per feeding
- Second and third month – about iii ounces per feeding
- Third and fourth month – three-4 ounces per feeding
- 5th month going forward – 4-5 ounces per feeding
So, what should you do with this information?
I get frequent questions as to how many ounces should be in a baby's bottle at given ages.
Unfortunately, at that place is no i-size-fits all reply. As you can encounter from the get-go nautical chart, there is a huge variation in what breastfed babies will consume in a given solar day – your baby might be 1 that only needs 20 oz per mean solar day or one (like mine) who needs a lot more.
My goal with this post was to be able to requite mothers a ballpark as to what is "normal" for breastfed babies to swallow in a given day, and if you want, you can use this as a starting betoken that you tin can tweak based on your baby'south needs.
Ultimately, though, I would permit your baby exist your guide. If he finishes his bottle and however seems hungry and isn't soothed by a pacifier or any of your other tricks, so I would go ahead and feed him more than. If he'southward on the other end of the spectrum and but doesn't like to eat much, I wouldn't push it unless there is an outcome with weight gain (so I would discuss the best approach with your pediatrician).
Note: If you're a information geek similar me and interested in more survey data, I wrote an eastward-book nearly sectional pumping and milk supply that makes extensive use of it; you tin can check out hither.
References
Exclusively Pumping How Much Milk Does Baby Need
Source: https://exclusivepumping.com/how-much-milk-do-breastfed-babies-eat/