Babies nurse somewhere between 8 and 12 times in 24 hours.
What exactly does it mean to feed your baby on demand?
BOTTLES VS BREAST
If you watch your young new baby down a 4 ounce bottle and then get fussy, it's probably not from hunger.However, if he nurses for a long while, and then gets fussy, you can’t be sure if he’s full, or still hungry.
Maybe there wasn’t enough milk in your breasts, or maybe he didn't effectively remove it.
As breastfeeding is getting established, fussiness means hunger until proven otherwise.
So, feed your baby on demand!
YOUR MILK STORAGE CAPACITY
Once your milk supply is fully in, you might find that your breasts store lots of milk for long periods of time, so your baby gets enough at each feeding to get by eating every 3 hours.Or, you might find that your breasts hold only a small amount. In that case, your baby needs to eat at least every 2 hours in order to get enough, and sometimes every hour.
YOUR BABY’S EFFICIENCY
Perhaps your baby nurses quickly and can slam down a breast in 5 minutes.Or perhaps your baby takes 40 minutes.
They're all different.
MILK SUPPLY VARIES THROUGHOUT YOUR DAY and NIGHT
- Your breasts likely feel most full in the morning after resting (hopefully sleeping) at night. Thus, early in the day, your baby gets more milk per feeding, and thus eats less frequently.
- By late afternoon and evening, your energy is spent doing your typical activities of daily living, so there’s less milk in your breasts later in the day. Your baby gets less per feeding, so he demands more frequent feedings. This explains why babies are often fussy in the evenings.
- As long as your baby gets enough each day to gain and follow the growth curve, it doesn’t really matter when he gets it. Except that 2am is quite inconvenient.
FEED ON DEMAND
As noted above, you can measure bottle feedings. Thus, you can schedule the feedings.When you nurse, you can’t measure what your baby removed.
- If he acts hungry again, nurse again, and again. When your baby gets enough, he'll burp (maybe), lie down, and act content – at least most of the time.
- As your baby gains weight, he'll gain the energy to self-awaken and ask to eat every 2-3 hours, start to start. It’s still normal if he asks to eat hourly a couple times per day.
GET REGULAR WEIGHT CHECKS
During the first couple weeks or so, your baby may be particularly fussy and cluster feed , or he may be particularly sleepy. Both can be normal. The only way to know how much he's eating is to weigh him.He gets weighed every day in the hospital, and ideally within a day or two after discharge. These weight checks confirm that he doesn't lose too much weight. Click here to view a video about normal newborn weight loss.
A weight check soon after day 4 will confirm that your baby is gaining the expected 1oz per day.
If he loses too much, or fails to gain as expected, triple feeding will likely be necessary.
Triple feeding will assess your supply and your baby's ability to remove milk, and also increase your supply and your baby's weight gain, which gives him energy to nurse better.
The 2 week check up is an ideal time to make sure your milk supply is enough for your baby to continue gaining 1oz per day. As a general rule, your baby should be back to birth weight by day 10-14, but this depends on how much weight was lost in the beginning. The key is to gain 1oz per day after day 4.
Thereafter, well baby checkups will include weigh-ins to confirm that all is well.
These typically occur at 2 weeks and then at 1, 2, 4, 6, 9, and 12 months.
It is important that you ask for weight checks in between checkups if you are ever concerned about your baby’s weight gain or feeding pattern.
Kay Anderson MD, IBCLC
5/23