6 month old only takes an ounce or so of ebm

[slightlysoupstained]

Wondering if this us normal, or if we can encourage him to drink a bit more. DP looked after DS today, so he had nothing from me from 8am till lunchtime when we met up, & then until 7pm.

Normally during that time he'd have at least two good feeds, possibly more. I left some expressed milk - apparently he wasn't interested in the morning, took some enthusiastically around 4 pm when offered, but only drank about half the bottle (just over 2 ounces, which I'd expressed yesterday).

Was thinking about leaving him for the whole day in a couple of weeks time, but if he's not going to take much milk then thus seems too long. Can we encourage him to take a bit more? An ounce doesn't seem like it's worth the hassle of expressing at his age.

[slightlysoupstained]

bump

[feekerry]

i think that's fine. remember we don't know for sure what they actually take from us. think i have seen somewhere that around 2oz of ebm is prob an average feed. on the back of my bm feeezer bags it says something like store in 2oz feeds.
my.dd is now 11m but i went back to work at 9m and she would feed from me in morning and maybe have max 3oz of.ebm all day til i got home at 6pm.

[slightlysoupstained]

Thanks feekerry, was worrying as it seems such a small amount compared to the amount of formula feeds people give. Useful to hear your DD was happy with 3 oz all day.

[CitrusyOne]

I could have posted the same thing today. I fed 4 and a half month Dd at 9:30am then went out leaving a four ounce bottle of ebm, which at 12 weeks she'd have guzzled. Got back at had two and she'd had an ounce. I fed her myself and she didn't feed for long. I think she's having some issues with teeth/gums at the moment and I just don't think she's very hungry- she seems to be having little and often feeds. What I've learnt about bf is that if they're hungry, they'll eat, and if they're not eating then they can't be that hungry.

[zoobaby]

DS is 6mo and over the past few weeks I've noticed a big decline in time spent at the breast. I was worried at start but nappies continued as before and he seemed happy so I tried not to stress. He now seems to only want 4 or 5 feeds a day. Of those, only 2 will be big proper ones if that makes sense. I think it was/is developmental or teething as the start also coincided with really broken sleep too. Sleep appears to be settling this week and feeding seems to be coming back a little stronger too. This week he's also slightly warmer but no temp thankfully. I just try to be patient and wait for him to tell me he's hungry (though I am guilty of wasting time by offering too early if I know there's been a longish gap).