6 month old doesn't wee a lot, should I worry

[mama2g]

My dd is 6 months old and she only has about 3-4 wet nappies a day, she also only poops every 3-4 days she is exclusively breast fed on demand, although she has some pureed foods now, should I be worried about her toileting she has always been like this but when iv left her with family they have brought it up with concern ??

[Florentina27]

My ds is the same but she used to do a lot before. She still poops twice a day so she is getting food. If she's weaned are you giving her water. Breast milk doesn't hydrate enough when they start solids from what I know

[JiltedJohnsJulie]

As long as you let her bf when she wants too, everything will be fine. If you want some reassurance from a trained professional, you could always ring one of the Bfing Helplines. Have you got the numbers?

Personally I've never heard of Bfing not hydrating enough. Florentina have you got some links for that?

[JiltedJohnsJulie]

Don't forget too that if your family are used to babies who are ff their experience will be very different.

Formula milks don't differ as the baby ages hence the need for the babies to take ever increasing amounts as they get older, just to get the calories and the nutrition they need. Whereas your baby will take roughly 25floz in 24 hour from the time your milk is established. The amount does not differ, just the composition of your milk so it perfectly matches your baby's needs

[mama2g]

Thank you all !! Some times its good to have a little outside reassurance 😀

[Florentina27]

Don't know where I read about that but if you google it it says to introduce water around 6 months

[JiltedJohnsJulie]

Offering the baby a little water is entirely different to telling Mums that their bm isn't enough to hydrate their babies though surely?

[Micah]

Yep, breast milk is perfectly good enough for hydration. Better than formula- you should offer water with formula, as JJ says the consistency is set, but not necessarily with breastmilk.

Is she hydrated? Tears when crying, plump skin, fontanelle normal? What colour is her wee? Unless it's very dark and strong she's probably fine.

Yy to families too- my mum only had experience of formula feeding, she was worried about poo consistency, hydration, not giving water, the fact she didn't sleep through by 6 weeks, not feeding every four hours, all said to her something was "wrong", and she continually tried to get me to stop bf, or go to the Dr about really trivial stuff like runny poo.

As on this thread even, people offer advice from what they "heard' or "read", or their own different experience. It isn't always right :). Lots of myths around breastfeeding, which why I think rates aren't as high as they should be.

[RoganJosh]

Are your family older by any chance? My mum mentioned to me that my daughter's nappy wasn't wet, she'd felt it to see. But nappies these days don't feel wet to the touch. So lots of little wees all add up before you notice it being 'full'. I never changed nappies very often, a few times a day seems fine.

[JiltedJohnsJulie]

mama have a read of this on offering water to be babies

[mama2g]

I have tried to give her water at least once a day but because she is BF she doesn't really know what to do with a bottle teat,

Yeah she is definatley hydrated, her wee is pretty clear, she is very active and such a happy little baba.

My mum breastfed but I'm not sure for how long, although I know she used the Terry nappies on myself due to bad skin, I wasn't worried about it until my mum mentioned it.

I use asda little angels nappies and find that when my little one wees it gathers up the front unlike some other nappies iv used, so although I do agree she doesn't wee an awful lot these factors could be why my mum was concerned

[Florentina27]

So water is just to prevent constipation, my bad, live and learn, thanks for the info Jilted

[JiltedJohnsJulie]

Mine never drank much apart from bm until we stopped Bfing. They were never constipated or dehydrated. She sounds fine