How much expressed milk?

[MrsAlwaysRight]

I am planning on leaving EBF DD2 (11 weeks) for 1st time for a couple of hours on Saturday night and wondered approximately how much milk she might need.

I have several bags frozen in varying quantities of 1-4oz and plan on just asking my mum to defrost them if and when DD needs a feed. Obviously she can always defrost extra if DD2 still hungry but wanted to be able to give her a rough idea of how much she might need to defrost initially.

TIA

i left ds2 at 11 weeks with my mum for whole day, he took roughly 4oz per feed. but i think its like how long is a piece of string

Similar to mumnwlondon, my DD took anyweher between 4oz and 90z per feed! I would start by defrosting 4-5oz and see how she goes with this.

whoa there haverina, it took me a while to work out that's 9oz and not 90z [phew emoticon], though who knows maybe z units are a tenth of an oz.

i'd work out timings of normal feeds, allow 1oz an hour then add 1 for good measure. I know my LO will take whatever's there, so we now decide the amount and then offer more if she's not satisfied. (they like to suck, but happen to get milk as well).

What you might want to avoid is her being too full to take a feed from you when you get in, otherwise that's another meal you've missed and therefore might need to express. (you could prob miss a feed and be ok not expressing)

Thanks ladies for replies to what is really a "how long is a piece of string" question!

Oops, sorry for the typo! climberchick I'd have a HUGE baby if she took 90oz!!

I used to give about the same as the guidelines for formula so you might want to look at a packet in the supermarket.

Whatever you do you might want to leave a bit extra expressed milk in case of a very hungry baby or a spillage. It takes a while to defrost IIRC.

if it helps haverina, it was only when I realised that my freezer stock is 100oz that the penny dropped.

Sorry to contradict you Meglet, but looking ar formula amounts can be misleading (and scary). BF babies don't increase the amount they drink from 6 weeks (though fat content does change, so old stored milk will be lower in calories). There's some more information here

climberchick I agree. Breastfed babies won't take as much expressed milk as a formula fed baby. Though my dd has take a huge bottle at times, over the day she usually won't drink as much as a formula fed baby. For example I went to work one day last and my dd drank 14oz of milk it 6.5hours. I worried but was told by a bf councillor that this is actually quite alot! So formula guidelines really won't help.