Breastfeeding and calories

[Woodlands]

Various sources I've seen online to work out a baby's daily calorie needs suggest the figure is 55 x weight in pounds or 40 x height in inches. My 5 month old EBF, very hungry baby was (3 weeks ago) 18lb and 68cm (27 inches). Both those calculations give a figure near 1000 calories a day.

My question is therefore, can I eat an extra 1000 calories a day on top of the standard 2000 or so for a woman? I have seen 500 extra calories as the normal benchmark figure. If I only ate that, surely I'd be using 500 more calories a day than I took in, which should mean a weight loss of 1lb a week or so. I know lots of people don't lose any weight until they stop BFing anyway.

I just don't quite understand how this works! From a personal point of view, I'm not depriving myself of anything and am only about 3-4lb above pre-pregnancy weight now.I'm conscious that I'll need to start watching my diet again in the next few months once DS starts eating lots of solid foods.

Don't worry about your figure , numbers, eat well when you are hungry and regularly 4/5 times a day. I bf for 13 months and got quite slim on eating regular meals. Nothing beats Nature's liposuction.

Lol at natures liposuction!!

slurp slurp slurp

lol at nature's liposuction!

I do eat to appetite, but I am greedy!

Just interested generally really. The human body is very clever!

I never lost weight while bfing, despite running 4 times a week and eating v healthily.

Anyway, that minor grievance aside, you do only need the 500 calories because that's what it takes to make milk. But I'd ignore the numbers and eat/drink to appetite/thirst. Same as if you weren't bfing.