How much milk for a breastfed baby during the day whilst at work?

[choceyes]

A friend of mine is back to work full time (is a student, so short days) and her baby is 6 months old. Baby takes expressed milk from a bottle, but refuses formula. She can only express about 200-250ml, and she says that's only enough for one bottle. Baby breastfeeds in the morning, late afternoon, evening and sometimes during the night.
She worries that 200-250ml during the day is not enough for her DD.
I think it is plenty enough really, as her DD is BF at other times and will make up for it, so I told her not to worry, but she is worried ofcourse.
She was told by her HV/GP that DD needs 250ml for each feed during the day. Now my DS who didn't latch on and I was expressing for him never took that much in a feed, it was like half of that.

Just wanted to reassure her that her DD is getting enough milk really, so would appreciate some answers. With both my DCs I didn't go back to work till about a year, so no exprience of expressing for or BF a young baby in childcare.

A friend of mine had to go back to work when her DS was 5 months. He completely refused a bottle, so didn't have any breast milk at all during the day. She fed him just before drop off and when she picked him up (and she works reasonably long days) and he was always fine. They can have water in a sippy cup during the day to prevent dehydration!!
I think the amount your friend is getting will be fine.

Have a look at this page on kellymon. Remember that the milk needed actually decrese after 6mo as the baby takes in more and more solids. So what kellymom gives you would be the maximum they'd need.

Well, my ds would never take more than 140ml in a bottle, and would normally have had 3, 120ml bottles in his 8-5.30 day at nursery. BM volumes are not the same as formula

At 6 months, her dd will be having solids and water from a cup in the day too, so will be fine

Actually have to say my DD never took more than 70ml from a bottle! I think kellymom was pretty accurate when I based on her feeding about 9-10 times a day before weaning. She's a definite snacker.

200-250 mls is plenty for 2 feeds - on average bf babies take 25oz every day (1oz = 28mls) so 200mls-250mls is approx 7-9oz which would be 7-9 hours of milk. Don't forget that the feed just before dropping off counts towards their milk intake during the day (e.g. if they feed at 7.30 and are dropped off at 8.15 then have breakfast with water, then a bottle of 100-125ml mid morning then lunch with water then a mid afternoon bottle then mum feeds baby on collecting from nursery).

250ml a feed is for a formula fed baby on a schedule of 3 bottles a day not for a bf baby who will feed far more often and with a lower volume of milk too.

If baby is taking such large bottles then the people feeding her that need advice on how to bottle fed a breast fed baby. One such source of advice is here.

Also, as baby is over 6m and presumably on complementary foods they can be left for short-mid length times with just food and water and they will make up for the time with out milk when they are with mum.

Thanks you so much for your replies. Yes I have told her that 200-250ml would be enough for about 2 feeds, but apparently her HCP has told her that DD needs about 6 feeds of about this much!
Apparently everybody keeps telling her that her DD "looks" small (she is just under the 50th pc...so weight is not a prob at all) and she is worried about her milk and food intake (DD won't take anything other than cereals). I shall point her towards Kelly mum and maybe give her my copy of "My child won't eat!".

so 1200ml - 1500ml / 42oz - 53oz That is knocking on twice/over twice what a bf baby would take on average (25oz is the average 19-30z is the normal range). Does the HV has something against babies that are under 99.6th%ile and wants to fatten all 'her' babies up???

TruthSweet sadly that kind of ignorance re-amount of bm needed is normal amongst the HCP I met when DD was admitted for bronchiolitis. I have many conversations with them regarding how much she needs to be topped up.

What the hell?! If I fed that much to my DD, she'd burst!

yep, this is the kind of "advice" that HV's dish out. In my 3.3yrs of having 2 DCs I have come across a lot of ignorance and bad advice, a lot of it relating to breastfeeding. My poor friend is in a state thinking that her DD is not getting enough. Even me reassuring her is not good enough because I'm not a HCP ofcourse (she is not strictly a friend, she is a student that I'm helping supervise for her PhD, so it's not like she knows me intimately enough to trust my advice over the HCPs I guess).

Could you show her Kellymom or similar or even show her studies into the calorie/fat content of BM and then show her the same in formula (if you go to one of the supermarket websites they have the nutritional data for each brand of formula (so as if you are buying a carton)) and get her to compare the two so she can see that if a FF baby needs around 25-30oz of formula a day there is NO way on Earth a BF baby needs twice that as BM is similar in calorie content but higher in fat.

Then she isn't taking your word for it she is doing the research herself (though how you get to PhD level without knowing you question the evidence and the source always - I did that in GCSE History!)