Can a BF baby drink too much water with meals (nearly 8m)

[nannyl]

DD is nearly 8m old

she enjoys 3 balanced meals a day and 4 breastfeeds and sleeps all night (12 hours)

I always offer her a sippy cup of water with her 3 meals and she just LOVES it.... today at tea she drank over 100mls (and i had to keep taking it away).... I think she would have drunk the whole 200mls if i let her.

It just doesnt seem right to let her drink 1/4, or perhaps even half a pint of water per day.

Would it be better to offer her milk for 1 or more of these drinks?
I dont really want her to drink formula (she has never had formula before).... i can express about 2oz a day so i could give her 2oz?

Or i hear that on one off occasions BF babies can have cow milk (but is daily 1 off, probably not?)

She does drink most of it too... only spits out a little bit at the end...

Watching with interest as DS is same age with same habits! He's a total water junkie and I have to wrestle the cup from his steely grip before he chugs the lot!

Thing with water is that it fills their bellies but not with fat & calories, which is what they need. As breastmilk is 86-88% water they can also be at risk of hyperhydrowotsit too much water syndrome, which can be very dangerous.

If your baby is thirsty then bfing her is fine and perfectly normal (4 bfs a day is a little on the low side tbh for a 8m I'd expect that more of a 18m!).

If you swap bfs for cup feeds (formula/cow's milk/ebm) you are in fact weaning her from bfing - which of course is fine if you do want to stop bfing (or bfing directly) and is a pretty gentle way of weaning.

If you wanted to bf for longer than a few more weeks/months, avoiding giving large volumes with meals (as Mombo says it displaces food from their diet as well as dissuading babies from bfing) and bfing before and possibly after meals if your DD seems thirsty following eating.

I already BF an hour before her meals

she finished her breast feed less than half hour before she has her breakfast, often as little as 20mins.... and she will still drink loads

My health visitor nursery nurse at clinic (we only talk to HV is she cant help) told me (at 7m) that DD should only need 3 BFs a day now (which i think is far too low and will continue to feed her 4 times a day)

I intend to let her self wean and dont intend to force her stopping BFing

My DD did the same thing for a couple of weeks at around 8 months. I think that she was just pleased with her new-found skill of being able to drink from a cup independently. She still bf loads (about 8-9 times per 24 hours) and unsurprisingly, had lots of very wet nappies. Now at 14 months DD drinks less, eats more and still has about 5-6 bf per 24 hours.

I wouldn't worry too much, I think babies self-regulate quite well. Not an expert, but only 3 bfs for a 7 month old sounds like no-where near enough!

My DD is 10 1/2 months old and still has about a million quite a few breastfeeds a day. Usually when she wakes up, after breakfast, when she goes down for her nap, when she wakes up from her nap/before lunch, after lunch, couple of feeds between lunch and dinner, after dinner, then before bed. Sometimes a few more feeds in between that too, either she 'asks' or if I think she might want one. A lot of those feeds are very short though, so more like a drink, she probably has 3-5 'good' feeds a day. She sometimes wakes at night too and takes a lot of solids. (BLW) she only has small sips of water from an open cup with meals.

I suppose what I'm saying is you could offer more breastfeeds if you want to. No reason she can't want one right after a meal, even if she's had one just before.

I just can't see how 3 feeds is anywhere near enough for a 7m when they are only (or should be) having 130 kcals of 'complementary foods' and 485kcals of BM (roughly 650mls) so I'd ask to see the NN's 'evidence' that they could get by on only 3 feeds (or get over 200mls in one go....).

I know this is only anecdotal but my 3 were feeding more like 8-10 (or more!) times a day when they were under a year.

Pre-breakfast, post breakfast, pre-mid-morning snack/nap, post-mind-morning snack/nap, pre-lunch, post-lunch, pre-afternoon snack/nap, post-afternoon snack/nap, pre-dinner, post-dinner/bedtime feed was pretty much the norm for us as well as the adhoc feeds for bumps or upsets! Not forgetting the night feeds (DD1 had 4 until 12m when we nightweaned her, DD2 had 2 or 3 until 17m or so and DD3 night nursed until a few months ago).

Is there a local bfing group you can go to (LLL or similar) to get bfing friendly support?

I am lucky have lots of local BFing support....nearest BFing group is half hour drive away... but i feel i have lots of support with my NCT group... even at this stage 70% of us are BFing and so are lots of my "other" non NCT mummy friends. I see BFing friends every week day

I am happy with breast feeding, happy with her having 4 feeds a day (if thats all she demands) (she gets milk/ey things with all her meals too) eats well and sleeps well so thats good enough for me

i just dont want her to "damage herself" by drinking too much water

I agree that 3 feeds is no way enough and i agree that 4 feeds is probably the absolute minimum, but as she eats and sleeps well, is gaining weight and happy i am happy to go with it

that's good - was just worried all the bfing 'support' you had was the NN . Love to live where you do then, I am very much in the minority in my town for even attempting bfing let alone practising natural term bfing .

If it's just the actual water volume you are concerned about this is an interesting piece from Johns Hopkins' (which if you haven't heard of before - it's a bit like the US version of Great Ormond St Hospital)