Is there any way of guessing how much milk a bf baby is drinking?

[trilbydoll]

DD2 is 9m and not a big fan of the bottle. She'll grudgingly have 100ml around lunchtime if I starve her all morning

She's having 2 feeds in the afternoon, and one at bedtime. If I could be sure she was having enough I would be able to think about sleep training but I have no idea. She's pretty good with solids, eats more than dd1 sometimes.

I'm going back to work after Easter so she is either going to have to get over her bottle issues or dehydrate. I'm concerned she's just going to fill up overnight, which is not a recipe for a successful return to work!

I can't imagine a way to tell how much milk a bf baby is getting, in terms of mls and oz anyway. The general wisdom is that if they're well, gaining weight, weeing and pooing then they're getting enough. So by Easter your baby will be 11 months ish. She won't need milk during the day at all. If she's having plenty of other dairy stuff she'll have her calcium need met through her diet. My ds was having a one bottle in the morning and one at night by 11 months. Well , actually at 10.5 months he was having 3 silly little bottles (1-2oz each) during the night so we night weaned him!

If she will have water in a sippy cup (or even some fruit) she won't dehydrate and if she's having plenty of food she won't starve. My dd is now 7 months and is eating like a little piggy. It's a nightmare trying to bf her during the day now but I've been told by the hv that she would be fine to have no milk during the day now.

Wrt feeding all night- you might find she does that even if she's full- sorry!...But that's more of a sleep issue than a bf issue. I night weaned ds when, as I say, he was taking very small amounts frequently during the night just to go back to sleep, so not out of hunger at all. I reckon that if your dd has a feed in the morning, eats well during the day then has a bed time feed you can be confident she'd having enough. It might not even be a problem though- she might not wake at all!!

Thanks Nicky - I wish I could share your optimism about her not waking!

I don't think she needs the night feeds but I can't bear the thought of her being hungry, I'm so soft. Hopefully nursery will fill her up with their constant meals and snacks and she will miraculously sleep through

We have baby scales and DH weighs our DS before and after feeds to get a rough idea of how much he takes in. It's not a perfect measure by any means, but does give us a bit of info.

Does your DD take water from a sippy cup now? Could you try introducing that at night with her?

Just to say weighing before and after feeds is often not precise when done on home baby scales which are neither calibrated regularly nor the precise feed measuring scales which may be used in a healthcare setting. Also babies often wee or poo during or towards the end of a feed which may render this useless.

Woah, austengirl, who gave you that idea?? I mean, if you like doing it, then fill your boots, but it's neither accurate or useful! You have no idea how much your baby ought to have at any one time, and if you do have an idea, what happens if your baby has more, or less, on any particular occasion?

:)

I am loving the idea of weighing her before and after. I suspect it works better with a squishy newborn than a 9kg lump though!

Sippy cup is quite hit and miss. She quite likes toddler milk in it but I can't really give her vast quantities of that yet.

Definitely going to try weighing her just to see what happens. Might have to make a special trip to PIL to use their digital scales

What would weighing her before and after achieve? It would distress her to be stripped naked after s feed twice in close proximity :(

What if she wees or poos during the feed?
What if she only needed a little drink or a bit of a top up and didn't want to empty two whole breasts? Not that she couldn't but she didn't want more?
What if the scales aren't sensitive enough?

I'm just unsure what information is going to be gained through this, how accurately it will reflect reality but mostly how this info will then be interpreted? What if the scales show " only" 10 gms difference? What will you conclude? That she only got 10 ml? But she may have weed, she may have only wanted a little sip. At that moment maybe milk transfer of a certain kind happened which won't apply to other feeds. Or round she be stripped and weighed before and after every single feed? Either way it wouldn't make much sense :(

It would entertain me though Focus, and I wouldn't strip her, the clothes won't change weight. And if I leave the nappy on, that won't matter either.

It's just made me laugh, the image of me weighing dd2 - it wouldn't seem so ridiculous for a newborn but dd2 is properly fat, I'm going to sit her on the scales like a little Buddha. And it'll be funny

I had to do the weighing thing, on hired hospital scales. It was a faff, but gave me some comfort. DS was a very reluctant eater. Kept it up for a month/