Quick question on number of feeds...

[thefabfour]

How many bf should a baby of 9 month have? He has one am & pm but struggling to get him to have any during the day.

He has also started waking and having a feed at night.

He is having 3 meals a day but has dropped from the 25th to 15th centile and my hv seemed quite concerned about it.

Should he be having more feeds?

DD is 8 and a half months. She gets 1 bf first thing on waking at 7am and another bf before going to bed at 7pm. She started to lose interest in the boobs once we had started solids and introducing cup feeds in the day. In the day she takes a cup of formula milk as mid morning snack and another mid afternoon, but to be honest she doesn't always drink much of it, so I still sometimes have to add milk to her meals to increase the amount she is taking. You could also try adding grated cheese to his meals and offering yoghurts/petit filous if he won't take milk.

Thanks. I was quite concerned because my hv had said (only 4 weeks ago) that he should be having at least 5 feeds a day

Yet, my last child (ff at this point) was having 3 feeds a day at 9 months and dropped the middle of the day feed sometime around now.

Good tip on offering more dairy, thanks.

apparently babies need about a pint of milk a day until age one - you can make this up from feeds or by adding breast or formula milk to food (eg cereal). I think 2 feeds a day is fine as long as they are getting this amount and putting on weight......i do think 5 feeds at 9 months may be too much - it may prevent them eating enough solids. because b milk is low in iron at this stage they need to get enough appropriate solid food eg greens, lean meat, pulses.

apparently babies need about a pint of milk a day until age one - you can make this up from feeds or by adding breast or formula milk to food (eg cereal). I think 2 feeds a day is fine as long as they are getting this amount and putting on weight......i do think 5 feeds at 9 months may be too much - it may prevent them eating enough solids. because b milk is low in iron at this stage they need to get enough appropriate solid food eg greens, lean meat, pulses.

Only prob is knowing how much of the pint they have taken at the breast. Need some clip on petrol pump style dispensers .

: (

There is no magic number - how could there be? As mumdebump says, how do we know??

Physiologically speaking, babies of this age should have as much breastfeeding as they want, and in societies other than our own, babies as young as 9 mths are having a lot of bfs - you can't have too much breastmilk, for heavens sake, and as long as the baby is healthy and thriving and takes the opportunity to have a range of solid foods, then it's not really a concern.

Lulumama, you are talking as if bottle feeding with formula and breastfeeding are the same thing, and they are not. There is nothing wrong with 5 breastfeeds a day - the baby regulates what he or she has perfectly nicely and iron is not normally a problem - the iron in breastmilk is easily bioavailable, and in any case, the baby is having solids. This is not necessarily the same with formula feeding, as 5 bottles a day (usually, they're quite large bottles at this stage) may take the place of a growing range and amount of solid foods.

Tiktok - are you a bf councillor?

Lulu - yup, I am....with NCT.