Determining how much milk

Thanks Claudia. Info helpful as always

At Christmas we were at a holiday house with the family and for about 4 or 5 days she was only waking between 4 & 6 for a feed. But since we got home new years day she's been waking more frequently.
She also increased her milk demands to 2 hourly just before Christmas.

So I decided last week to start her on rice cereal in the mornings. And her daytime feeds have improved greatly. She's now mostly 3 hourly sometimes 4 whereas before it was only ever 2,5 hrly.
But now with this night time waking I've also started wandering if maybe she needs something more substantial before bed time.
So today for the first time, around 5:30 I gave her a spoon of cereal.
Last night she woke at midnight and 4am so will see what tonight brings having given her some solids as well.
I miss my sleep Thankfully she only wakes to drink and falls asleep on the boob again.

Re the heat - 27-30 deg at night is something crazy!!! Most people in your parts of SA live with aircon on permanently I'm sure. Well on hot nights we choose to put our aircon on in the room. We angle the airflow upwards and away from the cot so there is no direct blowing close to her. We've been doing this for about 6 weeks and touch wood no signs of her getting sick at all.
Our aircon has been our best investment yet!

@ Girly, at around 5/ 6 months they go through a huge developmental spurt and start waking up more. With James it lasted about 2 weeks and then he went back to normal. He was waking every hour and it was killing me, he then went back to sleeping through. Unfortunately about 3 weeks after that we hit summer temps and he started waking up again, I was worried that it was too little solids, until when we went to Scotland and it was much cooler he slept through for the two weeks we were there. As soon as we got off the palne hes gone back to waking up, so I'm convinced he is too hot. He wakes up sweating and his room temp sits at about 27 - 30 degrees at night!(with fan on and windows open). I'm just waiting for it to get cooler, because airconditioners just seem to make you sick!

BTW I'm doing BLW, and he has only now started eating more and has dropped his breaskfast milk feed, but James was also drinking about 120mls per bottle, so he was also only taking in about 750 a day at 7 months:)

Nozzy wrote:

Girly wrote:

Sarah you are so lucky! Hope it stays that way for you. Since about 2 weeks ago my 5month old started waking more often for milk at night. Last night she was up at 12, 4 and 7 whereas before Christmas she was only waking up once.

Perhaps your little one is getting ready for solids (or more solids if she's already started). I'm very relaxed with my baby and have never forced her into a routine or anything.

Cricky.....it got me too...somehow I was also Nozzy lol! and coz I'm not wearing my glasses I didn't even notice lol

Girly wrote:

Sarah you are so lucky! Hope it stays that way for you. Since about 2 weeks ago my 5month old started waking more often for milk at night. Last night she was up at 12, 4 and 7 whereas before Christmas she was only waking up once.

Perhaps your little one is getting ready for solids (or more solids if she's already started). I'm very relaxed with my baby and have never forced her into a routine or anything.

Claudia very interesting read! Esp that their needs dont really change between 1 & 6 months.
K drinks around 700 - 750mls a day and is growing as she should.

The formula for breast milk is 120 x babies weight divide by feeds per day.
For formula its 150 x babies weight divide by feeds per day.

I spoke to paed about this calculation this week as formula tins say K should be on 200mls a feed but she seldom finishes more than 100mls, 125 at most. He says I must not worry about following their instructions and its purely money making on their part.
Just follow your babies demands. If still hungry, increase by 25mls until you have it right. Also one feed to the next they will differ how much they feed. One feed may only be 70mls, next one 150mls and so on. Closer to bed time they also tend to cluster feed.

Sarah you are so lucky! Hope it stays that way for you. Since about 2 weeks ago my 5month old started waking more often for milk at night. Last night she was up at 12, 4 and 7 whereas before Christmas she was only waking up once.

Kellymom is a great resource for breastfeeding questions. Kelly is an internationally certified lactation consultant, and the stuff on her website mirrors the information on other good breastfeeding information sites.
www.kellymom.com/bf/pumping/milkcalc.html

In exclusively breastfed babies, milk intake increases quickly during the first few weeks of life, then stays about the same between one and six months (though it likely increases short term during growth spurts). Current breastfeeding research does not indicate that breastmilk intake changes with baby's age or weight between one and six months. After six months, breastmilk intake will continue at this same level until -- sometime after six months, depending in baby's intake from other foods -- baby's milk intake begins to decrease gradually (see below).

The research tells us that exclusively breastfed babies take in an average of 25 oz (750 mL) per day between the ages of 1 month and 6 months. Different babies take in different amounts of milk; a typical range of milk intakes is 19-30 oz per day (570-900 mL per day).

We can use this information to estimate the average amount of milk baby will need at a feeding:

Estimate the number of times that baby nurses per day (24 hours).
Then divide 25 oz by the number of nursings.
This gives you a "ballpark" figure for the amount of expressed milk your exclusively breastfed baby will need at one feeding.
Example: If baby usually nurses around 8 times per day, you can guess that baby might need around 3 ounces per feeding when mom is away. (25/8=3.1).

Thanks Jeanie, that's looks like the one I was given