[peainpod]

I've been exclusively breastfeeding my baby from birth for 2 months now - mostly he nurses from the breast but the last few weeks, we have been giving him one bottle of EBM for the late night (dream?) feed at around 3 a.m.

I've increased the bottle amt from around 3-1/2 oz (which clearly wasn't enough) to 5 oz now, just to ensure my husband would have more than enough for that one feed (and I wouldn't have to follow up with the breast right after he finishes the bottle).

My questions are:

1) Is 5 oz too much for one feed for a 2-mth baby? (He is currently in the 97th percentile for both weight and height!) Should I reduce it to 4 oz?

(Btw, the big bottle feed hasn't extended his sleeping time at all. He will sleep for 4 hours prior to the bottle feed but then after the EBM, he usually only sleeps for about 2 or 2-1/2 hours b4 waking for the next feed.)

2) I will be returning to work in another month's time, so I am trying to figure out the feeding schedule once I start work. (I will be gone from 9am to 6pm so my helper will probably need to feed 2-3 times in my absence.) How much EBM does a 3-mth old drink at one time? Is it still 4 oz? When do we increase the amt to 6 oz?

[LeahH]

Hi, I pumped exclusively and fed my daughter EBM from a bottle the whole time. Don't worry if you are not following the amounts they list for formula fed babies as BM changes composition as the baby gets older. You don't need to be increasing the volume they drink.

At 3 months she used to take between 25-30 ozs a day and continued to take this amount til we started solids at 6 months when it reduced a little. This would sort of break out into:

Morning - 4/6 ozs
Lunch - 6
Mid Afternoon - 4
Before bed at 6pm - 6
dream feed at 10.30pm - 4 (this was formula)
Night feed around between 3-5am - 4

At 2 months she was still waking 2 x times in the night and would take 4 ozs at each feed!

You shouldn't worry if he wants' more, he can't have too much EBM (over feeding is really only an issue with formula)

Hope that helps.

L

[LeahH]

BTW, my little girl is also in the 97th percentile for weight so perhaps they need a little more at that size!

[peainpod]

Thanks so much LeahH! Your msg really helped relieve a lot of the questions I had.

(Maybe it's the sleep deprivation but I was kind of obsessing about this. I went through all of my books on babycare and while they go on at length about feeding vols for formula, none had anything on EBM. (I guess that's b/c as you said, overfeeding is not an issue for breastmilk.)

Do you freeze your EBM? If so, what sort of volumes do you put into each bag? 4 oz or 6 oz. portions? Do we need to increase the portion amts as he gets older (i.e. after 3 months?) I don't want to defrost too much for one feed and have to throw it away if he doesn't finish...

[kellyst]

I do exclusive EBM to with my second at 5mths now. he's taking 6oz per feed, going 4 hrs each time. he basically finishes what i pump so we don't have excess to freeze.

For my first child, i had a lot of excess BM and had two freezer full, but then we tried giving her the frozen BM, it clearly tasted different, she didn't like it and also i think caught a stomach bug. so we dared not gave her the frozen stuff again. huge heartache having to dump two freezers full of EBM.
i don't mean to scare you, but my point is if you do freeze. best to try the frozen milk earlier before freezing large amounts for weeks and months and then find out it doesn't work. i find that coz there are so much more steps to freezing, trasferring from bottle to bags, freezing, defrosting etc.. the possiblity of contamination increases. i just had a bad experience maybe others with more positive experience with freezing can chime in, i never got the freezing part down. good luck!

[LLL_Sarah]

Dear Peainpod,

As Leah mentioned a fully breastfed baby drinks around 28 oz a day (in 24 hours). And as babies tend to drink about the same amount at each feed (give or take a little) it depends on how often your baby is feeding.

A baby that is still having 11 feeds a day will drink about 2.5 oz at each feed while baby that is only having 7 feeds a day will drink about 4 oz at each feed. 6oz would be considered a very large meal for a fully breastfed baby – most would never get to that amount in one sitting.

Usually we suggest storing the milk in small quantities (1 oz or 2 oz lots) so that you can give a little and then add more if necessary – this way less is wasted. One mother I knew froze her milk in an ice cube tray and when the milk was solid transferred it to plastic bags. This way she could defrost small quantities for the baby. And because the milk-cubes were quick to heat up if the baby needed more it was quick and easy to give more.

Remember that fresh milk is better for your baby than frozen milk. Beast milk can be stored in your fridge for up to 7 days. I used to keep it in one large bottle and pour out small amounts to heat up and give the baby in a separate bottle – again less wastage.

I think it is possible to over feed when giving milk in a bottle even if it is breast milk in the bottle. It is the way the milk comes out of the bottle rather than what is in it that makes overfeeding a possibility. When using a bottle the milk keeps dripping out even after the baby has had enough. So as the baby continues to suck he continues to get milk. And so the baby only stops sucking when his body is telling him he is very full – past the point of being satisfied. Whereas when the baby is full with the breast the baby changes his sucking technique and gets the sucking but not much milk. I think of this as the difference between having dinner at home with my husband, when one plateful is enough, and going out to a buffet, when I tend to eat three or four platefuls!

One every common happening (which can be very worrying to a new mother) is the fact a breastfed baby will nearly always take milk from a bottle after a feed. This isn’t because the baby didn’t get enough milk from the breast. It is just like saying yes to a dessert after a meal not because you need it but because it was offered.

Best wishes,
SARAH

[LeahH]

Hi

Mostly I'd just pump and store in the fridge, as Sarah said it lasts for 7 days. I did build up a little frozen stash with the extras and always saved it in 2-4oz portions depending on how much I had spare. The frozen milk came in handy on days when my supply was low (tired etc. which you will no doubt be after going back to work!) and for mixing with solids when we started weaning.

When she dropped the middle of the night feed (4.5 months) she would just take a little more in the morning (6ozs instead of 4)

L

[peainpod]

Does refrigerated milk really last 7 days? I've heard everything from 24 hrs to 72 hrs - but this is the first time I learned it could keep for up to a week! I've even thrown out one bottle of milk after 24 hrs when the baby slept past that time for his EBM feed! (I am NEVER doing that again. Watching the milk go down the drain was just too traumatic!)

Sarah, thanks for the ice cube tip! I'll try to freeze smaller quantities in the bag and then use those for top-ups in case it's not enough.

Kellyst, altho I've just started and only have 4 bags in the freezer so far, I did buy 2 boxes of Lansinoh bags (50 in total) so I really really hope that my baby won't reject the frozen milk. (But I will definitely try feeding it to him soon just to be sure he'll take it!)