how much B/Milk

if i was to express for a feed
how much would a 6 week old need ??

Gosh.......100mls sounds like alot for a 6 week old baby to me, but they are all individuals. My 4.5 month old only ever had twobottles over 100ml ever. LOL I always left milk out in 50ml increments so if he wanted more he could have it but none got wasted..................it's liquid gold and considering how hard some women have to work to get a few mls I'd want as little wastage as possible.

Kellymom has a handy milk calculatorthat gives a high, low and average range based on how often they are feeding in 24 hours. A bf baby can be overfed with a bottle because their sucking needs haven't been met so they think they are still hungry when they aren't. So as a 'rule' if a bf takes 15 minutes the bottle feed should too. Here is a link to bottle feeding the bf baby

Jake was taking about 100ml per feed from the breast at 6 weeks so that sounds about right to me... but yup they are all different. I would offer about 80ml to start and then 20 ml increments until bubs is full...

Just be aware that you may not be able to express enough for a feed in one go.

Mamma2N wrote: As I said, sometimes she would take it all, sometimes not. For her first EBM feed at 1 week old she took 90mls, so for 6 weeks 100mls was right for us.

I didn't say it wasn't right for you, in fact I also said they are individuals I said it sounded like alot to me based on my experience. I know that with my baby if he gulped a bottle of ebm he'd scream for ages afterwards and act hungry when he actually wasn't.

What I have found is that most people use the backs of formula tins when recommending ebm amounts and the two aren't comparable and from my experiences bf babies generally need heaps less ebm than a ff baby of the same age would which is why kellymom has a handy calculator based on how often they feed and gives a 'baseline' with 'wiggle room' either side instead of assuming ALL babies of the same age will take the same amounts.

When I was back in hospital when Lydia was 1 week old, I expressed 150mL for mum for feed her so I could sleep. the little guts drank the whole thing, and was still hungry!!!!! Surprised the heck out of mum and the night MW. And then a couple of weeks ago (6 months) would only drink 50mL...

Good idea to do it in 50mL lots, it's such a waste when they leave most of it behind!

mumtooboys wrote: Mamma, I apologise , I was having a bad day that day (was my dad's birthday and he's been gone for 11 years) so I took it personally..........as I am want to do at times. LOL The joys of the written word.

Hey no worries at all! Sorry if I caused any offence! Its quite annoying not hearing the tone of anothers voice really! I hope you've had a better day today

The way that the hospital calculates how much to feed a baby is 180mls per kg per day. Our girls are only on 150mls per kg per day at 6 weeks (mainly because they're small and have excellent weight gains on that), so works out to be 450mls per day....or 75ml per feed (6 feeds per day) for Miss A who is exactly 3kg.

I think that makes sense?