How many oz of BM for a 3mo?

[LilMomma83]

DS gets 5-7 3oz bottles of BM a day - he is fed on deamnd by DCP or DH while I'm at work. I feed him from the breast 2-3 times in the morning before I go to work...last week and the week before I was feeding him 1-3 times after I got home as well but this past week he has always been asleep. So he is getting about 19-21oz of expressed milk plus his 2-3 feeds with me in the morining...is this enough? I would not worry except that he had been eating more...and also when I started working at a different job about 2mos ago he started by drinking 6oz of expressed milk (I worked 4hrs a day) and then ended up drinking about 2oz - I think he was waiting for me...so I'm worried that's what he's doing now, but he is just falling asleep instead. I try to wake him up to eat but he doesn't wake up.

What do you think - is he getting enough to eat? He's 3.5mo

[tanyalynn]

I think around 3 mos is one of the typical growth spurt ages, so the decrease could be coming off of that. The amount you mentioned seems reasonable to me, based on how much I remember pumping for my daughter (3yrs ago--I worked different hours with my son and so was away shorter stretches).

My two kids were very different in how much they drank, but the common thing was that they would let me know if they were hungry. I'd think that unless you've got medical issues going on, and as long as the common sense stuff seems okay (baby is awake/alert the same as always, the wet/poopy diapers seem reasonable, etc), it's probably fine. My son, especially, liked nursing better than bottles, and since he didn't sleep through the night at that age (we're just getting there now, at 15mos old), he made up any daytime deficit with evening/night nursing. And I forgot at what age it was that the kids got faster nursing, but after a while I really noticed that nursing was pretty efficient, and they were clearly thriving, but it was taking a lot less sitting down time (I never figured out nursing while on-the-go). That was a long, wordy way of saying it's probably fine.

If you want more definitive guidelines, kellymom.com has ranges based on ages and I think based on body weight. That may help, though it's still hard since there's no ounce marker on breasts to see how much they take directly.

[RootSnort]

Just watch diaper count!
If you start to get concerned, you can weigh used diapers on a food scale.

[wantads]

How much should they weigh rootsnort? Thanks!

[LilMomma83]

I'm also wondering about the diaper count...DS pees often but has only been pooing twice a day or so lately. But we EC so I think maybe he just holds it while he is at daycare (DCP uses cloth with him so I inspect al his dipes when I unpack them)

So what is considered normal?


Ohh...and DH mentioned he looks bigger...so maybe he did have a growth spurt.

[RootSnort]

I don't really know if there's an average, I suspect it is a comparison against baby's own average. I will try to find out. I remember them weighing them when my son was in NICU for pyloric stenosis, rather than weighing him, so I will ask that hospital! Looking on the Internet for this information has just led me to many people selling diaper scales. *shakes head*