Expressed breast milk

[Matty]

I'm curious how much breast milk other mum's bottle feed to their babies.
My 12 week old is big, pushing 7kg, so I'd assumed that he would take decent sized bottle feeds by now.
So, annoyingly I've frozen quite a bit of EBM in 150-200ml lots.
My hubby was feeding him today while I was out, and he would only take 80mls at a time, even though the feeds were 3 hrs apart.

Is this usual? My formula fed son used to drink way more by this age.

 

[Buckeroo]

I would suggest that you freeze in smaller lots --say, 60 or 90ml each. This way, you don't waste too much.

 

[LLL_Sarah]

A fully breastfed baby will take about 750 mls in 24 hours. It is difficult to say how much at each feed but if you divide 750 by the number of feeds he has this should give an average for each feed. Most 12 week old babies are still having between 8 and 12 feeds a day so this would work out at between 90 mls and 60 mls per feed.

One of the big differences between breast feeding and formula feeding is that the total amount of milk the baby takes stays the same as the baby grows. So a one month old baby and a six month old baby both drink about 750 mls every day.

We usually recommend that you store your milk in small amounts as it is easy to defrost another if required and this reduces the wastage. One suggestion is to freeze the milk in a sterilized ice cube tray and then store it in a bag. This allows you to keep adding small amounts if the baby is particularly hungry at that feed. And the cubes defrost very quickly.

How long do you need to store your milk for? Breastfeed will stay fresh in the fridge for up to seven days. If you are going to use it within this time frame it is easier to store it fresh rather than freezing it.

Best wishes,
SARAH

 

[DUCKY]

Josh usually takes at least 120ml - 150mls when givn EBM. He is taking a bit more now because he's a bit older than L, but the 120 - 150mls was normal for him when he was younger.

Maybe you can keep your frozen EBM tucked away in the freezer for awhile until L gets a bit older so you aren't wasting them. Josh will take between 150ml - 250mls of EBM now.

I like your point about his weight though, as Josh is about 7.5 kg's and that's what he's taking now.

Belinda

 

[noc]

My baby has taken 2 bottles of breast milk since about 12 weeks to now, 10 months. Her range has been from 60 ml (at around 12 weeks, and during her bottle refusing period) to an average of 120 ml with solids now. Her bottles are given to her about every 2 to 2.5 hours when I am not around. Her growth has been fine, since like Sarah says, a baby needs much less breast milk than formula.

For frozen milk, this can be kept up to 6 months and my baby was fine taking it, although she would only take the older milk mixed up in cereal, etc. We used up the stock I had from her bottle refusing period this way.

Defrosted milk is fine if used in the same day, so you can split up one big bag into two separate meals. That is what my helper did when my baby wasn't taking much from a bottle. But I think that you can only use save the defrosted milk over the course of the day, if it hasn't already been touched by your baby's mouth.