A nursing mom frequently asks this question in the early weeks of breastfeeding. How do I know if my baby is getting enough breast milk?
In bottle feeding, we can easily see how much milk baby is taking. In contrast, measuring breast milk intake is not that straight forward.
Some well-meaning relatives may say, if baby cries after feeding, that means he wants more. If a baby is at the breast all the time, that means you are not producing enough milk. If baby finishes bottle after breastfeeding, that means he does not get adequate breast milk. And the list goes on.
But are those signs really true? Fortunately NO. Yes, your baby may still get enough breast milk even though he behaves like that.
As a nursing mom, you need to know, how to tell EXACTLY if your baby is getting enough. And not only that! You should be able to explain to your family and relatives -who thought your baby is starving- that they may be wrong.
Is my baby getting enough?
There are two ways to check if your baby is taking adequate breast milk, diaper count and weight gain. Very simple, right. Let’s discuss each of them in more detail.
>>Just starting to breastfeed? Click here to get a handy checklist to prepare you for breastfeeding<<
How many diaper counts your baby should have
I strongly recommend every mother to keep track on your baby’s progress, especially during the first few weeks after birth. I did mine in a baby log book given by the hospital where I gave birth. If you don’t have any baby log book yet, at the end of this post , I’ll share where to download it for FREE.
Here are some guidelines to monitor your newborn baby’s diaper output.
- At the first two days, baby will have about 2-3 wet diapers and pass meconium (dark green colored stools).
- As milk starts to come in around day 2-3 (it can take longer than that, mine comes at day 5), the number of wet diapers will increase to 3-5 per day. The stool will gradually transform into greenish, then mustard yellow. It is also common to see something like ‘mustard seeds’ in the stool.
- If milk has not come in yet, you may notice some pink crystals in the diaper, indicating baby gets low milk intake. If this happens at day 2 or 3, don’t worry yet. But if this occurs consistently, even at day 4-5, get help as soon as possible.
- As the milk supply establishes, baby will have 6-8 wet diapers and 3-5 stools a day. The stool frequency can be up to 12 times a day (some babies are like this), as long as the stool is not too runny, he will be fine.
Wet diaper indicator: How wet is wet enough?
- Have a sample of soaked diaper. Take a clean diaper; pour 2 table spoons of water or 3 table spoons (if your baby weighs more than 3.6kg) onto it. This is how a soaked diaper would feel. Now, put that sample diaper in a ziplock bag. Whenever you change your baby’s diaper, compare the diaper wetness with the diaper sample.
- Use cloth diapers. With cloth diapers, it is easier to check if diaper is really wet. I personally use this method, but if you don’t want, I truly understand the reason. Do what you find most comfortable for yourself.
- Use a disposable diaper with wetness indicator. Some diaper brands, like Huggies, has diaper type with has wetness indicator, that change color when the diaper is wet enough. The indicator may vary across brands, such as line strips or star-shape pattern.
What is the normal weight gain to indicate enough milk intake?
If milk comes in rather slow, baby may lose more weight, but will catch up as soon as milk is available, and typically this group will get back to her birth weight at the end of second week.
It is normal for a baby to lose weight up to 10% of her birth weight. If milk comes in early (around day 2-3), baby will usually gain weight faster and will be back to her birth weight at the end of the first week. When milk comes rather slow, usually he will be back to birth weight after 2 weeks.
Monitoring baby weight gain
- Between 0-3 months old: baby should gain approximately 1oz (30 gr) daily or at least 6 oz (180 gr) weekly
- Between 4-6 months old: baby should gain at least 0.6oz (18 gr) daily
- Between 7-9 months old: baby should gain at least 0.4 oz (12 gr) daily
- Between 10-12 months old: baby should gain at least 0.3 oz (9 gr) daily
Important!
When you track your baby’s weight gain, you want the scale reading to be as accurate as possible. For that, pay attention to the following:
- While the indicators here are specified in daily, in normal case, weighing the baby once a week should suffice for monitoring purpose.
- Weight reading to be taken at the same scale. For most accurate result, the weight should be measured using exactly the same scale. Simply because each scale measures differently. If you use your hospital scale at week 0 and your own scale at week 1, you may get some mismatch in readings. For best result, you may want to rent a high-quality baby scale to have consistent readings
- Remove baby clothing before weighing. We don’t want baby’s clothing to affect the scale reading, so it is best to remove all clothing and accessories, such as booties, mittens, hat, including the diaper.
- Consistent weighing time. If you weigh weekly, make sure you do it at exact same day, e.g Monday to Monday. For even better accuracy, do it at same timing (say always do it in the morning).
Weighing every few days or weekly is usually enough for most of the cases, but in critical cases, weighing should be performed daily.
Feeding test weight
If you want to measure how much breast milk exactly a baby takes for every feeding, you can do feeding test weight.
This is usually done when a baby receives a mixture between breast milk and supplementation, so that diaper output and normal weighing can not be used as a reference. The amount of milk taken is simply the weight after subtract the weight before. And then, you can convert the weight to volumetric unit to get the amount of milk in ounces or ml.
Please notice that the amount of milk that your baby is taking in a single feeding varies throughout the day, so multiple weighing (ideally throughout every feeding in 24-hour period) should be performed to get more accurate result.
Now that you have tracked baby weight gain and diaper output, you can roughly gauge if your baby has taken enough milk. If your monitoring result indicate that she doesn’t get enough milk, seek professional help as soon as possible.
In the part 2 of this article we will rule out common misconceptions on breastfed baby behavior.
Oh, before you go, here is the FREE baby log book printable that I was talking about. Enjoy!
Do you want to read further about:
- how to get a head start of your milk production
- how to know if your baby is getting enough milk
- how to maximize your milk supply
- which food and herbs can boost up your supply
- how to supplement your baby without sacrificing your milk supply
- how to build up supply prior of going back to work
All of these topics are covered in this comprehensive guide for making more milk.
Hi there, this is good and an amazing. I will soon be a Dad and I can’t help myself but prepare for the inevitable.
Thank you for such an informative read, well presented and easy to understand. i will be going through this with my wife because this is her first time too even though she’s already getting some education and training at the moment.
Hi Cedric, congratulation on being a dad soon. Having a supportive spouse is a blessing for every wife. Even more crucial while going through newborn stage and early breastfeeding days. It’s great that you are willing to go through this information together with your wife.
What I found most beneficial for a parent-to be is to sit together in a training or breastfeeding-related course so that they gain the same level of understanding. This is especially true for my husband. After attending a semi-private breastfeeding course together with me, he knew much better about the benefit of breastfeeding, what to do if unexpected happens, and even more supportive about my breastfeeding efforts.
I wish your wife a smooth and safe delivery, followed by a great breastfeeding journey.
Great article, my daughter worries about this, and I will direct her to this post. It makes total sense to look at weight gain and diaper count. Thanks for laying it out with the numbers, this is a big help. There is some amazing diaper calculations and technique for young mothers to know the truth. Is it ok to feed baby formula and skip breast feeding, is this healthy?
Yeah, having some numbers really help to monitor the diaper output and weight gain. And also, should your daughter need advise from medical practitioners, make sure they are pro-breastfeeding professionals.
As your question about is it ok to feed baby formula, I can’t answer it specifically because I don’t know your daughter’s detailed condition. In general, WHO strongly encourages to exclusively breastfeed a baby until 6 months old. In some circumstances, for example, when mother’s milk supply is really low and no donor milk available, formula feeding might be necessary. But, I would personally consult with doctor and lactation consultant for further details. You may also find this article useful should you consider formula feeding. It lists out several articles about pros and cons of breastfeeding and formula feeding, or how to combine them. Hope this helps!
Hi Rina, that’s a very nice post you’ve got there. My cousins have very little knowledge about breastfeeding and so they struggle to feed their babies. I wish I knew your site sooner so I knew what to tell them! Is it good if babies are overweight for the first few years?
Thanks again!
Hi Gin, as far as I know, overweight babies may be at higher risk to develop obesities in the later part of their life. However, this does not mean that we should restrict baby’s diet as what typically adults do. Instead, encourage a healthier lifestyle will helps them overcome this problem. You can check some suggestions in this article.
Do your cousins live in Singapore? There, I know that babies and children have regular developmental screening. Part of the screening is to monitor their growth, so the parents will be informed in which percentile their babies are (in terms of height, weight, etc). If the nurse/doctor finds that they are at risk of being overweight, they usually give some specific advise on what to do. Hope this helps.
Thanks for this article. I was a breastfeeding mom and I know from experience that loads of mothers everywhere can relate to your article. You feel helpless when something as simple as feeding your baby becomes difficult. As mothers we always want to nurture our children and make sure they have more than enough of everything. Low milk production can be depressing.
Very true, Merceadez. We all mothers want to give the best to our children. And that includes giving breast milk at their very first stage of their life. The early days of breastfeeding can be challenging, yet, it’s all worth it, because providing breast milk is one of the best gift to our kids.
Hi Rina, It is a good article. Now I have some knowledge about the feeding baby. although I am a man, but I shared your article to my wife. Now she knew how a baby get enough a breast milk. In our experience, my daughter loses a more weight when he/she was 6 month old. I think she may not enough a breast milk. Next time my wife will practice your technique for my next baby. thanks for your informative article
Hi Rina, It is a good article. Now I have some knowledge about the feeding baby. although I am a man, but I shared your article to my wife. Now she knew how a baby get enough a breast milk. In our experience, my daughter loses a more weight when he/she was 6 month old. I think she may not enough a breast milk. Next time my wife will practice your technique for my next baby. thanks for your informative article
Hi Chris, that’s a very nice of you of sharing this article to your wife. Some babies experience a rapid growth during their exclusively-breastfed period and grow slightly slower once they are past 6-month remark. Whereas other babies are totally the opposite. I think your baby belongs to the first group (my sister’s baby also like that). All of them are still considered normal, providing that they don’t deviate too much in their growth chart.
I love your site! I have a constricted breast and so that side was barely able to produce any milk at all. My family was totally not supportive at all, and while I knew I would need to supplement it was important for me to know that I was giving my baby as much breast milk as I possibly could. We were of course alerted to the fact that I had a low supply by her decline in birth weight before we left the hospital. I wish I would have had a resource like this though to help me through that rough time. Thank you so much for sharing.
Dear Faith,
I can totally relate to your story. I have very similar issue, but a milder one.
I applaud you for your determination to give your baby as much as breast milk as you can despite your condition. Yeah, some people simply do not understand that we want to give our most breast milk, no matter how little it is. Breastfeeding is not all or nothing.
Perhaps next time if you plan to have another baby, try to ask your family to accompany you to a breastfeeding course. I did that with my husband, and it totally changes his perception regarding breastfeeding. He’s fully supportive, even until now that my baby is 21 months old.
Btw, loosing weight after birth is totally a normal thing as long as it is still within certain range (if I’m not wrong, around 10%). My baby lost more (about 20% at day 5), but my pediatrician doesn’t seem to be worried about that and just asked me to continue nursing her. But I guess, it should be assessed on case by case basis.
Hi Rina (: I gotta say, your site was very informative. Though I’m not a parent, and don’t plan on becoming one anytime soon, I decided to save all the info for the future! I’ve also shared your site with my neighbor who just became a mother 3 days ago. She’s told me that she took your advice of keeping a weight log book for baby.
I do have one concern though. Besides weight gain and diaper count, how else would we know if baby gets enough breast milk? Also, is it possible for them to get TOO much breast milk? If so, how would we know about that? Just for future reference.. Your input will be greatly appreciated. (:
Hi there,
Thanks for sharing the article with your friend, I really appreciate it.
You can always watch the baby for clues that she gets enough milk, e.g. looking content after feeding. But some times, newborn babies is hard to judged simply from their social clues. They can be crying and crying , but not because of milk but because some thing else. That’s why monitoring diaper count and weight is more recommended.
As for too much breast milk, I think, if baby is allowed to nurse at breast freely, she won’t have this kind of problem because she can always stop whenever she feels full. Over feeding usually occurs to bottle-fed baby when we expect baby to always finish the bottle
You grabbed my attention when you said that it is not the temper of the baby or the fact that they can keep eating a bottle after getting off the breast. We had our 4 boys and my wife breastfed all of them, some longer then others. Our first and 4th she fed for the full year and a little over with no issues. We have twins and they were in the NICU for about 3 weeks. So my wife pumped while they were in the hospital and pumped a lot of supply to even be able to freeze at home for a while. But once the twins came home she would breastfeed them and then offer the pumped milk to see if they wanted more and they would drink it. So we thought well I guess she is not making enough since they still want more. So by about 8 months we went to just formula as she was breastfeeding them and then topping them up with formula anyway. But that is a great point about not looking at all that and just stick to are they gaining weight, are they pooping, when all is good. It is hard for a parents of a new baby to wait that full week to see the number on the scale, a week is like forever.
Hi Michael,
Glad that you can relate to that.
I remember with my first baby I didn’t produce enough milk, and being frustrated, I fed him as much as formula milk until he shut his mouth up (I was spoon-feeding him back then). But I still remember his expression. No, it’s not a satisfied look because he’s feeling content, but rather, kind of ‘please stop it, mom’. At that time, I didn’t have enough knowledge about breastfeeding and I regretted it a lot.