I was told to give my newborn baby 57mls per feed on day 2?
Where does this very precise (and difficult to accurately measure) volume come from and does it make any sense?
Well it comes from a calculation which bases infant feed volumes on 150ml per kilo weight per day divided by 8 feeds a day.
We know that a newborn has a stomach capacity of 20ml (Bergman, 2013). Yet parents of a newborn weighing 3.5kg would be told to give 65ml per feed. No wonder parents tell me their babies have vomited after being given these disproportionate amounts!
At the other end of the scale I have seen a 7 week old baby who had fallen off the bottom of the growth chart because this calculation had been used to calculate feed volumes. At 7 weeks he was only getting 54ml per feed with a total intake of around 500ml when babies of this age average 90-120ml per feed, total intake around 700ml.
Research on milk production indicates that around 27ml of colostrum is produced in the first 24 hours and this gradually rises to around 550ml by day 5, and around 750ml by day 28. Volumes then stabilise at between about 850-950ml per day (Neville at al, 1989). These volumes are not significantly influenced by baby's weight.
A meta-analysis and systematic review of 167 studies on daily breastmilk intake found mean breast milk intake was 624 mL per day at 1 month, 735 mL per day at 3 months, 729 mL per day at 6 months, and 593 mL per day at 12 months (Magali Rios-Leyvraz and Qisi Yao, 2023).
A further study of 71 exclusively breastfed infants aged 1-6 months found that these babies fed from 6-18 times a day and intake at each breastfeed ranged from 0-240ml (Kent, et al, 2006).
These are the volumes we need to keep in mind when working out feed volumes for babies. Most babies between one month and 6 months will be consuming 600-800ml per day. Volumes can be estimated by taking this daily volume and dividing it by the number of feeds per day. Babies up to 12 weeks are expected to feed on average 8-12 times per day and then this reduces from 3-6 months to 6-8 times per day.
So with all of this in mind I suggest the following full feed volumes below based on age to my clients:
Day 3 20-30ml
Day 4 30-40ml
Day 5 40-50ml
Day 6 50-60ml
Day 7-10 60ml
Day 10-21 60-90ml
Day 21-28 90-120ml
6-8 weeks 120mls
By week 12 some babies may be taking up to 150-180ml at some feeds. Your baby will tell you when they are ready for a bit more.
Top ups of course, given after breastfeeds to boost weight gain or when babies are being very inefficient at the breast, should be less than this. Typically a quarter to half of these full volumes. But your lactation consultant can advise on this.
Most babies will never take more than 180ml per feed and won't do this regularly at every feed. But the research has shown that some older breastfed babies occasionally take up to 240ml in a feed (Kent. et al, 2006) So when some lactation consultants insist that anything over 120ml per feed at any age is overfeeding that is at odds with the research.
