Find out how much newborns should eat

2024 Author: Priscilla Miln | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 00:21

A newborn baby can normally weigh from 2.5 kg to 4 kg. It seems that one and a half kilograms is not much, but not for a newborn baby. Outwardly, children with such a big difference in weight look very different, and their capabilities are also different. But any new mother is concerned about the question of how much newborns should eat?

Immediately after birth, children usually lose weight: meconium is excreted, which has accumulated in the intestines throughout fetal life. And the baby is still sucking milk is not enough. Normally, weight loss should not exceed 10% of the child's original weight. That is, for a small child it is 250 grams, and for a large child it is 400 grams.

After two or three days, the weight gradually begins to recover. How much should newborns eat to regain weight faster? On the first day, the mother does not yet have milk, but this does not mean that the child does not need to be fed. The baby must suckle colostrum in order to stimulate the production of milk and to improve the functioning of his intestines. Howmilliliters should a newborn eat if it's just colostrum?

Colostrum is a special fluid made up of antibodies and proteins. There is much less water and carbohydrates in it than in mature milk. The volume of colostrum is very modest: it is allocated from 50 to 100 ml per day.

If the baby often suckles at the breast, he has normal urination, meconium comes out, then no matter how much the newborn eats, this is enough for him.

Gradually, colostrum is replaced by the so-called transitional milk. It is more liquid than mature milk and is excreted in fairly large quantities. Transitional, and then mature milk for everyone comes at the right time: for someone it happens by the end of the second day, and for someone only on the fourth day after birth.

After lactation is established, an infant should normally eat approximately 10 ml for each day of life. That is, 30 ml on the third day, 50 ml on the fifth, 70 ml on the seventh (calculation for one feeding).

By a month, the baby eats about 100 ml per feeding. But all these norms are good for artificers who are fed by the hour and with strictly allotted volumes of the mixture. How much breastfed newborns should eat no one will say. Such a rule simply does not exist. Now it is recommended to apply to the breast on demand, and this need for the crumbs can occur every half hour. Of course, a baby who eats so often will not suck out the same volumes at a time as a baby who has not eaten in three hours.

How much should newborns eat if they are low birth weight? Typically, these children have a very small stomach volume, and therefore there is simply no opportunity to eat a lot at once. But milk is absorbed fairly quickly, they are often applied to the breast and gain more in a month than fat girls at birth.

So how many milliliters should a newborn eat at each feeding if he is breastfeeding?

As many as you want. This is not a biological machine, a newborn is a living person, and his appetite depends on how he feels and even his mood. Sufficiency of feeding is determined by the number of urination per day. There must be at least twelve of them. If a child urinates 12 or more times a day, he is eating enough, you can be sure of this.