When you’re exclusively pumping for your baby – or even if you’re both nursing and bottle feeding pumped milk – it can be hard to know exactly how much your baby should be eating. How much should your baby get per feeding? How much should he or she eat in a day?
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Many people feeding pumped breast milk (including me, when I was a new, confused, and sleep-deprived exclusive pumper) refer to formula feeding guidelines for an idea of how much they should be giving their babies.
However, formula and breast milk aren’t the same – for example, breast milk is metabolized faster than formula. And because most breastfed babies are nursed, there is no way to tell how much they are taking in (short of weighing them before and after every feeding with a baby scale).
So, how to know how much breast milk should your baby be eating?
I recently did a survey of women that exclusively pumped for their babies, and one of the questions that I asked the respondents was how much milk their babies ate on a daily basis. I’ll go through these results first, and then go through the recommendations for formula fed babies to see how they compare.
What is the average milk intake per day for breastfed babies drinking from bottles?
The overall average intake for babies across the first year was 26.8 oz (792.5 ml); after one month of age, the minimum reported daily intake for was 16 oz (473 ml) and the maximum was 48 oz (1,420 ml). Below is a chart showing how the results were distributed:
Here we can see that most babies eat between 24 (710 ml) and 30 oz (887 ml).
How many ounces do breastfed babies eat at 2 months, 3 months, 4 months, etc.?
As one might expect, breast milk intake varied slightly with the baby’s age, with it averaging slightly lower in the first month of life and then increasing up to between 26 and 28 oz (770 and 828 ml) until about 10 months of age.
At this point, presumably, solids are making up a more substantial part of the baby’s diet, and the average drops down to 25 oz (740ml) at 10 months and 19.5 oz (577 ml) at 11 months.
I also looked to see if breast milk intake varied by any other factors that I had asked about in the survey, such as the age of the mother, whether the baby was a first baby or a subsequent child, and race. I didn’t find any statistically significant differences based on maternal or child characteristics, except for the age of the baby as described above.
The one relationship that I did find with regard to a baby’s intake of breast milk was the amount of milk that the mother pumped. Mothers that pumped more milk tended to feed their babies more milk.
This could be for a few different reasons. For example, mothers that switched from nursing to exclusive pumping might be closely in sync with the amount of milk that their baby needs. Additionally, women with supply on the low end of the spectrum that have babies that also don’t need as much milk might not work to bring it up as much as mothers whose babies take in more.
How does average breast milk quantity consumed compare to formula feeding guidelines?
I was curious whether or not the results that I got in survey would be similar to formula feeding guidelines, so I looked up the American Academy of Pediatrics guidelines. Reading them is a bit confusing, as the descriptions of appropriate intake use three ranges – the age of the baby (i.e., 1-3 months), the amount of formula (i.e., 2-3 oz), and the number of feedings (i.e., every 3-4 hours).
To simplify things, I broke the guidelines down into the below table:
Here we can see that the total daily recommended intake is fairly close to the averages reported above for babies by age. The recommendation is slightly lower in the beginning, but on par with actual totals for breastfed babies by six months.
The guidelines specifically state not to feed a baby more than 32 oz (946 ml) of formula per day. I’m not sure whether or not that recommendation would also apply to breast milk, but over 10% of the respondents’ babies drank more breast milk than that on a daily basis.
(Including mine! The baby that I exclusively pumped for was a really big baby who ate 40 oz of breast milk on the regular, so hopefully it’s not an issue for breast milk.)
Note: The typical feeding schedule for breastfed babies may be very different from that of formula-fed babies. It’s more common for breastfed babies to eat more often and less on schedule than formula-fed babies, likely because (as noted above) breast milk is metabolized more quickly than formula. This discussion is only about total intake.
How much breast milk should you give your baby per feeding?
This depends on baby’s age and varies quite a bit by baby, but here is a visual that might help you understand a newborn’s stomach capacity.
I didn’t include amounts per feeding in my survey, but I will share the amounts in my baby’s bottles at different ages (again, this is just my baby and yours might have different needs):
- First month (after the first week) – 2-3 ounces per feeding
- Second and third month – about 3 ounces per feeding
- Third and fourth month – 3-4 ounces per feeding
- Fifth month going forward – 4-5 ounces per feeding
So, what should you do with this information?
I get frequent questions as to how many ounces should be in a baby’s bottle at given ages.
Unfortunately, there is no one-size-fits all answer. As you can see from the first chart, there is a huge variation in what breastfed babies will eat in a given day – your baby might be one that only needs 20 oz per day or one (like mine) who needs a lot more.
My goal with this post was to be able to give mothers a ballpark as to what is “normal” for breastfed babies to eat in a given day, and if you want, you can use this as a starting point that you can tweak based on your baby’s needs.
Ultimately, though, I would let your baby be your guide. If he finishes his bottle and still seems hungry and isn’t soothed by a pacifier or any of your other tricks, then I would go ahead and feed him more. If he’s on the other end of the spectrum and just doesn’t like to eat much, I wouldn’t push it unless there is an issue with weight gain (and then I would discuss the best approach with your pediatrician).
Note: If you’re a data geek like me and interested in more survey data, I wrote an e-book about exclusive pumping and milk supply that makes extensive use of it; you can check out here.
References- Exclusive Pumping and Milk Supply survey, conducted 1/2015.
- Healthy Children. “Amount and Schedule of Formula Feedings.” https://www.healthychildren.org/English/ages-stages/baby/feeding-nutrition/Pages/Amount-and-Schedule-of-Formula-Feedings.aspx
Is it normal to do 3-4 oz breast milk every 3 hours? My two month old has about 6-7 feedings a day.
Hi Carissa! Yes, that seems very normal.
From the bottom of my heart, thank you Amanda for this survey data. This is the only place on the internet we could find this information from a somewhat reliable and authoritative source!
Thank you!
This is very helpful. I must be lucky – for 2 months now I’ve been able to keep up to my baby (4 1/2 mo) with pumping just 3 times a day, getting minimum 250mL each time. I pump at 10PM, 6AM, and 2PM (sometimes I’ll split the 2PM pumping to get more, instead pumping at 11:30AM and 3:30PM, to compensate for growth spurts or extra hungry days). She drinks about 90mL each feeding, and has 8 or 9 feedings in 24 hours. From morning wakeup to suppertime she likes it spaced out every 2 hours or so, doing a feed-play-nap pattern. Then at bedtime she has a bottle, wakes an hour later for another, then usually stays down for the night. Once bedtime gets more consistent I will try feeding more at bedtime so she can sleep longer. This is my first baby and she’s been exclusively fed expressed breastmilk. Finding this resource has been so helpful in making me feel confident that she is getting the milk she should be. I’ll be starting her on solids soon, and I know I’ll be back here then to check out those guidelines for milk consumption!
This is a great resource! I just wanted to share that I spoke to our pediatrician about this today and she said the general guideline is to offer your baby 1-1.5 oz of milk per hour from their last feeding. She also suggested I look up paced feeding on YouTube as well to prevent over-feeding. She also assured me there will be periods in which baby goes through a growth spurt and will eat more but should resume back to their normal feeding amounts.
Hi. How many times a day should I offer my baby expressed milk? She is 11 months. How much should she be having per day at 11M and at 1 year? When do babies stop drinking milk altogether? Thank you so much
I just started following you and the awesome information you have to share! A quick question for you.. I am an exclusive nursing mother thinking of transitioning to exclusive pumping. Is it necessary for pumping sessions to include both breasts?
Hi Stephanie! It’s definitely easier to do both at the same time. However, since nursing babies don’t always take both breasts, if that’s what your body is used to, that’s okay too. But you’d have to pump more frequently if you’re doing one side at a time. Does that make sense?
Hello, my baby is one month now and I am only able to pump 2oz each two hours from both breast in total 23,6 a day is that normal ? Thank u
Totally normal! If you wanted to try to increase it here are some ideas:
https://exclusivepumping.com/increasing-milk-supply/
Thank you for this data! Something I have struggled with in regards to how much to feed my baby as an EP-er was that the answer I am often given is- “feed on demand.” That’s nice and all, but a bottle of expressed milk runs out. Was it enough? Pumping for 20 minutes every two hours, it would be hard to pump more and I would have supplemented with formula if someone could have told me how much he should be eating! My conclusion was- no one really knows. This post is the closest I’ve gotten to any real answers, so thank you
Thank you so much Mary! I’m so glad it was helpful!
i read an article stating a formula for how much breastmilk to feed your baby. It’s your baby’s weight in ounces/6/8.
It’s divided into 6 to supposedly calculate the total amount of milk s/he should consume in a day and divided by 8 to calculate how many ounces per feeding.
Forgive me, but I cannot remember the name of the website I read that from.
What a good article! Thank you for conducting the surveys and gathering the data! This is so helpful since breast milk is so different than formula, and I always wondered what the average/“normal” amount my baby should be eating.
For formula fed guidelines, I always saw that there’s an equation for calculating amount of formula per body weight. Did you find anything that may suggest a feeding to body weight ratio?
Also I think they ask you not to feed over a certain amount in formula because formula has a lot of vitamins and minerals, and if you feed too much the baby could be consuming more than the safe amount? Like he can be getting too much calcium and it could start building like in his organs? I don’t know, just speculating.
Hi Jenny! I didn’t find anything about the feeding/body weight ratio, but that’s an interesting thought! Also interesting about the vitamins/minerals – I hadn’t thought of that!
Thanks for this article and data, very much appreciated! Two ideas for future research – (1) I wonder if the length of the baby, or perhaps BMI, would be a statistically significant factor in how much breastmilk a baby drinks? I’m suggesting length as the measurement to study because a heavier than average baby could be considered heavy due to possible overfeeding. My baby is 99%+ in length and drinks a higher than average (per your data) of pumped milk, 32-28 oz per day. (2) I recently read something where a mother pumping breastmilk said a health practitioner did a test of her pumped milk and said it was not as fatty as average milk, in other words, her milk was more like skim instead of 2% or whole milk. Of course the fullness of the breasts at the time of pumping comes into play (more full = less fat), but I’m sure they considered that. I wonder if this factors into how much a baby would drink? Thanks again for this article!
While babies all take in different amounts of milk, I think it’s very important to bring up paced bottle feeding for breastfed babies.
Babies that nurse have to work harder to get milk from the breast, and feeding sessions tend to take longer than for babies that drink from a bottle. If you are a nursing mom that is giving a bottle of expressed milk, it’s key to pace the feeding so that the baby doesn’t chug it down quickly and think they are still hungry. It’s very easy to overfeed mainly-breastfed babies this way and can cause confusion in the amount your child is eating!
Thank you! So frequently I see new mothers asking in mommy groups about how much they’re supposed to feed their child, especially in the exclusive pumping groups. (I was one of them!) There’s so little information out there about expressed breast milk, that everyone is either curious or an expert. I once chimed in about my 4 month old who was eating 4 oz bottles 6 times a day (24 oz total) and was scolded by others that it was way too much. That I shouldn’t be feeding more than 3 oz at a time, ever! Let the mommy guilt set in. I felt awful. I tried to cut back and after a few hours I caved. It was right then that I had to remind myself that these people were not me and not my pediatrician.
A study recently showed that most mother’s get inaccurate advice for caring for their children, and most of it comes from family, friends, and the Internet. If you have questions, speak to your pediatrician!
That would be fine but a lot of pediatricians are also misinformed on breast feeding guidelines and give guidelines for formula which leads to many problems.
If it helps my lactation consultant said babies can eat anywhere between 3-5 oz at a time, she’s been a consultant for almost 20 years. I personally only pump 4 oz at a time therefore he can only eat 4 oz. I exclusively pump and sometimes it’s only 3 oz at times. My baby is 12 weeks currently.