How much breast milk to express?

[Rachaellindseywalker]

Tomorrow I'm leaving my 16 week old exclusively breast fed baby with my mother and father in law for a few hours. Normally I wouldn't leave him for too long so I could be there to feed him. Without going into too much detail, I'm having to leave him with them to appease my mother in law at the request of my partner.

So he's normally a bit of a grazer anyway but has recently had a bit of a growth spurt so was eating every hour or two. On average how many ounces of milk will a 16 week baby need me to express for him if I leave him for two or three hours?

Thanks x

[DrFluffy]

165ml/kg/day

How often does he BF? You an either split it down into these intervals, or prepare bigger bottles and see if he will go longer. Always leave one more bottle than you are expecting, just in case xx

[Rachaellindseywalker in reply to DrFluffy]

Thanks for the quick response. But it's been a long day and I'm knackered so..... just to clarify, 165ml per kg of James body weight every day? He's a little fatty monster on the 91st centile at 7.7kg so all day he'd drink approx. 1270.5ml Does that sound right? He feeds on average about seven times a day including over night so a couple of 180ml bottles should see him right? x

[DrFluffy in reply to Rachaellindseywalker]

Yes - perfect! That's the figure hospitals use for bubbas 12 weeks plus. X

[CarolineDarz]

I found this when I had the query. My boy is also 91st percentile but only 8 weeks. Today i left him at grans for 10hrs and he had 9oz but could have done with a little more. I would suggest sending 6oz ish if it is only 2-3hrs,. I sent in separate container and told my mum to only use little at a time, so it wasnt wasted.

kellymom.com/bf/pumpingmoms...

[Envgirl]

Interesting thread thank you for querying! Thank also for the responses as I didn't know how much they drank on average as we will be leaving our LO for a few hours one night that is useful to know.