One of the hard part of breastfeeding is knowing whether or not baby is eating enough. I know as a mom to two breastfed babies, who both ate so differently and who were on different ranges of the weight percentile, it was also a worry that I wasn’t feeding them enough.
There is no way to know how many ounces babies are eating when they are drinking directly from the breast. Which can be very anxiety inducing!
Thankfully there are some tips to know whether or not baby is eating enough, or if maybe you need to seek out help from a Lactation Consultant.
1. Baby is relaxed, calm, or sleeping after nursing
When babies tummies are full and they are fed, they are usually more relaxed between feedings and that relaxation lasts longer than a few minutes after that feeding. They may even fall asleep while nursing. As long as they stay asleep, or stay content most of the time after feedings, this is a good sign they are eating enough.
If it seems as though most of the time they get fussy or want to eat again shortly after nursing, or fall asleep at the breast and just a few minutes later wake up acting fussy and hungry again.
The keyword being Most of the time. It is normal for baby’s to be both happy and fussy. As long as they seem to be happy most of the time in regards to being fed, then this is a good sign that are eating enough
Baby's Fist
One thing i always looked at between feeds, especially while sleeping, was baby’s fist. If baby’s fist is tight and clenched, thats a sign that baby is potentially still hungry and did not eat enough.
If baby’s fist is relaxed and open, then is a great sign baby ate enough and is not hungry!
Another thing I would look for is when you lift baby’s arm up in the arm did it drop back down when you released it easily, or did baby catch it before it dropped. If it did not drop easily then baby is likely still hungry.
2. Number of feedings in 24 hours
It is recommend that baby nurse 8-12 times in a 24 hour period. Whatever that looks like for baby.
Some babies will feed every 2-3 hours on the clock, but not all do! Some cluster feed for a few hours at night then have feedings spaced farther apart during the day.
So ensuring you are keeping track of how often baby is nursing is beneficial. Using either an app or some other system. I used bracelets on my wrist and would switch them from one wrist to the other when baby would nurse. If all 8 of my bracelets switched arms by the end of the day I knew they fed enough times!
3. Diaper Count
This is one of the BEST indicators of whether or not baby is eating enough! If baby is taking in enough milk that they are having 6-8 wet and dirty diapers, then they are eating enough!
The hard part with diaper counts is making sure you keep count. There are tons of different ways to keep count. There are apps to use on your phone to easily keep count.
Gina would only put 8 diapers in the diaper caddy everyday and if she used all the diapers in 24 hours then she knew baby was peeing/pooping enough.
I would put all the diapers in the same garbage can and count at the end of the day to ensure there was at least 6-8. It was easier for me than an app.
4. Shape of nipple after feedings/No nipple Damage
This can be a great clue that potentially something is wrong with baby’s feedings, and often time one of the first things you may notice. If baby is not latching onto the breast optimally, it will lead to some nipple damage or abnormal nipple shapes.
If baby comes off the breast and the nipple is white in spots, looking like the top of a lip stick, or painful. These are all reason to definitely seek out help because baby is not transferring milk optimally!
If you have no nipple damage and the nipple is not abnormal shapes or colors when the feed is complete, good sign baby is eating well!
5. Gaining Weight*
If baby is gaining weight, this is a good sign that baby is eating enough! They cannot put on weight if they are not taking in enough calories! Then next thing is are they staying on their own growth curve, so if they are 10th percentile, are they staying at the 10th percentile or going up?
Some find having a scale at home is useful for them and others find it creates for anxiety, so doing what feels right for you is the right answer in regards to weight gain.
I do use this tip loosely though, looking at the first 4 tips would be a better indicator to me than this one by itself. If you don’t have all of the top 4 but baby is gaining weight, it could still be a sign baby is not eating enough, or transferring milk adequately.
This is because some babies will gain weight at the beginning due to an over supply of breastmilk the first 2-3 months and then once our breastmilk stabilizes to what baby is actually emptying out, baby’s weight gain begins tapers off around if there are any underlying issues with breastfeeding.
This happened with my daughter, Lily, I had a crazy oversupply to start but because she wasn’t transferring milk efficiently my supply decreased slowly till around 3 months it was noted she was dropping off her curve.
This was because she had a tongue tie and wasn’t able to transfer efficiently. I had all the symptoms of a tongue tie with sore/damaged nipples from her bad latch, but we thought it was normal and we would figure it out and because all of the other above tips were all good, she was getting enough milk to satisfy her, I didn’t seek out any help…till her weight dropped.
Around 3 months is when I noticed, she was fussy and upset most of the time even after nursing for over 30 minutes. She would fall asleep at the breast but would want to instantly eat upon waking up only 10-15mins later. Her diaper counts never dropped, but she had a drop in the number of poop diapers she would have a day, which was a change in her normal.
So we sought out help for her tongue tie and were able to get it revised and had tons of Cranial sacral therapy and chiropractic adjustments, along with suck training to get her nursing effectively and she got back on her growth curve and all was well again! (She still loves to nurse to this day at 3 year sol
Hopefully these tips can help ease your anxiety, or help you decide it is time to seek out help from a Lactation Consultant!