Posted ByAmelia JoshAll parents worry about the main question of whether a newborn eats enough milk or not. At the same time, it is necessary to know exactly how much formula an infant should eat at a time and per day, so as not to be hungry. Babies of diverse ages eat different amounts of infant milk. However, there are both minimum and maximum permissible feeding volumes. So let’s find out how much milk a kid should consume.
How Much Formula Should a Baby Eat at One Time and Per Day?
Note that the amount of food depends solely on whether you feed a kid breast milk or baby formula. How to calculate the right amount for an infant? For example, for an infant who is not yet ten days old, the volume of one feeding can be calculated as follows:
a day of life should be multiplied by ten. For example, we multiply two days by ten, we get 20ml, etc., increasing the dose every day.
The daily volume can be calculated as follows:
a five-day-old baby with a weight of 3000 grams will need 70*5=280 ml. If a newborn’s weight is more than 3200 then the amount of formula will be calculated as 80*the baby’s age in days. For example, a newborn is 7 days old, and its weight is 3700, therefore, 80*7=560 milliliters.
Babies who are more than 10 days old and up to a year old need a completely different amount of food for normal development and growth:
- from 10 days to 6 weeks – 1/5 of weight
- from 6 weeks to 6 months – 1/6 of weight
- from 6 to 8 months – 1/8 of weight
- from 8 to 12 months – 1/9 of weight
eg. a four-month-old kid who weighs 5600 grams will need 5600/6=930-935 milliliters of formula per day.
The main task is not to overfeed a kid and it might be a bit more difficult with bottle-fed than with breastfed babies because it can lead to digestive issues. The break between each feeding should be at least three hours during the day and at least five hours at night. Formula saturates a newborn for a longer time than breast milk therefore, digestion is quite slow. You check out the diagram with the detailed baby’s nutrition needed up to 1 year old here source link.
How to Realize that a Baby Eats Enough Formula?
If you feed a baby with the proper amount of infant milk, then it will be:
- active and energy
- steadily gain body weight
- sleep peacefully
- regularly do diapers with no issues
It’s also important to select the right baby food for feeding. Pediatricians advise using the organic formula from the EU because it has no harmful or doubtful ingredients in the content and it significantly reduces the risk of any health problems that might occur.
Signs of Hunger and Overfeeding
It is very useful to understand the signs of a baby’s hunger because babies can cry for various reasons. And not every time crying means that it is time for another feeding.
The main signs that signal that it is feeding time:
- a kid starts spinning its head
- it sucks the thumb
- a baby makes rotational movements with the tongue or often opens the mouth and when touching the cheek, opens the mouth and turns the head
You can detect whether you overfeed an infant or not by weighing it. If the weight gain per week is more than 300 grams when the norm is 150-200 grams, then the frequency of feeding should be reduced here. If a baby gains less than 100 grams in 7 days, then in this case you should consult a pediatrician.