How do I know my baby is getting enough to eat?
This post is just a generalized guide. If you have any concerns about your baby, call your baby's provider or lactation consultant.
Pay attention to the following
- Baby eating at least 8 or more times in a 24 hour period.
- Watch for hunger cues.
- Baby wetting diapers
- 1 diaper in the first 24 hours after birth.
- 2 on the second day of life.
- 3 on the third day of life.
- After a week, 6 to 8 wet diapers of urine that are light yellow in color once milk is in greater supply.
- Baby will be passing meconium for the first 1 to 2 days after birth.
- Meconium is the sticky, black substance that the baby passes from his or her bowels.
- Stool changing to mustard color, runny and seedy in texture once the milk is in greater supply.
- 3 to 4 of these stools beginning by day 4 in the first month. May pass a little stool after each feeding as well.
- Weight gain is an important clue to your baby's healthcare provider that the baby is feeding properly.
- It's normal for babies to lose 1 to 9 percent of their birth weight that first week of life (this is something your doctor is tracking, and why it is important to attend the scheduled appointments baby will have the first two weeks of life).
- Moms near University Health Truman Medical Center can bring babies to Baby Café to be weighed while moms near University Health Lakewood Medical Center can go to Terrific Moms Club.
- Other positive signs:
- Audible swallowing – actually hearing the milk being swallowed; more obvious when mother's milk is in greater supply.
- Breast feels like its emptying.
- Signs of being full:
- Falls asleep.
- Relaxes the body.
- Opens his or her fists.
- Relaxes the forehead.
Contact Health Sciences District Lactation Services at 816.404.0474 or University Health Lakewood Medical Center at 816.404.8260.