in December 2024 Babies 🇺🇸

Average Ounces per Day

My baby girl is now 13 weeks old, weighs about 10.5 lbs, and has been consistently growing on the 4-5% curve. Her pediatrician is not too worried (she was born tiny at only 5lbs!), but she really only wants to drink 18 ounces of formula a day. She sleeps from 9pm-6am every night, naps well during the day, and will not dream feed or wake up to eat. Her bottles are usually 3 ounces, some 2 or 4. But I truly don’t think I can get make calories into her. She gets MAD when we force it. Anyone else have a smaller baby who is a light eater?

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18 is a little on the low end. 24 in 24 hours is about right. Usually 1 to 1.5oz per hour avg

Are you and Dad smaller people? One of my friends daughter would only take around 20 oz at this age but they were both really skinny tall people so for the baby it was normal but pediatricians kept freaking out about it ( she never lost weight just gained really slow) and when they tried to force her to eat more she ended up hospitalized only for them to find out she had formed a bottle aversion. Long story short lol if y'all are small people then it might just be that your baby will also be small and no need to force her to eat more if she's not losing weight. Also, she turned 2 in January and only weighs 20 pounds but is meeting all milestones and super smart 🙂

11 week old here. My babe eats 4 oz every 3. Hours. Sleeps from 10pm to 4or 5 am for a feed then up again at 8 for a feed. Talk to your dr

If she is gaining weight and your doctor doesn't seem too worried don't worry too much about it. My daughter was born on the smaller side too shes probably around 10lbs as well. She drinks about 18 to 22lbs and sleeps usually between 12am to 9am or she may be an hour or two earlier than this.

I don’t think it helps anything to force a baby to eat more than they want to, and I agree, you really can’t make them do it, it will just upset them and cause other problems down the line. Listen to your instinct- people say so many different things about how many oz a day babies need to eat. You know your baby best and if they are happy, hitting milestones, and gaining weight at some rate, then I think you and baby are doing great

If you haven’t already, working with a lactation consultant will be really effective (more so than the pediatrician), and one piece of feedback I heard from an IBCLC was that you want baby to stay consistent on the growth chart (there’s a 4-5% for a reason!) rather than go up to 6-7% & back down to 4-5%, etc. Sounds like you’re doing a really good job, and it could be worth getting another expert opinion for your little one!

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