35 weeks, how much milk?
I had my son last Wednesday at 35 weeks. He was in scbu for 24 hours due to being cold and not feeding well. We came home on Sunday. His birth weight was 6lb 11oz, but at 5 days old he'd lost 14% of that. Im just waiting for the midwife to come to weigh him again to see if he gained any weight. My question is, how much milk should he be having? Im taking his lead and feeding on demand, but if he goes for more than 3 hours between feeds, i will wake him. Hes formula fed and can drink anything from 35-60 mls each feed. Is this enough? Hes pooping and having wet nappies, he's content and seems fine, but the weight loss worries me and I want to make sure hes getting enough milk to start gaining. Hes my 5th child and all my others were overdue and came home from hospital able to take 3oz of milk every 3-4 hours, so a tiny early baby is all new to me. Thanks in advance xx
Use below formula for a very young baby to work out daily formula intake. Applies regardless of whether bub is a premmie or a term baby (as once a prem is discharged from hospital you start treating them like a term baby generally).
150-185ml of formula per kilogram of body weight. So a 3kg baby needs on average 450-555ml of formula per day, divided evenly over however many feeds given. So if you feed 8 times (normal for formula fed newborn) then you would feed 55-70ml per feed.
It’s normal for them to loose some weight after birth m, I think it’s around 10-15%. But they should recover all that’s lost by 2 weeks post birth.