Female Speaker: How often should I feed my baby?
Sandra Cole: Ideally, want to feed your baby within an hour and a half of birth. This is the natural time for babies to breastfeed. If that's not possible, use the breastfeeder pump within the first six hours. That will tell your body to produce breast milk.
Babies should be feeding 10 to 12 times a day for the first three weeks of life. That means every two to three hours. But don't get hung up on the timing of the breastfeeds. You want to look to see when your baby is hungry. Signs of hunger start with routine. The baby will be moving his mouth looking for food.
Next will suckling motions, where he will be putting his fingers in his mouth and chewing anything he can get. This is a good time to be putting the baby to the breast. If you miss this hunger cues the next one will be moving arms and legs, then clenching the fist and finally crying. If you've missed the hunger cues to this point, that's okay. Claim your baby down and then put him to breast.
Other signs than hunger that you want to look for to make sure that your baby is getting enough are the stools and the voiding patterns. The first day of life your baby should have one wet diaper and one dirty diaper. Each day to day four, here she should be having one more wet and one more dirty than the day before. So the day four there should be four wet and four dirty.
Now the color of the stools otherwise known as poo, should go from black, to brown, to green, to yellow during these four days. If they haven't please contact your healthcare provider for more assistance. The reason you want to see this is to know that the breast milk has gotten through the system and cleaned up the tract.
One day four the breast milk stool should look like cottage cheese mixed with mustard. That's the consistency and the color of breastfeeding stool. After day four a the baby should be having six wet diapers a day and the stool pattern can change. As long as it's that color and consistency it could be a stool once a day or a stool after every breastfeeding.
If your baby is not producing enough stool or pee, pee or poo contact healthcare professional.
Transcription by:
Scribe4you Transcription Services