Baby Parenting

Amount and Schedule of Baby Formula Feeding

From American Academy of Pediatrics

On average, your baby should take in about 2½ ounces (75 mL) of infant formula a day for every pound (453 g) of body weight.

Amount and Schedule of Baby Formula Feedings

How Much and How Often Should a Newborn Drink Breast Milk?

How Much Formula Should a Newborn Eat?

How to Calm a Fussy Baby

How to Calm a Fussy Baby: Tips for Parents & Caregivers

Checklist for what your baby may need:

Here are some other reasons why your baby may cry and tips on what you can try to meet that need. If your baby is…

Hungry.

Keep track of feeding times and look for early signs of hunger, such as lip-smacking or moving fists to his mouth.

Cold or hot.

Dress your baby in about the same layers of clothing that you are wearing to be comfortable.

Wet or soiled.

Check the diaper. In the first few months, babies wet and soil their diapers a lot.

Spitting up or vomiting a lot.

Some babies have symptoms from gastroesophageal reflux (GER), and the fussiness can be confused with colic. Contact your child's doctor if your baby is fussy after feeding, has excessive spitting or vomiting, and is losing or not gaining weight.

Sick (has a fever or other illness).

Check your baby's temperature. If your baby is younger than 2 months and has a fever, call your child's doctor right away. See Fever and Your Baby for more information.

Overstimulated.

Try ways to calm your baby mentioned above.

Bored.

Quietly sing or hum a song to your baby. Go for a walk.

Baby should never be shaken

No matter how impatient or angry you become, a baby should never be shaken. Shaking an infant hard can cause blindness, brain damage or even death

The Baby Poop and Urination Guide

The Baby Poop Guide: What's Normal and What's Not

The short answer is baby poop that has a green, mustard yellow, or brown color and is soft and grainy is completely normal, but poop that has a white, red, or black color is not.

Breastfed baby poop frequency

According to Dr. Pittman, it can be normal for a breastfed baby to have one bowel movement each week—but it's also normal for them to poop after every feeding. (In other words, as long as a breastfed baby is pooping at least once a week, you're probably good.)

Formula-fed baby poop frequency

Formula-fed baby poop is usually different than breastfed baby poop. That's because stool moves through the intestines more slowly with formula, causing babies to go about once or twice per day, every one or two days, after the first couple of months. Note, however, that some formula-fed infants will poop up to three or four times daily at first.

Here's How Many Wet Diapers a Newborn Should Have

Breastfeeding

Breast milk is widely recognized as the optimal source of nutrition for infants, providing essential nutrients, antibodies, and hormones that foster healthy growth and development. The American Academy of Pediatrics recommends exclusive breastfeeding for the first six months of life, citing numerous benefits including enhanced cognitive development, boosted immune systems, and a reduced risk of respiratory and ear infections.

Breast Pumping

Pumping Breast Milk

However, for mothers who have undergone a cesarean section or those who must return to work, breastfeeding can be a challenge. In such cases, breastpumping milk can be an efficient way to feed breast milk to baby through a bottle, ensuring that they still receive the benefits of breast milk even when direct breastfeeding is not possible. By expressing milk and storing it in a bottle, mothers can maintain their milk supply, alleviate engorgement, and provide their baby with the nourishment they need, even when they are not physically present. This approach also allows partners, caregivers, or family members to participate in feeding, making it a convenient and practical solution for modern families.

Mother's Health and Breast feeding

Breastfeeding has health benefits for the mother too! Breastfeeding can reduce the mother's risk of breast and ovarian cancer, type 2 diabetes, and high blood pressure.

Exclusive breastfeeding for optimal growth, development and health of infants

Five great benefits of breastfeeding

Exclusive breastfeeding for about the first six months is recommended. The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommends continued breastfeeding while introducing appropriate complementary foods until children are 12 months old or older.

The American Academy of Pediatrics and the World Health Organization also recommend exclusive breastfeeding for about 6 months, with continued breastfeeding along with introducing appropriate complementary foods for up to 2 years of age or longer.

The importance of skin-to-skin with baby after delivery

Benefits of kangaroo care

Numerous research studies have found benefit after benefit from spending time with your newborn in skin-to-skin contact. This sharing of love and touch helps by:

Decreasing stress in both baby and parents
Allowing you to learn about each other through touch, sight, smell and hearing
Promoting bonding and breastfeeding
Stabilizing baby’s body temperature, heartbeat, breathing and blood oxygen levels
Strengthening baby’s digestion and immune systems
Encouraging baby to spend more time in deep sleep and quiet alert states
Producing a stronger milk supply in breastfeeding moms
Reducing postpartum bleeding in moms

Ideal Room Temperature

What Is the Ideal Room Temperature for a Newborn?

If a room is too hot

Overheating is a major risk factor for SIDS. SIDS deaths are most common in winter, which suggests that indoor temperature regulation plays a role in a baby's risk for the syndrome.

Overly warm temperatures are thought to increase SIDS risk by stressing a newborn's immature thermal regulation system. This can impact their breathing and heart rate and make it harder for them to wake up—and cry out—if they are experiencing a health issue.

If a room is too cold

Overly cold temperatures can put a baby at risk of hypothermia. Hypothermia occurs when body temperature drops to a dangerously low level, which can damage your baby's organs. Because newborns have a higher ratio of skin surface to body mass and tend to have lower fat stores, they lose body heat four times faster than adults.

Premature babies have an especially challenging time regulating their body temperature and are at an increased risk for hypothermia. So it's especially important to pay close attention to the temperature of preemies' rooms and dress them appropriately.

Newborn Sleep Patterns

What are the sleep patterns of a newborn?

The average newborn sleeps much of the day and night, waking only for feedings every few hours. It's often hard for new parents to know how long and how often a newborn should sleep. Unfortunately, there is no set schedule at first, and many newborns have their days and nights confused. They think they are supposed to be awake at night and sleep during the day.

Generally, newborns sleep a total of about 8 to 9 hours in the daytime and a total of about 8 hours at night. But because they have a small stomach, they must wake every few hours to eat.

How can you help your baby fall asleep?

Not all babies know how to put themselves to sleep. When it's time for bed, many parents want to rock their baby to sleep. Newborns and younger infants will fall asleep while breastfeeding. Having a routine at bedtime is a good idea. But if an older baby falls asleep while eating or in your arms, this may become a pattern. Your baby may then start to expect to be in your arms to fall asleep. When your baby briefly awakens during a sleep cycle, he or she may not be able to go back to sleep on his or her own.

After the newborn period, most experts recommend allowing your baby to become sleepy in your arms, then placing him or her in the bed while still awake. This way your baby learns how to go to sleep on his or her own. Playing soft music while your baby is getting sleepy is also a good way to help create a bedtime routine.

Sterilize Infant Feeding Items

How to Clean, Sanitize, and Store Infant Feeding Items Frequently Asked Questions

What are infant feeding items?

Infant feeding items include bottles and the nipples, rings, and caps that go with them. Certain bottles also may include valves or membranes. Some infants may be fed with a syringe, medicine cup, spoon, or supplemental nursing system.

Sanitizing

For extra germ removal, sanitize feeding items at least once daily. Sanitizing is particularly important when your baby is younger than 2 months, was born prematurely, or has a weakened immune system. Daily sanitizing of feeding items may not be necessary for older, healthy babies, if those items are cleaned carefully after each use.

Boil:

Place disassembled feeding items into a pot and cover with water.
Put the pot over heat and bring to a boil.
Boil for 5 minutes.
Remove items with clean tongs.

Maternal diet and breastfeeding

Breastfeeding and diet

You do not need to follow a special diet while you're breastfeeding. But it's a good idea for you, just like everyone else, to eat a healthy diet with a variety of foods every day.

A healthy diet includes:

at least 5 portions of a variety of fruit and vegetables a day, including fresh, frozen, tinned and dried fruit and vegetables, and no more than one 150ml glass of 100% unsweetened juice or smoothies
starchy foods, such as potatoes, bread, pasta, rice or other starchy carbohydrates – choose higher fibre or wholegrain varieties where possible
plenty of fibre from wholemeal bread and pasta, breakfast cereals, brown rice, potatoes with the skin on, pulses such as beans and lentils, and fruit and vegetables – after having a baby, some women have bowel problems and constipation, and fibre can help with this
protein foods, such as beans, pulses, fish, eggs and lean meat
dairy or dairy alternatives, such as milk, cheese and yoghurt, choosing lower-fat and lower-sugar products where possible – these contain calcium and are a source of protein
drinking plenty of fluids – have a drink beside you when you settle down to breastfeed: water, lower fat milks, lower sugar or sugar-free drinks are all good choices

Caffeine and breastfeeding

Caffeine can reach your baby through your breast milk. Caffeine is a stimulant, so if you have a lot, it may make your baby restless and keep them awake.

Caffeine occurs naturally in lots of foods and drinks, including coffee, tea and chocolate. It's also added to some soft drinks and energy drinks, as well as some cold and flu remedies.

There’s not enough information to say how much caffeine is too much, and babies respond to caffeine differently. But it’s a good idea to reduce how much caffeine you drink, especially when your baby is less than 6 months old.

Do breastfeeding mothers need more calories?

Maternal Diet and Breastfeeding

Yes. Breastfeeding mothers generally need more calories to meet their nutritional needs. To be well-nourished, breastfeeding mothers need 340 to 400 more kilocalories (kcal) per day than the amount they consumed before pregnancy. This means approximately 2,000 to 2,800 kcal per day for breastfeeding women versus 1,600 to 2,400 kcal per day for moderately active women who are not pregnant and not breastfeeding.

Postpartum Belly Wraps for Mother

The Best Postpartum Belly Wraps to Support Your Body as It Recovers

The best postpartum belly wraps provide 360-degree support to help the abdominal wall recover, stabilize your core, back, and ligaments, and assist with correct posture, which is a big bonus when breastfeeding or bottle feeding a baby.

Belly wraps provide compression to the abdominal wall, which has been stretched and weakened after 10 months of pregnancy

Especially after a C-section, a belly wrap can offer healing compression.

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