How to Know if Your Baby Is Getting Enough to Eat

Worried about whether your newborn is getting enough to eat? You’re not alone. Parents often see their baby’s weight as a reflection of their baby’s health. And while it’s easy to be confident in what you feed your baby when it’s breast milk or a formula like Enfamil Enspire, Enfamil’s closest formula to breast milk, it can be more difficult for parents to know if their baby is getting enough to eat.

What if there’s weight gain without a regular feeding schedule? Or what if months of gains suddenly plateau? How often should your little one be eating, and how much at a time? It’s easy to come up with a million questions like these, particularly in the raw emotional state of new parenthood.

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Our advice: take a breath, collect your thoughts, and trust the experts. We leaned on everything from peer-reviewed scientific studies to proven medical resources for parents to find out how to know if your baby is getting enough to eat. What we found is that while every baby is different, there are some steps every parent can take to be confident their baby is well fed.

Know The Feeding Guidelines, But Remember, They’re Guidelines

The American Academy of Pediatrics has the data on how much most infants feed. For the first couple of days postpartum, babies drink as little as half an ounce, usually every two to three hours. After all, they’re getting used to the whole being alive thing! Over the next couple of weeks, the schedule stays the same, but consumption ticks up to one to two ounces per session. Feedings keep getting bigger, and by two months, when most babies drink four to five ounces, they also become less frequent. By six months, on the cusp of the solid food transition, babies typically will drink up to eight ounces every four to five hours.

Keep in mind that these quantities and frequencies describe most babies. If your two-month-old is only drinking three and a half ounces but otherwise seems perfectly happy and healthy, then there’s nothing to worry about. More dramatic deviations from these norms could be cause for concern, particularly if you notice any other issues.

Make Sure You’re Feeding Your Baby The Right Food

If your little one is breastfeeding and experiencing discomfort, consider speaking to your doctor about foods that may cause problems for your baby. If you’re supplementing with formula or exclusively bottle feeding, make sure you find a formula that is best for your baby. A good option could be Enfamil Enspire as it offers 5 important nutrient benefits to support the overall health and development of your baby, including prebiotics for immune and gut health, DHA for language development, motor skills, and attention span, and lactoferrin, an immune-supporting protein also found in breast milk.

Follow The Cues

You might be months away from your baby’s first words, but that doesn’t mean they can’t communicate what they need and want, including food. And no one knows whether or not your baby is hungry better than your baby. That’s why responding on demand to your baby’s hunger and satiation cues is so important.

One review found that responsive feeding is “very important in dietary habit formation and should be encouraged by health professionals in their advice to families.” With the caveat that parents of preterm babies or those with certain conditions should follow a feeding schedule set out by their doctor, most parents should learn to identify when their baby is hungry or full and feed or stop feeding them accordingly.

Ride The Roller Coaster Of The First Couple Of Weeks

Most newborns lose some weight in the first week or so of life. A five percent loss is normal for formula-fed infants, while those who are breastfeeding typically shed seven to 10 percent. Now that’s obviously not the direction you want your baby’s weight to go at that point, but fear not: most newborns gain it all back by the two week mark. So if your eight-pound baby is suddenly just seven-and-a-half at their one-week checkup, it may not be cause for alarm.

Use Growth Charts Wisely

Every time you bring your baby to the pediatrician for a checkup, your little one is measured and weighed. These measurements allow your doctor to see where your baby falls on growth charts compared to other babies.

The Centers for Disease Control recommends using the World Health Organization growth charts for kids under the age of two not as a “sole diagnostic instrument,” but as a tool that contributes to “forming an overall clinical impression for the child being measured.” It’s not the whole story, in other words. And more important than what your baby’s percentiles are now are how they’ve changed over time. During checkups, make sure you speak with your physician about the trends they’re noticing, because a baby who moved from 65th to 70th is in a very different situation than one who moved from 90th to 70th.

Don’t Be Afraid To Call Your Pediatrician

New parents can’t help but worry — and why wouldn’t they? Every task is completely new, and it’s hard to know what fears are justified and what fears are simply new-parent paranoia. If you have a concern you can’t shake, it is 100% okay to call your pediatrician. As we see it, you’ll either end up reassured that you had nothing whatsoever to worry about, or your doctor can help you troubleshoot any issues. Both are positive outcomes for your baby. So if you’ve done all the research you can do and you’re still nervous, then give your doctor a call. (It’s their job to answer, after all.)

Enfamil Enspire is Enfamil’s closest formula to breast milk. It offers 5 important nutrient benefits in one formula to support the overall health and development of your baby including immune and gut health, language development, motor skills, and attention span. You can learn more about Enspire here.

None of the statements contained in this article have been reviewed by a Physician. This information is provided for educational and entertainment purposes only.