Breastfeeding - How to Tell If You Have Enough Milk

• You have enough milk if your baby is getting enough! Here is how to tell if a baby is getting enough milk.

  
  WARNING! These tests work only if your baby is exclusively breastfed. If you give your baby supplements, including water, some of these tests won't tell you whether your baby is getting enough food. As supplements cause your milk supply to decrease, it's best to avoid them. As a bonus, you'll be able to use the tests described here to make sure your baby is thriving.

• An exclusively breastfed baby is getting enough milk if:
  1. She or he has at least six very wet diapers a day. You should use cloth diapers when you conduct this test, as it's often hard to tell whether a disposable diaper with super-absorbent filling is wet or not. If you insist on using a disposable, put a piece of tissue inside it, and check if the tissue is wet.
     • A diaper with a yellowish wet spot the size of a quarter does not count as a wet one.
     • A wet diaper is one that's thoroughly wet. It should be heavy. When you touch it, it should feel wet.
     • Your baby's urine should be colorless or very pale yellow. Bright yellow indicates concentrated urine, which occurs if the baby is not getting enough to drink.
  2. She or he is energetic. If your baby is lethargic or too tired to cry or feed properly, call your doctor immediately.
  3. She or he is properly hydrated and plump.
     • The front fontanel (soft spot) should be convex (curving out) when your baby is crying, and only slightly concave (curving in) at other times. If it dips seriously, your baby might be dehydrated. Call your doctor.
     • Your baby should have dimples at her or his knuckles and elbows. This is enough to qualify your baby as officially plump. You can forget about the baby weight charts and those roly-poly fat babies you see in pictures.
     • Your baby's skin should be nice and tight. When you grab the skin on her or his tummy, you should get a nice thick fold, which indicates that your baby has enough puppy fat. If the skin is loose and looks dry, your baby is probably undernourished. See your doctor.
  4. Your baby is gaining weight at a satisfactory rate. You can go to the hospital between doctor's appointments and have the nurses weigh your baby for you. Don't worry about the percentile position of your baby on the weight chart. However, if your baby's percentile weight drops drastically from one weighing to the next, you might want to call your doctor just to make sure.
  5. Your baby shows signs of eating well at the breast.
     • She or he latches on correctly.
     • You can hear her or him swallow. Even better, you can look for a suck-pause-suck pattern. The pause indicates that your baby's mouth is filled with milk and she or he is swallowing the milk before resuming sucking.
     • Your breasts feel full before feeding and soft after feeding.
     • You feed your baby on demand, and no less than eight times a day.
     • Your baby doesn't go longer than four hours between feeds. If your baby is gaining weight rapidly and you are sure your milk supply is well established, you can let your baby sleep longer at night. Until then, however, your baby should nurse several times during the night. The easiest way to assure this is to sleep with your baby. If she or he does not wake up spontaneously, you should wake her or him up once or twice in the night, and more often during the day.
  6. Your baby nurses happily most of the time. It's expected that a baby will have fussy periods at certain times of the day (usually in the evening). But if your baby always fusses at the breast and nursing never satisfies her or him, there may be a problem. The problem may be that your baby isn't getting enough milk. However, it might also be that you have too much milk and a hyperactive letdown reflex. Or your baby may be reacting to something in the milk. If your baby regularly fusses at the breast, call a lactation consultant to assess the situation. She or he will tell you to call your doctor if necessary.

Go to:

• Breastfeeding problems and solutions.
• How to increase your milk supply
• How to maintain your milk supply

Back to the breastfeeding main page

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