The recent questions about how much milk a baby needs have  reminded me of an issue I'm not sure we've played with yet.  Peter Hartmann's work, as I understand it, shows that the ordinary healthy baby doesn't increase his intake significantly after... well, certainly after 4-6 weeks or so (does he have it pinned down yet?).  He just uses the milk more efficiently, stools less often, starts to grow more slowly.  (A notion that shocked us all, I think, until we realized our shirts don't get tighter and tighter, our thirst and appetite don't increase - everything seems to stabilize for us, the milk-makers.)

And yet we all have these lovely tables - still pertinent for formula-fed babies - that show increasing amounts of milk taken.  And, for that matter, the 2 kilo baby certainly doesn't need at the start what the 4 kilo baby needs, regardless of whether he's breastfed or formula-fed.

What are we to make of these old "so many units of milk per unit of baby weight" charts now?  When are they useful for the breastfed or breastmilk-fed baby, and when are they archaic?

Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC  Ithaca, NY  USA
www.wiessinger.baka.com


             ***********************************************

To temporarily stop your subscription: set lactnet nomail
To start it again: set lactnet mail (or digest)
To unsubscribe: unsubscribe lactnet
All commands go to [log in to unmask]

The LACTNET mailing list is powered by L-Soft's renowned
LISTSERV(R) list management software together with L-Soft's LSMTP(R)
mailer for lightning fast mail delivery. For more information, go to:
http://www.lsoft.com/LISTSERV-powered.html