How Much Breast Milk Should a Newborn Eat? Chart and Calculator

This breast milk feeding chart and calculator shows how much expressed breast milk babies typically drink per feed and per day. It’s useful when you are bottle-feeding pumped milk, building a stash, or packing bottles for daycare. Choose your baby’s age, enter how many times they feed in 24 hours and, for weeks 2 to 4, their weight.

Remember that these are typical ranges for healthy, full-term babies, not targets your baby has to hit. When your baby nurses directly, you can’t see the ounces and you don’t need to: follow their hunger cues and the signs described in how often to breastfeed a newborn.

How much breastmilk should a newborn eat: chart by age

Baby’s age	Per feed	Per day (with 8 feeds)
Day 1 (first 24 hours)	2–10 ml (under 0.5 oz)	16–80 ml (0.5–2.7 oz) of colostrum
Day 2	5–15 ml	40–120 ml (1.4–4 oz)
Day 3	15–30 ml (0.5–1 oz)	120–240 ml (4–8 oz)
Days 4–7	30–60 ml (1–2 oz)	240–480 ml (8–16 oz)
Weeks 2–4	depends on weight (about 150 ml per kg per day)	e.g. about 19 oz (560 ml) for an 8 lb 4 oz baby
1–6 months	2.4–3.8 oz (70–115 ml)	about 25 oz (750 ml), typical range 19–30 oz (570–900 ml)
Over 6 months	varies with solid foods	follow your baby’s cues

Per-feed amounts for days 1–4 come from ABM Protocol #3, whose table stops at 96 hours; we apply the 30–60 ml figure to days 4–7 as well, in line with the 1–2 oz per feed the AAP gives after the first days. The first-week daily totals are our calculation (per feed × 8 feeds); babies who feed more often take more in a day. The 1–6 month figures are rounded from Kent 2006 (see below), and the weeks 2–4 row is our own estimate.

How the calculator works

• First week: we use the average colostrum and early milk intakes per feed published by the Academy of Breastfeeding Medicine (Protocol #3). A newborn’s stomach is tiny, so small amounts are normal and expected. That’s why when your milk comes in, around days 2 to 5, intake rises quickly.
• Weeks 2 to 4: intake grows with your baby. We estimate about 150 ml per kilogram of body weight per day, a rule-of-thumb figure that is not taken from the sources below, and never more than the 1–6 month range. The ±15% range around that estimate is our own choice to show normal day-to-day variation; it is not a figure from a study.
• 1 to 6 months: Kent 2006 weighed 71 exclusively breastfed babies (4 to 26 weeks old) before and after every feed for 24 hours and found an average of 788 g (about 27 oz) a day, with a standard deviation of 169 g and a full range of 478 to 1,356 g (16 to 46 oz). It found no significant change with the baby’s age in that window. For simplicity the calculator uses a rounded average of about 750 ml (25 oz) and a typical range of 570 to 900 ml (19 to 30 oz); these rounded figures are ours, not the study’s, and individual babies can be well outside them. We divide the daily amount by the number of feeds.
• Per feed = per day ÷ feeds in 24 hours. Fewer, bigger feeds or more, smaller feeds are both normal.

Worked examples

• Week 2, 8 lb 4 oz (3.74 kg), 8 feeds: about 480–650 ml a day (16–22 oz), or roughly 2–2.7 oz per feed.
• 2 months, 8 feeds: 2.4–3.8 oz per feed, about 3.2 oz on average.
• 4 months, 6 feeds: 19–30 oz a day, so 3.2–5 oz per feed.
• Daycare, 9 hours away, baby 5 months: the typical 570–900 ml a day divided by 24 hours is about 0.8–1.3 oz per hour (our calculation). For 9 hours that is about 7–11 oz, for example three 3.5 oz bottles plus a small spare.

Tips for bottle-feeding breast milk

• Pace the feed. Hold the bottle more horizontally, let your baby suck to start the flow and offer breaks. Paced bottle feeding helps babies take what they need instead of finishing a fast-flowing bottle.
• Start smaller. It’s easier to offer a little more than to throw milk away. Leftover milk must be used within 2 hours after the feed, as our breast milk storage calculator shows.
• Store in feed-sized portions. Freezing 2 to 4 oz portions avoids waste; see our breast milk storage guide.
• Watch the baby, not the bottle. Turning away, slowing down, relaxed hands and falling asleep are signs your baby is full.

When to call your pediatrician

Call your baby’s doctor if your baby has fewer wet diapers than expected (fewer than 6 a day after the first week), seems very sleepy and hard to wake for feeds, isn’t back to birth weight by about 2 weeks, or regularly drinks far more or far less than these ranges and seems unsettled. Also call if you are worried for any other reason: you know your baby best.