02/03/2026
Daycare or childcare provider keeps asking for more and more milk? Running through your freezer stash? Let’s check on a few things:
1. About how long does it take for baby to finish the bottle? If they’re chugging down 4/+ oz in less than 10 minutes, they might be overeating without enough time to notice they are full.
2. How long of a timeframe is baby being cared for by someone else? Rule of thumb is 1-1.25 hours of milk for every hour in between feedings. If baby is eating about every 2 hours, that’d be 2-2.5 oz and about 8-10 oz for an 8 hour period of time. *Sometimes we see a little higher volumes if they are sleeping way longer than expected, but it isn’t the norm.
3. Are you sending too big of bottles? Daycares, Nannies, anyone with a brain knows you worked hard for that milk and doesn’t want to waste it. Did you know they sometimes have to follow rules on how long milk is good for that are much more strict than typical? Even if baby is full after 2-3 oz from their 5oz bottle, a caregiver may feel pressure to get them to finish the bottle anyways.
4. Grandparents love feeding their grandbabies, even when they aren’t babies anymore. Sometimes they want to feed them really often, more often than the baby is actually hungry for. It doesn’t have to be bad since we do know babies nurse for comfort as well as for nutrition, but we know babies will take smaller volumes when this happens! Sometimes that looks like 2 oz every 1.75 - 2 hours.
These are just a few reasons we commonly see people go through their freezer stash too quickly or worry their supply isn’t keeping up with baby anymore. We always check these areas when working with clients and it’s more common that we see babies simply being overfed than it is for us to see that milk supply is truly low. Hope this helps!
