from four to 13 meals per day. That is, it was normal for these babies to have a breastfeeding session of one or two breastfeeds as often as once every 1 hour 50 minutes, or as widely spaced as once every 6 hours.
Not all breastfeeds are equivalent. While the average amount of milk taken from one breast was 76 mL, a breastfeed can range from being negligible to 240 mL. For individual babies the average intake from a breast- feed over a 24-hour period ranged from 30 to 135 mL. The amount of milk taken at a breastfeed depended on whether the feed was from the more productive or less productive breast, whether the feed was unpaired or paired, the fullness of the breast, and the time of day. Two-thirds of the babies fed at night, and for these babies this was often the time of the biggest breastfeed from a full breast. Babies who did not feed at night usually had their largest breastfeed in the morning, and that was when the breasts were usually full. The amount of milk remaining in the breast after morning feeds was higher than during the remainder of the day (Figure 2).
Calculations of breast milk storage capacity of moth- ers range from 74 to 382 mL.33,41 There is a significant tendency (P .01) for babies of mothers with smaller storage capacities to feed more frequently than babies of mothers with larger storage capacities. On average, babies take 67% of the available milk. However, 29% of babies of mothers with high storage capacity choose to take smaller feeds even though more milk is available, and 40% of babies of mothers with low storage capacity choose to take larger feeds and drain the breast more thoroughly at each breastfeed (unpublished data; Figure 3).
Mothers of babies who take frequent small breastfeeds are concerned that the baby is not getting the high fat hind-milk. When babies take six to nine large breastfeeds (95 3 mL, mean standard error of the mean [SEM]) each day, the breast changes from full or nearly full to quite well-drained during each breastfeed, and the fat content of the milk changes from low fat fore-milk (4.3% 0.2% cream) to high fat hind-milk (10.7% 0.23% cream). When babies take 14 to 18 small breastfeeds (49 2 mL) each day the fore-milk of these mothers is significantly higher in fat (4.8% 0.14% cream) and the hind-milk is lower in fat (8.2% 3.0% cream) compared to the less-frequent feeders (unpublished results). However, there is no significant difference between the two patterns of feeding and the total fat intake of the baby (33 2 g and 28 3 g, for low and high frequency feeders, respectively). Mothers can be reassured that the fat intake of babies is independent of the frequency of breastfeeding.31 Examples of these two patterns of fat changes are s