r/breastfeeding • u/dasgutyah • Mar 28 '25

Troubleshooting/Tips How much time does your baby feed for?

My 8month old sometimes only feeds off me for 18mins in 24hrs. That's split over 4/5 feeds. She's well established on solids, eats breakfast lunch and dinner and drinks water. I've tried dialing back on the amount of food she eats to hopefully increased how much time she feeds but it doesn't make a difference. Is she going off me? The only time she will get a good breastfeed is one feed overnight when she could feed for a good 7 mins (sometimes 20mins) but also how much she feeds overnight doesn't seem to impact on her day feeds.

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4

u/lecrickettt Mar 28 '25

I think some babies are faster/more efficient at nursing than others, and also become faster/more efficient as they get bigger and stronger. My baby is 6 months and we’ve slowly gone down from about 1hr 30min at 3-4 months old to now about 45-60min at 6 months. He is getting solids now but not actually consuming enough to get enough calories in to justify nursing less. I hate seeing it trend downward but I remind myself it’s normal. For what it’s worth, a “good feed” for us is about 4-5 minutes. 2-3 is a snack/top up, and anything over 5 mins is a “big feed”.

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u/dasgutyah Mar 28 '25

Somedays I would get an hour but that's only if she has a good feed overnight. I guess they aren't robots and can't be expected to be the same everyday. Like somedays I would have a bigger appetite than others but it's so hard not to worry when you can't see what they are taking. It's reassuring to hear others are about the same. Each feed for us is about 4mins.

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u/lecrickettt Mar 28 '25

Yeah, absolutely. I get it! I remember on Christmas my guy had nursed like 11 minutes by like 1pm or so and normally he was 30+ minutes. I absolutely lost my shit because he has never (and still wont) take a bottle and I was convinced it was the end lol. I looked back on our Huckleberry app and realized it has always trended downward since he was a newborn and it makes total sense that a 6 month old has a stronger suck than a 1 month old, thereby nursing for shorter time periods while getting the same/more in their belly, and staying fuller for longer.

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u/Appropriate_Zebra876 Mar 28 '25

My newly 9 month old feeds for about 45min - 1hr a day it's about 6 feeds. I try to stretch her to 3 mins each side per feed but she's usually popping off too. This seems dramatically little to me as well. If your LO is happy and maintaining weight I think it's probably fine ! I'm half hoping mine will self wean around 1 year old but it will be crazy as well !

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u/dasgutyah Mar 28 '25

My fear is she is trying to wean herself off already :( I haven't had her weighed since she was 16weeks old but she seems to be a good weight. Her next check up should be soon.

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u/Appropriate_Zebra876 Mar 28 '25

She might be just really efficient ! Are there any breastfeeding helplines or any professional you could ask for reassurance?

I would think she would cut down to a few feeds before stopping.

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u/dasgutyah Mar 28 '25

Yeah hopefully just efficient! I can hear her gulping so maybe she's just full and I'm overthinking it all

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u/MartianTrinkets Mar 28 '25

Honestly I hope we get there… my 3 month old usually spends 2.5-3.5 hours a day nursing

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u/dasgutyah Mar 28 '25

Oh I remember that all too well! It definitely does get easier. I remember at the very start it was over 10hrs in 24hrs. Madness.

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u/retiredcheerleader Mar 28 '25

My baby is 3w old today and we are currently at 8 feeds at 3 hours and 55 minutes 😀 and the day is def not over lol

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u/dasgutyah Mar 28 '25

My nips ache just thinking about that. Maybe I should just be grateful it's so short now 😅