Calorie Goal While Weaning

Watch_Me_Shine416

I'm currently in the process of weaning my 13 month old and I'm trying to figure out what my new calorie goal should be. While breastfeeding, I had my goal set at 1900 and it worked for me. My daughter breastfeeds mostly at night (more for comfort) and once a day during nap time. Also, should I stop logging breastfeeding as an exercise now? I used to log it as 500 calories burned when I was feeding on demand.

JLPersall

How long do you plan for weaning to take place? Maybe cut down to 250 for a while then lower yr calories as you lower your nursing? Are you still trying to lose?

chunky_pinup

Do you know approx. how many ounces you are producing? They say that to produce 1 oz. of milk, your body burns 10 calories. When I weaned, I was almost exclusively pumping at work, with one breast feed in the evening, so I was able to approximate how many ounces total I was producing and estimated calories that way. You don't want to drop the calories too much, because you will stop producing much quicker, and can throw off the weaning process, so using the 10cal/oz. rule helped me wean successfully without additional weight gain.

Rawr619

I would think you would burn closer to 20 calories per oz of milk. Normal newborn infant formula (which mimics the calorie content and nutritional content of breast milk) is 19-20 calories per oz.

I would research that to find out.

victoria_1024

Once my baby turned 1 I dropped to 200 extra calories a day. It's a bit of a guessing game really. You will need extra calories but not 500 anymore more than likely. I never logged breastfeeding as an exercise, I logged in my food diary as a negative entry. They have several options for breastfeeding. Either way, I would keep eating some extra calories until she's weaned.

happyjacks

I just weaned my 18 month old.

I started 5 weeks ago reducing calories to between 1300-1500 and upping my exercise a bit. (I normally walk 20 miles a week but added in spin class and weights.) My milk supply decreased some but my comfort nursing son didn't care. (Stubborn!)

10 days ago my mom came to visit and helped with the official weaning. We are all done (pretty much went cold turkey!) and I've just kept going with the same food/exercise routine. The past 5 days weight has really fallen off which I think is due to the hormonal change and some breast size reduction.

tlflag1620

I'm currently nursing my nine month old and log 300 calories a day of breastfeeding "exercise" since she started solids a few months back (I used to log 500). I'll probably stop logging that altogether once she hits a year old (I'll still be breastfeeding, but at that point it won't be making up enough of her diet to really help me in terms of calorie burn). You could defiantly start by not factoring breastfeeding in anymore, and after a couple weeks, adjust your calorie intake as needed.

LLT38

I've been slowly decreasing my breastfeeding calorie allowance as my daughter has increased her solids intake. I currently allow 200 extra calories for breastfeeding my 11 month old and I intend to decrease that to 100 calories when I return to work in a few weeks.

mathiseasy

OP I would second @victoria_1024, it's a guessing game. Using a rule of thumb is helpful if you are trying to get a range, and you can certainly research whatever you want, but you already know that 500 extra calories was working for you, so you know your new number will probably be somewhere between 1400-1900. When I weaned my son I decreased the extra calories by half, so I was eating roughly 200 extra calories, and once he was down to one feed/24 hours, I ate at maintenance. I found that because my supply was decreasing from the loss of extra calories, my son was less motivated to nurse (I understand this is not the case for everyone).
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