Thoughts on breastfeeding Calories Burned? to log or not?

hmmm.,. I never thought of that. I have a 3 month old, feeding about every 2 hrs during the day. Bonus calories burning there I guess.

It is a burn. you are giving them you're calories, that you burned to make milk for them. Log it. I have one friend on here that is pumping 32 ounces a day and she is getting credited 620 exercise calories burned. It takes a lot for a body to produce breast milk. Log it!!!

I would definitely log them. I only nurse morning and might now but last year when I started to eat healthier (& before MFP) I didn't take that intp consideration and my milk supply decreased. I wish I had known about this site then. Good luck finding the right balance for you!

Does breastfeeding burn that many calories? Im not sure whether to log them or not? Im feeding a 10 month old baby- she has 3-4 feeds a day. When I look up the database it says that I should log that as 300 calories burnt but that seems like alot. Should I log it at all? or just think of it as a bonus. What do other nursing mothers do and or think?

Wishing you all the best on your weightlosss journey

I'm probably the one case that breastfeeding never affected me, I knew some that lost all of their weight doing this. I never really logged it. It's really up to you. I know that all I can say is that it's a wonderful gift you are giving to your baby.

Definitely log it and EAT THOSE CALS. Otherwise your milk supply will suffer. I work with nursing moms all the time and this is a common questions. It is approx 500 cals for exclusive BF>

Yes breastfeeding exclusively (no solids, no formula) earns you around 500 calories per day. If you feed less than exclusively, you can try to estimate how it compares to when you were feeding exclusively. For example if you were feeding 10 times a day exclusively and then baby started using formula part time or eating solids and your feedings went down to say 6 per day, you could estimate about 300 calories per day.

You can enter breastfeeding calories in your food diary. If you go in like you want to add a snack or something, you can type 'breastfeeding' and several options come up. There's once for exclusive feeding that credits you 500 calories, then other options like 'older baby' with estimates around 300 cal. Entering those into your food diary will credit you extra calories to eat for the day. Alternatively, you could set your activity level one level higher than it is or you could manually set your calorie goal a bit higher than what MFP gives you. If you do the food diary thing, you have to enter it every single day. But you can clearly look and see what you're doing, and you can easily change it if you have a day that baby feeds differently. If you instead decide to change your activity level or manually set your calorie goal higher, it will stay that way every day until you change it, so it is easier on a day to day basis but could throw you off if baby's feeding pattern changes and you forget about it.

My 20 month old only nurses once or twice a day at this point, since it's so little I just take it as bonus calories and don't beat myself up if I go over my goal here and there. If he ever has a fussy/odd day where he nurses more than that, I allow myself a small extra snack. :-)

Definitely log it and EAT THOSE CALS. Otherwise your milk supply will suffer. I work with nursing moms all the time and this is a common questions. It is approx 500 cals for exclusive BF>

That's really interesting. And good to know. Eating never affected my milk supply though. My breast milk even maintained after I quit nursing. I made sure to stay hydrated though. But listening to a person who works with lots of nursing moms and has tools to utalize is probably the best bet.

Is it 500 calories a feeding??? wow. seems too good.my baby is 3 months and EBF.. no wonder my weight is coming off. Lucky for me as I know it doesn't work for all mom's.

No no no! It's 500 for the DAY if you're feeding *exclusively* (no formula, no solids, just breastmilk and nothing else). But yes it can be really helpful for getting the baby weight off if you eat sensibly. I lost all my baby weight by 6 months with both kids and I didn't do anything other than breastfeeding (still ate what I want and didn't bother exercising). Unfortunately I started to gain weight back both times when the 6 month mark hit and they started eating solids and nursing less. LOL But at least for next time I'll have a better understanding of how to keep that under control. :-)

P.S. That's a cute baby you've got there in your avatar. :-)

Is it 500 calories a feeding??? wow. seems too good.my baby is 3 months and EBF.. no wonder my weight is coming off. Lucky for me as I know it doesn't work for all mom's.

No no no! It's 500 for the DAY if you're feeding *exclusively* (no formula, no solids, just breastmilk and nothing else). But yes it can be really helpful for getting the baby weight off if you eat sensibly. I lost all my baby weight by 6 months with both kids and I didn't do anything other than breastfeeding (still ate what I want and didn't bother exercising). Unfortunately I started to gain weight back both times when the 6 month mark hit and they started eating solids and nursing less. LOL But at least for next time I'll have a better understanding of how to keep that under control. :-)

P.S. That's a cute baby you've got there in your avatar. :-)

thanks, he sure is cute!. I didn't think it was that much a feeding. that's still good tho. no wonder i dropped my weight with my 1st. and that was only EBF for 3.5 months. all formula after that. I lost 6 lbs more than my pre pregnancy weight, and kept it off till i got pregnant when my 1st was 13 months. This time I'm going for longer for nursing.

I've nursed five babies. I eat 1250 a day and I nurse and don't log it. Mothers in malnourished countries still have a milk supply. Your body will feed the baby first. I plateaud at 1400 a day so I had to lower my calories. Still have milk.