Healthy Infant Growth
The average breastfed baby doubles its birth weight in 5–6 months. By one year, a typical breastfed baby will weigh about 2½ times its birth weight. At one year, breastfed babies tend to be leaner than formula fed babies, which is healthier, especially in the long-run. A general guide to the growth of breastfed babies is the following:
- Weight gain of 4–7 ounces (112–200 grams) a week during the first month
- An average of 1–2 pounds (1/2 to 1 kilogram) per month for the first six months
- An average of one pound (1/2 kilogram) per month from six months to one year
- Babies usually grow in length by about an inch a month (2.5cm) during the first six months, and around one-half inch a month from six months to one year.
Read more about this topic: Infant Feeding
Famous quotes containing the words healthy, infant and/or growth:
“Work is a responsibility most adults assume, a burden at times, a complication, but also a challenge that, like children, requires enormous energy and that holds the potential for qualitative, as well as quantitative, rewards. Isn’t this the only constructive perspective for women who have no choice but to work? And isn’t it a more healthy attitude for women writhing with guilt because they choose to compound the challenges of motherhood with work they enjoy?”
—Melinda M. Marshall (20th century)
“Sweet babe, in thy face
Soft desires I can trace,
Secret joys and secret smiles,
Little pretty infant wiles.”
—William Blake (1757–1827)
“For the time of towns is tolled from the world by funereal chimes, but in nature the universal hours are counted by succeeding tribes of animals and plants, and by growth of joy on joy.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)