How Much Milk Should a Baby Drink? Amounts by Age (Australia)

"How much should she be drinking?" is one of the first questions every parent asks — usually at 2am, holding a half-finished bottle, wondering if it's enough.

The honest answer: it varies more than any chart can capture, and the goal isn't to hit a number. Here's what the Australian guidelines actually say, and how to tell your baby is getting enough.

The short answer

Milk — breastmilk or formula — is your baby's main food for the whole first year. Solids start around 6 months, but they build up alongside milk, not instead of it. The Queensland Government is clear that babies need breastmilk or formula until 12 months.

How much that adds up to depends on your baby's age, weight, whether they're breastfed, bottle-fed or both, and the day. So the most useful thing you can do is learn your baby's pattern and watch their cues — not chase a target.

How often do babies feed?

In the early weeks, feeding is relentless. According to the Australian Breastfeeding Association, babies commonly feed 8–14 times or more in 24 hours in the early months — tiny tummies and fast digestion make frequent feeding completely expected.

NSW Health puts rough numbers on it:

These are patterns, not quotas. Some babies take fewer, bigger feeds; others take more frequent, smaller ones — and a baby who sleeps a longer stretch overnight will often feed more during the day to catch up.

How much milk per day?

This is where parents reach for a calculator. Use the numbers below as a broad guide, not a goal.

NHMRC · Infant Feeding Guidelines

As a broad reference, formula-fed infants take around 150 mL per kilogram of body weight per day up to 6 months, and about 100 mL/kg from 6–12 months — with many babies taking less, especially once solids begin.

A few things that matter more than the formula itself:

• Breastmilk can't be measured at the breast. The ABA notes that a feed's length doesn't tell you how much milk your baby took. Breastfed babies aged 1–6 months average around 750 mL a day, but some need more and some less.
• Formula strength never changes as your baby grows — only the amount does. Always make it to the tin's instructions; never concentrate or dilute it.
• Amounts vary by weight and day. A range is normal. Leftover milk in a bottle isn't a failure.

The point of these figures is reassurance and rough planning — not a per-feed number your baby has to finish.

What changes when solids start

Around 6 months, food enters the picture — but milk stays the main drink. Solids build gradually from tastes to small meals, and milk feeds usually come first in the early weeks of solids.

So don't cut milk back just because your baby is eating. Milk intake naturally eases down over the second half of the year as meals grow, but breastmilk or formula remains important right through to 12 months. (New to this stage? Our starting solids guide walks through the Australian timeline.)

Signs your baby is getting enough

You can't see millilitres, but you can see the output. NSW Health lists the everyday signs that feeding is going well:

• Plenty of wet nappies — a reliable, low-tech check
• Alertness and good skin and muscle tone
• Steady weight gain over time
• Settling and not wanting to feed constantly (outside normal cluster-feed windows)

Wet nappies are the single easiest thing to track day to day, and it's exactly what your child health nurse will ask about.

Watch the baby, not the clock

Once feeding is established, healthdirect suggests following your baby's hunger cues rather than a schedule. Early cues — stirring, rooting, hands to mouth — come well before crying, which is a late hunger cue.

This is why a tracker beats a strict timetable: it shows you your baby's natural rhythm so you can anticipate the next feed, instead of forcing one to fit a chart.

When to talk to your nurse or GP

The first few days are different — they're tied to birth weight, your milk coming in, and sometimes jaundice, so they belong to your care team, not a chart. The NHMRC advises that a sleepy newborn who hasn't fed for about 5 hours in the early days should be gently roused and offered the breast.

How tracking feeds helps

In the newborn fog, every feed blurs into the next. Was that 60 mL or 90? When was the last one? Which side did we start on?

Logging feeds lets you stop guessing — you see your baby's own daily total and rhythm, answer your nurse's questions with real numbers, and let your partner check the last feed without a text.

BabyLog logs breast, bottle and pumping, and after a couple of weeks it can show you the amount that's usual for your baby at that time of day — context, never a target. See the feeding feature page, the Free vs Pro split, or just start tracking.