Calories Burned While Feeding The Baby

Last night I had to find something positive about the situation I am in. Caleb nurses every two hours All Day and ALL NIGHT! Last night I saw 11:00PM, 1:00, 3:00, 5:00, and 7AM. It seems completely insane that I put up with it. Trust me, I know! However, my kid's are unusual nursers. They only nurse for up to 10 minutes tops. That means it's possible that they are only getting one to three ounces per feeding. That burns up pretty quickly. Which means that they are hungry again. I can understand the feeling. Making the milk makes me just as hungry, just as often.

So I was sitting there at 3:AM wondering what possibly could be good about this. I had tried to let him cry it out, but it takes less time to just get up and nurse him then to let him cry. I came up with this conclusion: I sleep better (when I sleep) because of the hormones that are released while nursing. But the best benefit is the calories that I burn throughout the night! I started wondering just how many calories I burn... It looks like it's a lot!

I found a woman who has done her research and she's come up with this; "it is generally said that breastfeeding burns 200-500 calories per day. I think you can convert breastfeeding to a calorie burning on AVERAGE, and you can convert it to an hourly scale, as in 1 hour of breastfeeding=x calories burned. Usually a newborn baby will consume 2 ounces of milk every 2 hours or so if the milk is breast milk. That is 1 ounce every hour, 24 ounces every 24 hours (while the baby is a newborn). Breast milk burns very quickly once the baby drinks it, thus the reason for the constant eating...the baby is always hungry! 1 ounce of breast milk burns approximately 20 calories i believe... so that is 20 calories burned for every hour of breastfeeding, which averages to 280 calories per day in the beginning. I suppose that is about average between 200 and 500 more or less (the actual average is 350 but for estimation purposes of a baby consuming 24 ounces of breast milk per day 280 is enough). So that is breastfeeding 1 ounce of milk per hour burns 20 calories per hour. Breastfeeding 2 ounces of milk per hour burns 40 calories per hour. Breastfeeding 3 ounces of milk per hour burns 60 calories per hour, and so forth and so on. 1 ounce of breast milk=20 calories burned. If your baby drank 4 ounces of breast milk per hour, you burn 80 calories making breast milk per hour." -CaloriesPerHour.com

My guess is that I burn around 80-160 calories throughout the night. That's a low calorie meal or a dessert. It's possible to think that I am burning an average of 800 calories throughout a 24 hour day. Motivation enough for me! That is MY kind of exercise! Stop, Sit, Feed and Loose Weight!