How Many Calories Does My Baby Need?

Every parent wants to make sure their baby is getting the calories and nutrition they need to grow healthy and strong. Milk – whether breastmilk or formula – is packed full of both. 

Most of the time, you don’t need to count calories. It’s enough to know that you’re giving your baby breastmilk or high-quality formula, as long as their weight is increasing in line with their age, and you’re seeing at least 5-6 wet diapers per day. 

If your baby needs more calories – such as when they’re going through a growth spurt – they’ll let you know. If they’ve had enough, then they’ll refuse more milk. It’s impossible to overfeed a baby.

If you want to count calories…

Occasionally, parents will need to count calories – perhaps because their baby is underweight and their pediatrician has asked them to keep track. Or you might just be interested in figuring it out. 

Thankfully, it’s relatively simple to do. From newborn to 3 years old, babies and children need around 100 calories per kg of body weight. So once you know their weight in kg, you can work out roughly how much formula they need, since most formula has roughly the same calorie content. 

In this table, you can see roughly how much formula babies need at each stage (scroll down to see how to work this out for your baby’s exact weight):

Bear in mind that this doesn’t apply to breastmilk. If you’re worried that your breastfed baby isn’t getting enough calories, seek medical advice. 

How many calories your baby needs: the math

To work out the exact amount of formula your baby needs to get the right amount of calories, there are 3 steps.

Step 1: Calculate their weight in kg

If you only know your baby’s weight in pounds, you’ll need to convert it to kg. 

There is 1 kg in every 2.2 lbs, so simply divide the weight in pounds by 2.2.

For example, if a newborn baby weighs 6.5 lbs – divide 6.5 by 2.2 = 2.95 kg.

Step 2: Calculate the number of calories

Now you have the weight in kg, all you need to do is multiply it by 100 to find the number of calories per day. 

For example, for a 2.95kg baby, multiply 2.95 by 100 = 295 calories per day (or you can round up to 300).

Step 3: Calculate how many bottles they need

For most formula brands, there are around 65-70 calories in 100ml – which is equivalent to around a 3oz bottle, made up with 3 scoops of formula and 3oz of water. 

Most newborn babies will need around 6 3oz bottles per day to get enough calories. As they grow, they’ll need more calories, but not necessarily more bottles. A 13 pound baby will need around 600 calories per day, or around 5 6oz bottles. 

There’s really no need to do the math exactly, or to count every last calorie, as babies will nearly always take the amount of milk they need. 

But if you do want to see how this works, here’s a detailed example:

Your 3 month old weighs 11 lbs. 11 lbs/2.2 lbs/kg = 5 kg

A 5 kg baby should be getting 5kg x 100kcal/kg/day = 500 kcal/day

500 kcal per day / 69kcal per 100ml = 7.246 x 100 ml = 725 ml/day

725 ml per day / 29.5ml per oz = 24.57 or 25 oz/day

25 oz per day / 5 oz per bottle = about 5 bottles a day.

Some babies might need more calories than they ‘should’ for their weight, and that’s fine – never deny a hungry baby milk. And of course, once your baby is having solids, they’ll gain calories there, and you’ll be able to gradually reduce their milk intake. 

Calories in European organic formula brands

We’ve put together this table so you can see how many calories there are in each of the European organic formula brands we stock.