How long should a breastfeed last? How to time your newborn's feeds

NHS Wales' breastfeeding information does not give a set number of minutes. It says that some babies want frequent short feeds, others prefer to feed for longer, and many do a mixture of the two. It advises letting your baby finish the first breast and then offering the second. It also says that in the first few weeks a baby should feed at least eight times in 24 hours, often more, because a newborn's stomach is small.

Many websites quote a typical number of minutes per side. Treat those as descriptions of what some babies do, not as a target. A short feed is not a sign of too little milk, and a long feed is not a sign of too much. If you are unsure, your midwife or health visitor can watch a feed and tell you more than any number can.

Length on its own says little. A log is more useful when it keeps a few things together:

• The start time, so you can see how many feeds there were in 24 hours and how far apart they were.
• The side or sides, and the order, so you know where to start next time.
• Roughly how long, if your care team has asked or if you are curious about a pattern. Round numbers are fine.
• A few words when something was different: very sleepy at the breast, fussy, painful, or a feed that felt unusually short or long.
• Wet and dirty diapers, because output tells you more about whether a baby is feeding well than minutes do. See our guide on telling whether your baby is getting enough milk.

If a feed ran into the next one, as often happens in the evening, you may be looking at cluster feeding rather than a problem with length.

Look at the clock when the baby latches and again when the feed ends, then write one line: the start time, the sides (for example L then R) and the minutes. Do not try to time every swallow or every pause. A baby who dozes at the breast and wakes up again is still one feed for most parents' purposes.

Keep the paper or note where you feed. At night, dim the screen if you use your phone.

Tap Breastfeed, then Start left or Start right. The timer runs until you stop it. Tap Switch to move to the other side, Pause if the baby comes off for a while, and Stop at the end. Each side keeps its own minutes. The timer also shows on the Lock Screen and in the Dynamic Island, with buttons to switch sides, pause or stop without unlocking the phone. If you started the timer late, Baton lets you move the start time.

If you did not use the timer, add the feed by hand and enter the minutes for the left and right sides. A manual entry records the left side first and then the right, because it cannot know the real order.

The Today screen shows how long ago the last feed was and which side is next. On the Charts screen, each day shows the number of feeds, with the minutes on the left and right side underneath. The 7-day view is free; 30- and 90-day trends are part of Baton Plus. CSV export of every entry is free, and a PDF summary for the doctor is part of Plus.

If your partner also uses Baton, through their own iCloud account, they see the same feeds, and each entry shows who logged it. Baton only records what you enter. It does not say how long a feed should be or whether a feed was long enough.

Ask your midwife, health visitor, doctor or a lactation consultant if feeding hurts, if your baby feeds for very short stretches and seems hungry straight after, if they often fall asleep at the breast and feed rarely, if you see fewer wet or dirty diapers than your care team expects, or if you are worried about weight gain. In an emergency, call your local emergency number. Bring your log: it shows how often and for how long your baby fed.