I am a nursing mother and wonder how many extra calories I burn

[Efelten]

I am a nursing mother, and I do not believe that fitbit tracks the calories I burn while nursing. I am just curious if anyone knows how many extra calories I am burning in addition to knowing how to tweak my intake of calories to lose weight. 

Is there somewhere on the fitbit online tracker where I can make note that I am nursing?

Thank You.

[SunsetRunner]

If you go to your fitbit dashboard and on to settings (icon on top right of the page), there is an option to tell fitbit you're currently nursing.

[imelissa]

I have contacted Fitbit and they said the nursing button doesnt currently work at the moment. Just so you know 🙂

[MissKai]

I am a nursing mother as well. The nursing button doesn't work from what I can tell searching multiple forums.

Speaking with my lac consultant and doing some research on the web it seems to be that nursing can comsume up to 500 calories but that it depends on the baby, the output and mums generaly health. IE a mom who nurses and pumps might burn more than a mom who nurses alone. 

[Efelten]

Thank You for the responses....I was a bit worried it was an issue with my fitbit since I did not notice a change since checking the "Nursing" box. I have done some research along with talking with a nutritionist and it seems as if the whole nursing topic and calorie intake needed to lose weight and maintain supply varies person to person. Slightly frustrating. Hoping the Fitbit team can get this figured out quick!

[LCHFmom]

I read several articles online when I was pregnant, and I recall it being up to 500 cals burned /day.

[NCMom]

I have researched that a nursing mom can burn anywhere from 200-600 calories a day - so, I took 300 to be conservative, and added a 30 min activity called "breastfeeding" which I log (when I remember). 

It's good to know that someone contacted Fitbit support and found out the nursing button doesn't actually do anything! I could probably safely increase my breastfeeding calorie burn to 450 right now since I am exclusively nursing, but things will change as my baby starts eating more regular food.  I am trying to lose weight as well.  I just know that if I feel overly hungry, I've not eaten enough for the day.  

[Michelle225]

I've always heard that you lose about 500 calories a day while dursing exclusively meaning no solid foods or supplementing with formula. If you sync with My Fitness Pal you can search the food data base for "nursing" or "breastfeeding" and people have created fake food items that contain negative calories that you can add to your food diary to account for nursing.

[Urchin]

I had no idea that the "nursing" button is not working. That is kind of a bother!

I am also a nursing mother. I have a 4 month old. From what I understand, typical estimates are that you require an extra 300-500 calories per day in addition to your BMR.

I sync FitBit to LoseIt!, so I adjusted my LoseIt calorie budget to add an extra 400 calories.

So far it seems to be working for me. I am losing weight and maintaining my milk supply.

So you would first want to find your BMR. I perfer this calculator: http://www.younglifenorthdekalb.com/fitness/bmr_meal_calculator.php

Then I added 400 calories on to the suggestion of how many cals I should eat to lose .5lbs per week.

SO. My BMR is 1211.

They recommend I eat about 1506 cals per week to lose .5lbs per week.

I added 400 cals on to that to take in account breastfeeding.

So I currently eat 1906 cals (give or take) each day.