Frequency of baby's urination: All you need to know

Mommies, discussing the frequent urination of your newborn baby is something unheard of. But, like adults, there could be a threshold of normal urination frequency for babies.

You may wonder how many times your baby should be in a day. Or maybe, how does your baby’s pee looks like, or smells like. Knowing these things may be insignificant, but mommies, there is no such thing as insignificant about your baby’s health.

Being able to answer the following topics might give us some knowledge on how many diapers a baby would need to change, and when we should see your baby’s doctor:

• Baby’s normal urination frequency
• Frequent urination in baby: What does it mean when your baby urinates a lot or less
• Baby’s urine: indication of smell and color

What is urinating?

Urinating is a way for our body to remove waste fluids. Urine (which components are water, uric acid, urea, and toxins) stays in the bladder until the bladder reaches its full point. At this rate, a person must expel it from his body.

Urination also involves various bodily systems, that is why it is a complex process that means it can cause several issues in other systems in the body.

Adult urination can be 6-7 times a day. Frequent urination, or urinary frequency, is when a person drinks 2 liters at most, and needs to pee more than 7 times a day.

Although it is good, sometimes, frequent urination for a baby might indicate serious problems in your health. But, what about babies’ urination frequency?

Baby frequent urination: Baby’s normal urination frequency

Your newborn baby usually passes urinating for the first time within 12 to 24 hours after delivery. When urinating did not happen after 24 hours, it might be an infection in your baby’s urinary tract.

As mommy and baby need to stay in the hospital for about 1 to 2 days after giving birth, the doctor may easily detect and diagnose your baby’s urinary problem easily if there is one.

During the first 2-3 days after birth, a breastfed baby may not urinate more frequently, and thus, may not have wet more than 1 diaper. Urinary frequency increases as the baby are being breastfed for the next days.

After that, your baby might urinate every 1 to 3 hours a day, or as frequently as 4 to 6 times per day. If they are sick or feel hot or feverish, or when the climate is overly hot, their usual urine output may be halved but it is still normal.

Your baby’s urination should never be painful. If you observe your baby and notice signs of distress while he is urinating, that could be a sign of infection or other health problems involving the urinary tract.

Better notify your pediatrician about it.

4 months old, 6 months old, and 10 months old baby’s urinary frequency

Babies are still in their developing excretory system and their intake of foods and water seems likely suitable for them.

If the normal urination frequency of babies is 4 to 6 times a day, for 4 months old, 6 months old, and 10 months old babies would also be the same.

Later in their life, as they become adults, their urinary frequency will be the same as adults, which would be 6-7 times a day.

Urination frequency of your breastfed baby

The amount the baby would urinate depends on their fluid intake. If the baby’s feeding frequency heightens to more than 2 ounces of milk formula every 3 hours, they will obviously urinate more.

This means that there would be more diaper changes. If the baby is asleep and is feeding less, their urination frequency will also be less.

Frequent urination of a baby: What does it mean when your baby urinates a lot or less?

What causes your newborn baby to urinate more frequently

If your baby is frequently urinating, that is usually a good thing and this means that your baby is getting enough nutrition and eating.

In your baby’s first month, if you are breastfeeding and have a sufficient supply, you need to change your baby’s diaper 4 to 6 times a day. That means your baby is having a good amount of nourishment he needs.

But if your baby’s urinary frequency surpasses the “normal” frequency (like more than once in an hour), observe other signs.

When Should You Be Concerned?

While frequent urination in babies is generally normal, there are situations where you might want to consult a doctor. These include:

• Signs of Dehydration: Dry mouth, fewer wet diapers, or urine that is dark and has a strong odor could be signs of dehydration.
• Uncomfortable or Painful Urination: If your baby cries or seems in discomfort while urinating, this could indicate a UTI or other urinary issues.
• Sudden Changes in Urination Patterns: A sudden and drastic increase or decrease in urination frequency could signal a problem and warrants a medical check-up.
• Other Symptoms: If frequent urination is accompanied by fever, vomiting, or irritability, you should seek medical attention.

What causes your newborn baby to urinate less frequently

Your baby might be peeing less if:

• it is summer or hot weather
• the climate is very, very cold
• they have a fever, or are sick
• they are not drinking enough fluids (breastmilk or milk formula)

When your baby is sick, or the climate is very hot or very cold, your baby may urinate less than normal frequency. Once your baby gets well, or the temperature comes back to normal, their urination frequency will also go normal.

If your newborn baby is not feeding enough, the tendency is he might urinate less likely. When mommies breastfeed their babies, they can not measure how enough feeding is enough for the baby to urinate.

Look for other signs that your baby is not feeding well, such as:

• Lethargy – if your baby is not eating much, they might get more sleepy, or will seem “too easy” to care for
• Prolonged sleep – if your baby sleeps 4 or more hours always, that could be a sign that they are not getting enough nutrition.

Call a doctor ASAP if your baby is still urinating less after having fever breaks, when no illness is evident, or after breastfeeding, most especially when your baby did not urinate within 6 to 8 hours.

Baby’s urine: Indication of smell and color

Your baby’s urine color

If your baby is healthy, his urine color must be light to dark yellow. The darker the urine color, the more urine is concentrated. This happens when your baby is not drinking a lot of water for a day.

In the first two days of your baby’s life, he or she may urinate dark yellow, orange, or even pink urine because of the excretion of urates into urine or the waste products, which is normal.

Some foods, edible herbs, and supplements may affect the color of the breastmilk and might cause your baby to urinate a shade of pink, green, or orange.

In the first week after your baby’s delivery, you may notice a pink or brick-red stain on the diaper, always mistaken for blood. In reality, this stain is usually a sign of urine with high concentration, which is pinkish in color.

There is nothing to worry about if your baby is still wetting 4 diapers a day. But if the pinkish-colored stain persists, better consult your pediatrician.

Newborn baby girls could have small spots of blood in their diapers; this may happen during the first week after delivery. These blood spots are caused by mommy’s hormones affecting the baby’s uterus.

After that 1 week span, spotting should stop. The presence of actual blood in the urine or spots of blood in the diaper is never normal.

It is possibly caused by a diaper rash sore, but it could also be caused by a more serious health condition.

If this spotting or bleeding is simultaneously happening with symptoms of abdominal pain, vomiting, disrupted feeding, fever, or bleeding in other body parts, better seek immediate help from your doctor.

Here’s a rough guide of the baby’s urine color and what does every shade means:

• Light yellow – healthy
• Dark yellow – usually healthy but might indicate dehydration
• Pink – highly concentrated urine
• Red – blood in urine, or due to food or medicine
• Orange – blood in urine, or due to food or medicine
• Brown – blood in urine, or due to food or medicine
• Cloudy (milky white) – a kidney or urinary tract infection
• “brick dust” – insufficient fluids

Your baby’s urine smell

Along with mommies’ concern about their babies’ urine color, comes the smell. Sometimes, colorful urine and smelly urine implicate the same condition.

In some cases, smelly urine may present bacterial infection, like UTI, which may cause severe illnesses if unnoticed and untreated.

If your baby’s urine strongly smells, like an ammonia solution, look for symptoms of infection, such as blood in urine and cloudy and smelly urine.

However, not all the times that your baby’s urine strongly smells signifies an infection. When your breastfed baby’s urine has a strong odor and a dark yellow color, this means that he is maybe dehydrated.

Giving your baby more fluids intake (such as breastfeeding milk or formula milk) may help him urinate with light color and less odor.

Diet and medicinal intakes may also affect your baby’s urine odor. This is a concern that needs help from your health care provider.

In other cases, your baby’s urine may sometimes smell like sweets or maple syrup. This indicates a serious illness called Maple Syrup Urinary disease (MSUD).

This health problem may be seen either within the first 3 days of birth or, within 5 months to 7 years. It’s a metabolic disorder that the body that malfunctions from converting food to energy.

Diabetes might also cause your baby’s urine to smell sweet.

The bottom line about baby frequent urination

Urination is part of a human’s bodily system process to excrete the wastes inside our body.

So, it is better for mommies that once your babies are born, check and look for the signs from your babies’ urine.

It is always recommendable to prevent early signs of urine problems, which can be observed in a baby’s urination frequency if your baby urinates a lot or less, and in the indications shown by your baby’s urine color and odor.

If you notice any odd color, smell, or even urinary frequency of your baby, call and seek guidance from a pediatrician.

Help your baby drink and feed enough nutrition so that he or she can excrete the waste products inside their body without any conditions.

Here at theAsianparent Philippines, it’s important for us to give information that is correct, significant, and timely. But this doesn’t serve as an alternative for medical advise or medical treatment. theAsianparent Philippines is not responsible to those that would choose to drink medicines based on information from our website. If you have any doubts, we recommend to consult your doctor for clearer information.