About the Tailoring Calculator

Purpose

Purpose: When WIC mothers use formula either some or most of the time, the Competent Professional Authority (CPA) tailors the formula amount (which will be less than the Full Nutrition Benefit (FNB)) she receives based on the infant's assessed needs to provide the minimal amount that meets the infants’ nutrition needs.

The WIC Infant Formula Tailoring Calculator (Tailoring Calculator) assists the CPA in individually tailoring infant formula issuance amounts consistent with WIC regulations to allow all prescribed infant formula quantities to be considered “up to” amounts and promotes critical thinking in assigning the appropriate infant food package with the goal of issuing an optimal amount of supplemental formula to meet an infant's needs while still supporting family breastfeeding goals.

Tailoring Calculator vs WIC Infant Formula Calculator

The Tailoring Calculator is different from the WIC Infant Formula Calculator on the WIC Works Resource System in that the Tailoring Calculator can display issuance results below the FNB. Additionally, the Tailoring Calculator does not display results by issuance method (i.e., monthly or rounding up methodology) since the FNB does not serve as the minimum amount of formula that must be provided for partially breastfed infants. (See a side-by-side comparison of the two calculators).

Results

Calculations are based on a 30-day month, and the results will indicate whether the situation is a tailoring opportunity, along with the total number of formula containers to issue for a specific time frame based on the infant's food package, reported intake, and infant formula product information. For reference, the calculator also provides the maximum monthly allowance (MMA) based on the food package, issuance time frame and the product's reconstituted ounces (the volume of a product after preparing as directed on the container's product label).

The calculator provides correct tailoring and MMA amounts for the formula containers per month based on an accurate reconstituted fluid ounce yield entered. For multi-packaging, the MMA of "container" per month refers to the entire multi-pack amount. For example, a 32 reconstituted fluid ounce yield is entered for a four-pack of 8 fluid ounce ready-to-feed bottles. The MMA of "container" per month refers to the entire multi-pack.

See the Tailoring Calculator Instructions for example scenarios.

This information is a supplemental and complimentary piece of the WIC Breastfeeding Check-In tool. Find additional related resources (on both this site and the WIC Works Resource System) below.