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FF on demand

Hey. My questions are.......Do you have to stop feeding on demand by a certain age, because of baby needing a routine? If you stop feeding on demand, and try to extend time in between feeds - how do you know you are not denying your lo what they need, eg. through a growth spurt? Any help on this appreciated. I feed on demand at the moment, so obviously timings vary. James had dropped a night feed, but has gained it again, dependent on what time the evening feed is. Thanks girls. xx mithical and James 7 weeks 2 days.

Replies

  • Hi, I have ff 2 babies and generally for the first few weeks I just went with the flow of when they wanted feeding. I found that a natural pattern emerged after around 6 weeks, where feeds were every 4ish hours (on a good day!)

    From about 6 weeks my 2 started sleeping most of the night so last bottle at about 11pm and morning one about 6 or 7. When they dropped the night feed I increased the morning and evening feeds to fill them up. Sometimes they still woke at 3 or 4am wanting a bottle, and if this happened then I fed them.

    Now they are both toddlers and they still have a good routine so I don't think I did anything wrong lol! If you're wanting to get a routine going, just try to make the last evening feed a bit bigger than usual, (I always gave the last feed in the bedroom) make sure all night feeds are done in dim light with not much talking/fuss (don't change nappy unless pooey) just to keep baby sleepy and to make the nights very different to the days.

    Hope some of that helped.
  • you will just fall into a routine naturally but obviously during growth spurts/illness/teething you may fall out of this pattern.

    I personally wld continue demand feeding - how else do you know what they want? A book cant tell you when your bubba is hungry! xxx
  • we are still demand feeding, jacob dropped his 11pm feed a few weeks ago and the last few nights i have been dreamfeeding at 11pm to try drop his 3/4am feed but so far he is still waking for this feed, i guess he must still need it, 11pm is our only proper set feed and the others vary a lot

    becca and jacob
    9 weeks 4 days
  • Hi hun, I think it completely depends on what your babies natural feeding routine is like. For example, if they want a feed every hour and drink a fair ammount, if this fits in with your own scheduals i see no reason to change at the minute.

    My daughter on the other hand, cried for milk i'd say every 30mins, but only drank a very small ammount at a time, so was never filling up properly. My HV advised we try to get her into a 3hourly routine, to teach her to finish her bottles and satisfy herself fully, as every 30mins was taking the mick a bit when she was 2months old! xx
  • Ella always fed every 2 1/2 - 3 hours on demand and I went by her the whole time! If she was hungry through growth spurts, illness etc I just fed her more often as she wanted it! She fell into her own routine which was every 3 hours!
  • Thanks girls, that has reassured me. I was thinking James would sort himself out, as he is going longer at night already. I was confused as to how you make sure lo gets enough, if you are trying to stretch out feeds, when they are clearly hungry. Just wasn't sure if it was ok to continue as I am. Thanks again. xx
  • I ff'd on demand and LO just gradually stretched out times herself. She was incredibly vocal when hungry though so couldn't try and jolly her out of it.

    She used to SCREAM lol. Although shut up as soon as bottle appeared! She started having 8ozs from about four months ab out 5 times a day. Slept through from 11 weeks though, 7 - 8 next morning x
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