Have had a relatively good couple of months with my DS (3 months). He is ebf and is growing well. He feeds almost every hour that he is awake, fortunately he does sleep well during the day, usually has a nap every 1.5 hours. Sometimes he feeds for up to an hour although usually feeds are around 10-15 minutes. He is a rubbish sleeper at night though and is up every couple of hours.
I never thought about HOW I bf until I recently moved cities, closer to my mum, and she seemed surprised at how often he feeds. I just assumed that this is what we are meant to do feed them whenever they want/need to.This is what I had been told in antenatal classes, in books, on MN etc
Last night my mum and her friend came to visit and the topic of bf came up (probably because I was feeding DS). Mum bf fed myself and my 4 siblings for more than a year. This was in the 70s and 80s and she said that she fed every roughly every 3 hours, although she thought at the time she was demand feeding. Her friend (they met at mothers group) kept a strict 4 hour feeding schedule and also fed her 4 children beyond a year.
Anyway I now have very mixed feelings about the whole demand feeding business. I always thought I would like to bf to at least a year but now I will have to stop earlier as I will be going back to work when he is 7/8 months and if he continues feeding like this the stress of stopping bf at the same time as leaving him for work will be too much. Also I am practically tied to him at all times. He refuses bottle/cup and I l(once) left him with DH for under 2 hours and came back to a hysterical baby who acted like he had been starving for hours (I had made sure I fed him well prior to leaving him).
I feel like if I had started out bf on a rough schedule of 2-3 hours instead of demand feeding him I would be able to carry on bf for much longer and it would not be such all consuming task. I feel a little annoyed that I had been told that this was the best way (I had thought is was the only way!!) to feed as if you do space out feeds you would have supply problems. This is clearly not a problem for everyone however. I just feel like Ive been mis-sold the whole demand feeding business and wish I could go back a couple of months and start again. I couldnt stretch out his feeds now as it would be too traumatising :(
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Infant feeding
Demand bfeeding...is it really the best thing to do??
23 replies
esna · 08/10/2011 02:43
OP posts:
Loopymumsy ·
08/10/2011 06:33
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