Not sure where to ask about this awful terrible baby advice you have published?

This is very interesting; I live in Spain and was brought up in France so I have a number of French friends. Most people I know in Spain and France feed their babies every four hours. Of course, that's not a particularly large sample of families, but the things you've described on here such as "cluster feeding" are not ones I'm particularly au fait with.

My DS was neglected as an infant.
He now has an eating disorder.

That is so sad. I think if we were neglected as babies it was "scientific" neglect, because my mother was a very warm person who loved children. But she would have followed whatever childcare recommendations were about in the forties and fifties.

I wondered about that but, presumably, someone asked the author to write it for the site so maybe they just want it to go away quietly....

It's gone but still no apology from mn?
Poor.

Ah I see, I think I did a few asterisks and they bolded instead. Doh.

Nope! Well, I didn't intend to, I guess I must have though?

Did you put a line break in after You?

Hmm weird. It should have bolded. Test

Well that's weird, why didn't it bold?!

I'm gonna bold this, because it's really, really important...

Actively spreading out feeds has a direct negative effect on breastmilk production. Breasts produce less milk when they are full to the brim!! You are giving advice here that WILL have a negative impact on breastfed babies

blogs.unicef.org.uk/2016/08/01/infant-feeding-interval/

When my dd was born 32 years ago the advice was every three hours on breastmilk.

That wasn't general advice. DS was born 32 years ago and the advice I had was demand feeding.

🎉

This is also in direct contravention of current NHS advice on feeding, which is to feed on demand. All the cots in my local hospital had feeding cues leaflets attached to them when I gave birth to DS2 recently, so that babies didn't have to wait to eat and mums didn't think that they 'didn't have enough milk'.

Yeap, I just discovered this thread but couldn't read the article, sounds like that is all for the best.

Just wanted to comment that I am in my sixties and my sister in her seventies and we had a very modern, scientific mother in our day. So my sister and I presume that I too, were made to go 4 hours between feeds and we were on breastmilk. When my dd was born 32 years ago the advice was every three hours on breastmilk.

Not a scientific study, but I was once given a kitten that had gone three days without eating and the poor wee thing ate everything going, was incapable of refusing food. My sister has battled with overeating since the year dot and I am not an overeater because I virtually chain smoke. I fed my dd on demand and she loves her food and doesn't smoke but is a skinny wee thing. So my not so scientific conclusion is that making babies go hungry may possibly cause them to have issues with food when they are older.

Oh hurrah! power to the people!

Ooh, has it gone from Facebook? I can't see it any more

Same here Helmetbymidnight

I couldn't understand why dd went through periods of wanting to feed ALL the time. Thought she wasn't getting enough milk!

Advice like this never takes into account completely natural cluster feeding.

Very disappointing from MM.

Here's the NHS advice that recommends responsive feeding and following babies cues, including frequent feeding, short vs long feeds and not being able to spoil a newborn by responding to their needs.

http://www.nhs.uk/Conditions/pregnancy-and-baby/Pages/your-breastfeeding-questions.aspx

There's lots of evidence that responsive feeding - bottle or breast is better for long term health outcomes. It regulates blood sugars better which is believe to aid cognitive and brain development.

I desperately wanted a routine but I had a baby who wanted feeding every two hours.
I thought there was something wrong with him.

The article is titled 9 simple ways to develop a routine for your baby. If you don't want a routine then don't read the article and don't have one.

That's the thing though isn't it?

Unless you are one of those insufferable pricks who thinks that YOU are the only reason your baby followed a perfect routine then you'll understand that following this advice to the letter, apart from very damaging to bf babies chances of remaining breastfed, will only result in a routine depending entirely on your baby.

Got a easy baby that goes with the flow, sleeps whenever you seem to want him to, no silent reflux etc. Good for you, this will probably work (Ds is like this)

Got a baby that turns into a banshee whenever you try to put them anywhere other than yourself for a nap and this advice is just as likely to push you over the edge possibly to depression when it doesn't work/ makes things worse.

It did with me when I had DD. I was in the doctors struggling to speak through tears wailing that I didn't understand what was going wrong, I must be a terrible mother. The doctor basically told me that that old fashioned advice was bull, it would work for those with already naturally easy babies but not for me so to just do whatever made life easier.

For the record I used to be one of those insufferably smug people. I assumed that mothers were just doing it wrong if they couldn't get their baby to sleep/feed in a routine.

Boy did DD show me