to share with you all a revelation regarding 'feeding on demand'?

[EccentricaGallumbits]

I have ed my self with what I think may be an unusual and radical kind of idea.

I feed myself on demand!

When I am hungry I eat something!

When I am thirsty I have a drink!

Sometimes I need a bit of comfort in the form of choclate or cake and it makes me feel good.

Some days I am hungrier and thirtsier than others and then I eat and drink a bit more, more often.

Sometimes I fancy a snack.

Why on earth would anyone expect a baby to be any different

Who thought it would be a good idea to make babies feed at certain times of the day, even if they needed a little something at other times?

Why is the thought of babies acting like other humans so horrific?

Well, if I'd fed DS on demand, he'd have wasted away, he didn't demand anywhere frequently enough, so I offered boobs at the time GF said, he would then feed, but not cry for food unless it had been hours.

As others have said, completely on demand only seems to work if you have one DC, but from friends I've seen with 2 DCs, the younger one has to learn to fit in with the older one's routine (if you've got to be in the car on the way to school at a certain time, younger DC can't have a feed then regardless of how much they cry).

I don't feed myself on demand either, if I did I'd be either very fat or forever being late for things. I don't feed my toddler on demand, he can ask for biscuits at 4:30 all he likes, but I'm going to make him wait for his dinner at 5...

Because I like to get my babies sleeping through the night ASAP and I find that getting them into a regular feeing routine during the day helps that to happen. I also don't feed myself on demand as I don't want to gain too much weight.

I can appreciate that a lot of people like to feed on demand, but it really is just one way among many that work very well for different families.

I loved feeding on demand and my babies slept well but I agree it's not for everyone.

"Newborns just love being in a sling"

I can't be doing with this blanket statement that seems to get trotted out on these threads. I've got 3 dc's and would've loved to have been able to carry one of them in a sling. Dc2 had four slings, hated every one of them. Dc3 had seven, yes that's 7, and screamed in each and every one of them.

So yes, maybe your newborn just loved being in a sling, but please don't apply this to every baby.

I fed on demand and my DS naturally got himself into a routine, but I didn't have any other children to look after and bf so if we were out and he was hungry I could just find a quiet place, no need for heating bottles up or anything. I'm not sure if I'll be so keen to feed on demand with a second child as I'll have DS to look after too so a set feeding routing would probably be so much easier

I dont want to get into the ins and outs of the debate here, though I followed this thread with interest after I saw the article about demand fed children being smarter (ff routiner here-poor DS!) However, I just wondered abotu on demand feeding...do you always produce enough? If offering a feed if a child is ditressed going to give the child the idea that if they are upset, food will make them feel better? Do people really sit at home for weeks and weeks with baby not doing anything?

These are questions that popped intoo my head from reading this thread. Sorry if they are mis worded or offensive, I guess if you dont ask, you dont know!

Oh and BF/FF, On demand/Routine, I dont care, lets all agree on one thing DOWN WITH GF!!!!

And sorry for spelling-Phone and fat fingers combo!

"When I am thirsty I have a drink!"

I've been up since 4am with my baby twins. My boundary-testing 3 year old is about to get up too. I really fancy a gin, frankly.
And THAT is where "on demand" falls down.

Mordecai, you don't have to sit at home to demand feed. You can take the baby with you and feed wherever. I have fed in parks and at bus stations and on busy trains and in Winchester Cathedral.

No evidence as far as I know that people who are demand fed when they are a few weeks old will insist on constant provision of pizzas when they are older: they won't remember for a start, and in any case all parents change their parenting as the child grows. In fact, that idea makes as much sense as thinking that changing their nappies will teach them that they never have to be responsible for their personal hygiene. It is perfectly possible to explain to a 4yo that a baby needs feeding when it is hungry because it has a tiny tummy, but you and I who are bigger have to wait for our tea because that's best for our tummies.

Totally agree that not all babies like slings; they weren't a success with dd either. Not to mention that if you have had bad tears and are stitched down below , carrying a baby in a sling all day can be agony.

YANBU.

I think too much is made of routines, especially in the early days. My closest friend has just had her first baby. She very much wanted to bf, but didn't know that she had to feed the baby quite a lot to stimulate her milk, she was getting worried that she didn't have enough and went out and bought formula, resulting in tears in Mothercare. Her baby is quite sleepy, and didn't demand much, but now she is encouraging him to bf more, she is making loads of milk.

If she had stuck to the feeding advice she was given by her hospital MW, she would probably have given up bfing, and woudo be feeling like a failure. Not that she would be, just that she was upset that she didn't think she had enough milk to feed her baby. I think this is probably quite common.

I agree with MrsHeffley.the point of a routine is to feed them BEFORE they are at the crying stage.

Adults don't wait until they are starving to eat, they eat when they are a bit peckish or when they have a mealtime if that happens sooner.

Do you never go to a restaurant at a set time, arrive there and don't feel that hungry, would you just wait until you were starving or would you eat because its the ' right time'. Saying that, my twins never wait for food, if they are hungry before the appointed time I will of course feed them, just as an adult would grab a snack if hungry before lunch for example.

Oh and as outraged notes above, some babies don't 'demand' much at the start. My two were very small and if I had waited for them to show feeding cues before I fed them, they would have been in trouble. In fact neither of them cried for milk in the first month of their life, and were on a 3 hour feeding schedule otherwise they would have gone for hours between feeds as they did not have the facilities to ask for food.

"My two were very small and if I had waited for them to show feeding cues before I fed them, they would have been in trouble."

you were wiser than me, ceeveebee

ime feeding on demand isn't good for all adults either; surely most of us know at least one person who is overweight because they eat whenever they feel peckish?

and some people (particularly the elderly) become undernourished because they don't want to eat often enough

dd is 15 now and having serious problems having lost her appetite after illness: she is having to retrain herself to eat because she simply cannot feel any hunger cues- she has lost a scary amount of weight in the last month

Mordecai - you ask "If offering a feed if a child is ditressed going to give the child the idea that if they are upset, food will make them feel better? Do people really sit at home for weeks and weeks with baby not doing anything? "

To a baby, toddler, small child, breastfeeding is not food. It is contact, closeness, emotional responsiveness, mutual connection. The food aspect is self-regulated - intake is adjusted according to physical need (one of the reasons breastfed babies are considerably lighter, on average, than formula fed babies by the age of a year. This self-regulation is harder with a bottle of formula). What's making them 'better' is not the food.

Why would anyone have to sit at home for weeks and weeks with a baby not doing anything?? Where has this idea come from? Life goes on, whether the baby is breastfed or formula fed, scheduled-fed or responsively-fed (hate the word 'demand-feeding' as the baby does not 'demand' but expresses a need!). If you are bf, responsive feeding is easier (IMO) than trying to feed to a schedule - there are very few places you really cannot bf a baby, and they are the same places where it would be really hard to bottle feed, too.

Breastfeeding does not work if you are too rigid about feed times. There will be times when a baby needs extra feeds during a growth spurt and the extra feeds stimulate the breasts to produce more milk.

I suspect that mothers who breastfeed on demand are more likely to be sucessful at breastfeeding.

Prehaps there is confusion on this thread of what consitutes demand feeding and what consitutes having a baby in a routine. I am sure there is a middle ground between getting the boob out every time the baby makes a noise and a rigid four hour routine and ignoring a blatently hungry baby. Research like this is often vague as there are so many factors that affect intelligence.

I suspect that the brightest babies have the brightest mothers. Intelligent mothers are flexible enough to adapt if a baby is truely ravinous, but they also pre empt difficult situations like a baby screaming their head off during the school run due to hunger. Intelligent mothers also try to plan a little bit ahead so that the entire family's nees are met.

TIK TOK I just read the word baby moon and Googled! Had never heard it before!

So for all intents and purposes,the offering of a feed is not to feed as such but to comfort...do people know that routine fed babies are not left to cry,they are picked up and comforted?

I agree entirely with OP, i feed myself on demand all day, i'm still calling it the breastfeeding diet, even though ds is now 8 months and doing really well with eating more solids, still feeding from me around three times a day.

When he was born he was scooted into special care and they advised we tried to feed him every three hours, when we got home he decided that every two and a half was better, so we went with it, and consequnently he has been fed in a variety of random places including many cafes, a train and on the beach (well wrapped up). Mordecari- as cory said, you don't need to sit at home, i bought a few breastfeeding tops cheaply from h&m and just fed wherever we were. I realise more tricky to ff on demand and be out and about, buyt imagine not impossible?

I realise i'm probably a bit soft and he is probably defined as a pfb, but having had a couple of weeks in his first month in hospital with him really poorly, (twice, two separate occassions) to be honest i'm pleased he will feed and is now, thankfully, happy and healthy!

Mordecai - "So for all intents and purposes,the offering of a feed is not to feed as such but to comfort...do people know that routine fed babies are not left to cry,they are picked up and comforted?"

No.....the offer of a feed is also to nourish and to ensure the baby grows well etc etc, but the baby does not know he is hungry/thirsty/lonely/bored/scared/frustrated/irritated/in discomfort/in need of a cuddle....he just 'knows' something is not quite right. A feed fixes it all.

Of course mothers who feed to a routine are not normally leaving their babies uncomforted except at feed times - but I have seen zillions of times mothers who feed to a routine picking their babies up, jiggling them, patting them, whatever....anything except feeding them, 'cos it's not time, and the baby may or may not be comforted, because sometimes, only a feed will 'do' :)

MordecaiAndTheRigbys - Some people DO sit at home for weeks and weeks doing nothing with a newborn baby - I have witnessed it. Someone I knows DD started school the day after the baby was born and she didn't do a school run for 2 weeks as the baby needed feeding about that time! I had a c-sec and still did the school run sooner than that!

There are very few people who would do that really in the same way there are very few people that would refuse to feed a baby if they are genuinely hungry and its 'not their time'.

I stuck to fairly rigid meal times for mine as toddlers as they would eat a good meal that way but always had healthy snacks for them so they could have something without 'starving'. I also breast fed successfully on 3 hourly feeds then 4 hourly feeds. Babies just adjust to whatever you do with them, I needed to routine with DS2 as DS1 was only just 2 and was at pre-school and needed me at times of course to do things with him! I routine fed with DS1 because it worked for us.

Some babies adjust, lou, some babies need a bit of extra care. 3 hour feeds was nowhere enough for dd. Demand feeding wasn't enough either.

What babies need is an intelligent mother who is in tune with their particular needs. Such a mother may be able to work a good routine, if that is right for the baby, or be a very successful demand feeder, if that is the kind of baby she has, or do clever things with a syringe, if that is called for. I was such a mother to my second child. Sadly not to my first.

Sorry Cory, that wasn't really my point regarding the specific times, if it had been 2 hourly feeds I would have done that also if thats what they needed, what I wouldn't have done is having them suckling constantly at the first 'whinge' which is what some people do even when they are not hungry which means they have a tiny bit of milk every half hour or so and neve ractually take a decent feed (again that is not the case for everyone just my experiences). Mine were both 7lb 9oz so were a decent size and could feed that far apart, smaller babies couldn't.

I agree though it has to be what works for you and your family (but not just the baby).

"ome people DO sit at home for weeks and weeks doing nothing with a newborn baby - I have witnessed it. Someone I knows DD started school the day after the baby was born and she didn't do a school run for 2 weeks as the baby needed feeding about that time! I had a c-sec and still did the school run sooner than that!"

Is that really anything to be proud of? I see nothing wrong with a mother deciding not to do the school run for the couple of weeks of her baby's life. When my baby was born swine flu was rife and frankly I wanted to keep her away from the school gates.

With my children it generally took about six weeks to settle down into a sensible routine. They had to learn the difference between day and night and have never experienced hunger before.I didn't do the school run for the first two weeks as DH was on paternity leave and there to help me out.

You comment about having a c-sec is stupid beyond belief as many women who give birth naturally are having to recover.

Sorry Reallytired, I did not mean to upset you with my comment, I think maybe me using that one example of this persons behaviour does not really give the full picture in this particular situation. It was the childs first ever day at school and neither parent took her.

You kept your baby away for health reasons which is entirely different, I have had an extremely traumatic natural birth as well as a c-sec and I am not proud of doing the school run, the point i was really making was that sometime you have to manage the needs of your family, the eldest child cannot be brushed aside. I don't feel my comment was stupid beyond belief but based on my experiences. Her DH was not around for the school runs, it was left to friends.

I apologise for any offence caused, not my intention!

I think some people are being really harsh on the posters in this thread, everyone has different ways of doing things and the posters are only trying to help by giving their opinions and personal experiences.

Reallytired I can understand your point about the school run, maybe that was a bad example for lou to use on its own but I agree with the point she is making to an extent.

I did BF on demand for the first 6 weeks or so - then moved to when it suited me/baby/family - not strictly timed routine, just generally shifting feed times to be convenient for everyday life.... my girls did not sleep in the day from about 8 weeks anyhow, so sleeping through the feed time was never an issue Did mixed feeding from 6 weeks -had a horrendous illness and BF as much as I could - but sadly sometimes something has to give... bottle before bedtime meant they slept through the night and aided my recovery.