To ask about feeding newborns ‘on demand’

[Speckledhem]

It’s a long time since I’ve had a new born so I’m probably completely out of touch. I was visiting a friend earlier who has a new born (4 weeks old). The baby is formula fed and she’s feeding every 1-2 hours. My poor friend was absolutely knackered from sleep deprivation and I just thought that was really often!

Only every few feeds does the baby take all of the milk so she can’t be hungry that often if she’s not taking more than a few sips surely? I mentioned maybe she wasn’t hungry that often and just wanted a cuddle or a dummy but my friend insisted that she’s ‘fed on demand’ as the midwife had advised.

Don’t get me wrong, I obviously would not ignore a crying newborn but surely it can’t be right making bottles every 1-2 hours?

@pointythings

Franca so what you are saying is... that you demand fed and they settled into their own routine. Which is what most of us, whether bf of ff do anyway.

The OP made it sound like the baby was being fed every time it made it sound. Which sounds unnecessary and hard going. I was responding to that. Both of mine, we followed an old Gina Ford book a friend gave us. They fell into that routine happily for the most part.

A made up bottle can be left two hours though? So she may not need to make one up each time if there's some left over.

They're all so different. My first was FF and fell into a routine himself of every four hours really quickly (probably because he was in NICU and that's what they did there). My second is 18 months and still BFs on demand (although he can sometimes be distracted by something else!).

Demand feeding is hard work if you're bottle feeding, unless you enlist technology. If you can make bf work for you, and want to, it's honestly not hard work at all. Locate baby, attach boob, job done. I fed both of mine for 13 months, they were basically demand fed when I was there (I did go back to work and expressed) and settled into a decent routine by 16 weeks or so. No hassle at all.

I can see how it would be different if you don't get a decent-ish length of mat leave, to be fair - I got 18 weeks paid. It's better now for a lot of people.

I think the 'every three hours' thing is just misunderstood or poorly expressed. It generally means that a newborn baby who is still regaining birth weight, etc. shouldn't go more than three hours or so without a feed, not that you feed every three hours and not before then.

franca my DDs were 100% bf and were both fabulous sleepers. On the whole formula fills them up more, but it isn't impossible for fully bf babies to sleep really well.

At one stage my dd wanted feeding around every 45 minutes! It’s totally normal. Their tummies are tiny. On demand is absolutely best.

This ^^
Their tummies are about the size of a walnut, so feeding on demand is the right thing to do.

Absolutely normal frequency.
DS is 5mo and still eats every 2-3hr if I'm lucky. He doesn't eat loads in one go but won't eat more and screams for food. All babies are different, I just feed him when he wants it. I think you should apologise for questioning her tbh. It's a vulnerable time to have people telling you they think you're wrong about why your baby's crying. I want to kill MIL everytime she tells me my clearly exhausted child isn't tired.

Unless you’re a midwife, paediatrician etc you don’t actually know what you’re talking about

Feeding on demand is absolutely correct, although sometimes babies do just want to comfort suck. I'd suggest, if it's not been a long time since the last feed, to try a dummy. If the baby is really hungry, they'll let you know.

I'd also suggest googling belly balls. They show how absolutely tiny a newborn's stomach actually is, and why it's necessary to demand feed.

And feeding less often doesn’t result in more sleep because the baby will just be crying to be fed

The first evening we left PIL with expressed milk when babysitting we came home to them trying to distract an inconsolable DS1 with the ceiling lights! They hadn't fed him because 'it hasn't been four hours'.

My 6 weeks old baby is fed when she wants. She takes anywhere between 3-5 oz a feed. She will go anywhere between 2.5hours-4 hours between feeds depending on how much she drinks at the feed prior. She does tend to cluster feed of a night so drinks a fair bit of milk in a short of time. The early stage is hard. I attempt dummy use if she starts to fuss after an hour after a feed but if her bum is dry, she has had cuddles and has been winded it is a feed she wants.

The first stage is difficult.

It's normal and builds trust and bonding. Scheduling that early can cause them to panic eat or just be hungry and miserable. Remember how tiny they are. Yes it's hard but not forever. Please don't give your friend advice! It's incredibly annoying. Her baby.

Babies should be fed responsively - if they are hungry, you feed them. You learn to recognise the feeding cues. I cannot imagine leaving a hungry baby to cry because it isn't feeding time yet! The evidence shows that letting them regulate their own appetite will reduce their odds of obesity and associated health conditions. It makes complete sense.

@UtterlyUnimaginativeUsername

We did that with DD. A lot was wasted, and she did have a lot of very frequent tiny snacks 24/7, but it was what we were told to do, so we did.

DS was in hospital for his first month, tube fed for two weeks and bottle for two weeks. He was fed every 3 hours, then every 4, never on demand. And he was fine, as were all the other babies in the ward who were fed the same way.

At least in the case of prem babies, that's a bit different - they're not guaranteed to wake often enough to feed enough. Ours started off hourly-fed because she was so tiny, then two-hourly, then three-hourly, and by the time we went home she was pretty much demand-fed, but we were told that if she hadn't fed for four hours we should wake her and feed her anyway. (The three-hourly regime until she was demand-feeding was probably very useful in getting her body used to a sensible regime, though.)

I think when a baby cries you check everything that might be wrong like nappy, comfort etc and if nothing works and feeding settles them then that’s the right think.
My 3 kids were all about 1 hr 45 to 2 hours and they would take nearly an hour to feed. So it was pretty constant at first. But back then we made all the feeds up at start of day which isn’t the advice now. I think life will be easier if you buy some of the premade stuff even for first 2 weeks until u get a routine.
By 5 or 6 weeks I also started lifting baby for a feed around 11.30 pm even if sleeping and found they started to stretch themselves to 4 or 5am so I felt like I’d had a nights sleep.
Those days seems long at the time but they soon are a distant memory

Although all babies are individual, the fact that NICU babies are all fed to a schedule and discharged on a feeding schedule (be that every 2, 3 or 4 hours), it's clear that babies can be fed to a timetable. Even tiny, premature ones.

My NICU child WAC EBF by the time they were discharged, and feeding on a schedule after that was established with weeks of tube feeding.

My older child, EBF from birth fed on demand and was much more draining to feed and look after.

Both my boys as newborns were nursing every 1-3 hours as the norm , so no norm 😂 ! Cluster feeding is a whole other story . I don’t think this sounds unreasonable in the slightest . I hope you weren’t trying to give advice to your friend who is doing a great job. Yes, it’s exhausting 😩

In future please just let your friend take care of her baby.

My Mil judged us and said our twins ‘should be able to go longer’. I wanted to tell her to fuck off to be honest. I feed my babies when they are hungry, it keeps them content- it’s no easy task and to have your parenting commented on is not nice at all. I did the same when I breastfed and I see bottle feeding as the same. Taking care of babies is hard without the judgement. My babies are 12 weeks, 9 corrected, they have tiny tummies. Sometimes they will go 3 hours, other times it’s an hour.

@PrivateHall

Babies should be fed responsively - if they are hungry, you feed them. You learn to recognise the feeding cues. I cannot imagine leaving a hungry baby to cry because it isn't feeding time yet! The evidence shows that letting them regulate their own appetite will reduce their odds of obesity and associated health conditions. It makes complete sense.

Absolutely.

Ha. I remember a relative visiting when ds1 was born and loudly explaining to me that I was spoiling ds1 by demand feeding and babies should go 4 hours between feeds. I couldn't be bothered to argue. About an hour later he asked for another cup of tea. I said no and explained it hadn't been 4 hours since his last one so he had to wait He never brought up feeds again!

@RavenclawsRoar

Ha. I remember a relative visiting when ds1 was born and loudly explaining to me that I was spoiling ds1 by demand feeding and babies should go 4 hours between feeds. I couldn't be bothered to argue. About an hour later he asked for another cup of tea. I said no and explained it hadn't been 4 hours since his last one so he had to wait He never brought up feeds again!

Oh love this. Stealing it for MIL.

It's hard work that stage! I second all of the PPs who say they fed their babies non stop in those early weeks. I remember just repeatedly breastfeeding and her spitting up all the time and crying for more. It's bloody hard work in the early days of extreme sleep deprivation and newborn haze.

Bring her lots of water and nice soft drinks, and plenty of good home made food if you can and are willing!

Hospital told my DH he could feed every 2/3 hours and no longer than every 4 hours (I was ill with covid and on oxygen) and so DD was taken away for a bit then given to DH and he did the feeds until I was able to. My DH being a typical man thought he would do every 4 hours as he would get more sleep! She was in for a few days and midwives were happy with her feeding. DD just took to this pattern and would often have to be woken for a feed in 4 hours but to be honest she's never been a good feeder and put it down to terrible reflux when first born. Now at 8 months she only has 2 x 4 oz bottles and 2 x 5oz bottles a day and often won't finish them! I am always adding formula to purees, she does however love her food!