why would a bottle fed newborn be put on 3hourly feeds, but a breastfed oone on demand?

[FairyTaleOfNewYork]

this is not a breast v bottle debate.

but was at the hospital having my baby, and mw was advising the lady of a baby on formula to space out feeds, etc etc. but i was told to feed obn demand.

surely if a baby is hungry, then feed it regardless of how its being fed?

or am i out of touch?

I can only think it's because formula feeding on demand is extremely wasteful and basically a complete nightmare. I know because I've done it. And you don't have to build a supply of formula - you just go to Tesco as and when needed.

DS1 was bottle fed, and fed on demand. Sometimes he'd go 4 hours, sometimes 2. I just made up the water for 8 bottles in the morning, and chucked away any I didnt use.

I dont get feeding on schedule either. I hate seeing babies being jiggled around to try and stop them crying because they dare to be hungry an hour before they're allowed to.

DS was bottle fed on demand. I wasn't going to leave him waiting to stick to any sort of timetable.

As it happened pretty early on he settled into wanting a feed pretty much every 4 hours but when he wanted one sooner I let him, when he wasn't ready then I left him (for a while!)

It is far easier to overfeed with bottles as the baby gets a pretty fast flow of milk even if they just want to comfort suck.

thank you. i guess the comfort sucking/overfeeding makes sense.

Breast milk is digested a lot more quickly than formula, so the babies feel hungry more frequently.

see, i know that. but in my sleep deprieved haze i never thought of that either.

Isn't it because the make up of breast milk changes - so if baby drinks more and more they get more waterly milk (or something?) Whereas formula milk is the same from start to finish so you can overfeed?

surely the amount you feed a newborn at the time though is minimal? just pour out 1-2oz at a time (it used to be oz when i last bottlefed a baby, not sure what they measure it by now?), as the hospital say u have to bring in your own milk and bottles.

More risk of overfeeding with bottles I guess.

Overfeeding - I didn't think of that either! Another one here in a sleep deprived, b/f on demand haze.

Funnily enough, when I had Alf and was BF, I asked the MW how often he would need feeding. Instead of telling me anything about demand feeding or hunger cues (to be fair, she did say to watch for hand chomping) she said about every four hours :( . So of course, he was yelling his head off and as it had only been an hour since his least feed it diddnt even enter my head that he was hungery :(

4 hours for a newborn? Not just stupid advice but possibly dangerous too You should think about making a complaint, they seriously need to update their training.

I was told to feed on demand with mine (formula fed from around 2 weeks) so as long as it was at least 2 hours since the last feed (in the newborn days) then I would offer a feed. It then spaced out to 3 hourly till around 4 months where it became roughly 4 hourly.

was 20 months ago. to be honest i just want to forget the beginning for numerous reasons i wont bore you with.

FF babies should be fed in accordance with their needs too - recommending routines for newborn ff babies is outdated. Midwife got it wrong, FairyTale and needs some re-training.

every ff mum I know feeds on demand.

thank you.

so outdated advice for the ff mum then. bah wish i knew that, would've had a chat with her as we spent the whole day together in one room.