Breastfeeding routines from 10 weeks plus: advice please!

[Lbratton]

I am EBF my 10wk old and have not really had much trouble from a physical POV. She has always latched fine and seems to get enough etc. I found the first few weeks difficult with what seemed like constant feeding but she is now in a bit more of a routine, although it can still be really changeable at times and it is obvious when she is going through a bit of a growth spurt.

Generally she feeds at about 4am, 7:30am, 9am, 11am, 12 noon, 2pm, 4-5pm, 7:30-8pm and then from about 10pm-1am almost constantly. She will always feed for between 20mins up to an hour at times.

Really I just want some reassurance and advice about how, when and if this will reduce! I was speaking today to a mum of a 5 month old about weaning, and she was talking about her formula fed baby being on 4 feeds per day at regular four hour intervals prior to starting to wean. Do BF babies end up in a similar routine? I can't imagine how it will reduce to that level as there seems to be no let up. Will she just start sleeping through some of them? She has seemed less hungry today and has in fact refused my breast a couple of times tonight when normally she is incredibly hungry and feeding constantly at this time. I don't know if this is the start of her taking less or whether she is just a bit off colour today (she has been sick a couple of times which is out of character).

Please tell me it gets a bit easier! I am not sure I can manage this for another three months.

Congratulations on your new addition. My little girl was EBF and never got into a routine. I used to feed her approximately every 2.5 to 3 hours for anything from 10 mins to 40 mins. Generally, the longest she went at night without a feed was about 5 hours (which is still the case now).

I think because formula is usually made from cow's milk, there are certain natural ingredients that are not in breast milk and it takes them longer to digest which is why it's easier to space out feeds. Breast milk is pretty much all absorbed into the body so needs "topping up" more regularly. I knew one mum at breast feeding group who started giving her baby a bottle of formula last thing at night so that they were more likely to sleep through.

To be honest, she'll probably pick up feeds if anything at about 4 months as she gets her next growth spurt. It's not much consolation, but in the grand scheme of things, it's only a short time. Now we've weaned my little girl onto solids, her milk feeds are few and far between and we've managed to get a nice little routine going. She's 9 and a half months now so it was only August when I was in your position but it seems like an age ago. You're doing really well.

Breast fed babies are supposed to feed when they want, including snacking. You won't get a BF baby down to 4x a day feeds until they're on solids. If you imagine cave people, hunter gathers, babies would have been carried around constantly and allowed to feed on and off whenever they want, with minimum interruption to mum.

The problem is, that's not very popular in western societies.

In the early 20th century, before we knew what we do now about the supply and demand nature of BF so-called experts (usually men) were obsessed with telling women feeding needed to fit into a strict routine. This plays havoc with women's milk supply. Which was a good way of selling formula, after convincing them they needed to top-up. Trying to enforce a routine is a bad idea.

Your baby will get faster at feeding. But this shows how different they all are, as mine was feeding much more little and often at the age of your Dd. 5 month old DS, during the day, usually wants to feed every couple of hours. It sounds a lot, but people tell me its normal. But this changes all the time, if he's growing, ill, hurt etc.

It's not a problem in the day because he's very quick.

If you can try to get comfortable with feeding out and about, and it won't feel like such a bind or a hassle doing it.

Are you struggling with the feeds? You don't sound like you're enjoying feeding much? But you're doing really well , 10 weeks is still early days really.

Just wanted to say that I had to top up my Ds as my milk was really late coming in so he lost a lot of weight at the start and neither of slept for longer than an hour for the first 2 weeks. In the last few weeks we have reduced the amount of formula he got in the evening until he had his last bottle of formula last Sunday and now has expressed milk on a night (so Dh can feed while I have a shower) and it has made no difference to his sleeping habits or how often he feeds during the night (he is also 10 weeks).
I feed on demand and try not to count feeds as sometimes he'll feed and have a play and a sleep before the next one or spend a few hours going on and off.

Don't worry you're doing a fab job. I've been reading books about getting them into a routine but they all tell you to feed loads in the day so they sleep but as far as I am aware you make most of your milk at night so when ebf it's important to feed at night to keep up supply.

Well done on getting this far, I know how hard it is and try and enjoy the feeding time with your LO

Also to add - size of their tummies also is a factor, tiny babies only have little spaces in them to need topping up more often. As your DD gets bigger she may feed less, but I would try not to worry about getting a routine as your baby may have other ideas. Try and just go with the flow. I got very adept at feeding my DD was walking around the house and could even do some housework at the same time! BF babies sometimes feed more/stay latched on more for comfort than food, so whilst you may not be actually feeding your baby, you're doing her a lot of good in terms of security and closeness.
Babies do suckle more when they need to get you to produce more milk, like when a growth spurt is coming.
If you can keep going until you start introducing solids, you'll probably find that the feeds will naturally reduce then as she will be getting some calories elsewhere.

You're doing great, and seconding that the feeds will space out naturally, a bit from around 3 months IME and then more when they start solids.

I found with both DCs that their nap routine fell into place first and then the feeds sort of sorted themselves around it - DS2 is four months and (mostly) has three naps a day of varying length with one or two feeds between them. He still feeds loads during the day, and clusters in the late evening, but now goes a good stretch at night, so I am not complaining!

Thanks everyone.

I am enjoying feeding and I am sure I will miss it when she is weaned, it is just such a big draw on your time! It does make you wonder how you will ever get back to actually getting things done during the day!

I definitely don't want to go to mixed or bottle feeding though if I can at all avoid it, but I do wonder whether a very short transition would actually help before weaning her off the breast onto solids? She always used to take expressed milk in a bottle which I made sure we tried with her early on to get her used to it. Obviously I didn't do it often, just for when we were out and about. She took it fine until last week when one day she suddenly started to refuse it and I have tried many tactics just to gently reintroduce the idea of a bottle in the last couple of days, but she is not having it. I would much prefer her to be comfortable with the the idea of feeding away from the breast beforehand so it is not such a wrench and hopefully less confusing for her.

Any tips for reintroducing the bottle? I have tried just giving her an empty bottle to suck on briefly when she is looking for a bit of comfort or just starting to get hungry (she sucks her fingers and doesn't have a dummy). Also tried just leaving one around with milk just to give her a little taste from time to time when she is not necessarily ready for a feed, and have obviously tried feeding her with it, being persistent in as gentle a way as possible. She will suck on the empty bottle and will taste the milk and sort of play with the teat with her tongue, but then when it comes to a proper feed she just doesn't want to know.

I just wanted to check that this is all normal really and to see how things are likely to develop over the next few months.

I am bf my 3rd DC at the moment (trying to stop actually, but she's not having it) and have never had a routine for feeds! Would be lovely, but don't think that's how it usually works? They make it pretty clear when they want a feed. Sometimes it's comfort not hunger, but don't think that matters, they still want/need it.

She's a bit young yet for worrying about weaning her on to solids! And you don't need to worry too much about weaning her 'off' the breast and on to solids - you just add in the solids.

I never got on with expressing, so no tips on that I'm afraid - I know that some bf babies just don't like them though. DC3 wouldn't drink out of a beaker until she was about 14 months - I thought she would never do it, but I kept offering it every few days and one day she just took it. I also thought she would never accept cow's milk, but she just did last week (age 22 months). At the moment it feels like she will NEVER stop bf, but I suppose that will sort itself out too eventually!

With mine, who never took bottles - I was around for feeds until they were past the 6-8 month stage, (and the older they got, the more capable they were of waiting for me to come back if I was out for an hour or two). Now DD can go a long time without a bf if I'm not there (I think she'd easily go a few days). They will usually take a beaker/bottle/alternative drink better from someone else than from you, I find!

Not sure I can be a lot of help with advice about the bottle as DD has never had a problem swapping between bottle and breast. She doesn't have a bottle often but if I'm out, it's good that someone else can give her expressed milk. She also mastered drinking out of a beaker herself after just a few weeks so we've been quite fortunate. We never really had any transition period before we started weaning, we just gradually started giving her things like mashed up banana, baby rice and pear, letting her have as much as she wanted (she did get bored quite quickly at first) and then giving her a normal milk feed.

I agree with bedhopper that they will settle more quickly with the bottle if you're not around. They know the breast milk is fresher than the stuff in the bottle so if you can get someone else to do it, that might work.

No advice on how to get her back on the bottle but I have read that you shouldn't let them suck on an empty bottle as they swallow air so can get a sore tummy.

dd is 11 weeks and her 'routine' is pretty similar to what you describe. she definitely comfort sucks and a boob stops her crying even if hunger wasn't the cause - eg. after vaccinations. tbh I think this is a good thing - an eating baby is always better than a crying baby

dd will take a bottle but only if it is warmed- if it's too cold she spits it back out.

DD is EBF and is 13 weeks (well she is 19 in fact but was 6 weeks premature so effectively 13). she gets fed at 7, 10.30, 2.45, 6.30 and 10.30pm. so roughly 4 hourly. at least this is in theory - sometimes I end up doing an extra feed at some time in the early or late morning.

if you let her BF fully on demand she will probably continue to take frequent short feeds. if you want her to do fewer larger feeds you would need to 'train' her to do this - basically if she wants to feed every 2 hours but you want her to feed 3 hourly, you would first need to distract her for 5 minutes so she gets used to going 2 hrs 5, then once she is used to that try to stretch to 2 hrs 10, then 2 hrs 15 etc.

of course some are against this kind of 'training' and will say you should BF on demand and not try to stretch out the feeds. Personally I think it's better to try to stretch the feeds and keep on BF than to give up BF because it is too frequent for you to cope with (it sounds like it might be getting to that point for you...?)

DD will take a bottle but only when she is properly hungry, ie it's been at least 3 hours since her last feed. So I think perhaps the two go hand in hand?

ps I have also read not to let them suck on an empty bottle due to taking in air.

It gets easier. You'll probably never get as long gap as a formula feeder but the gaps between feeds will get longer. The biggest difference I found though was how much shorter the feeds get, 5mins now and we're done.

I've never used a bottle so can't advise there, but if you're bottle feeding for convenience when you're out and about you should find it much easier to bf once the feeds get shorter.

Not sure why you'd want to transition onto formula before weaning?

I needed to introduce a bottle when I returned to work, so just kept trying dd with it every day. She refused it for a month, but finally took it the day before I went back... Perseverance is key. I found Tommy Tippee Closer to Nature the best, Personally.
Good luck.

Oh, and also, you will find the amount of bfs your dc demands reduces when you introduce solids, and maybe before that, certainly with the evening cluster feeding. My dd is 11 months now and I still bf on demand weekends and evenings. She'll have a fair few short bfs in the day if she can, but is reliably in bed between 7 and 8, and doesn't need feeding again till morning. So it does get better!

Thanks everybody x