When (do??) ebf babies settle into routine?

[CityDweller]

Just wondering (hopefully) if or when my 10do ebf baby might settle into a feeding routine. It's totally random at the mo, which is fine, but, one day it'd be nice to be able to plan stuff around feeding, etc...

Watching with interest. Have a week old who is also totally random, three times in the last two hours, have a feeling it's going to be a long night!

I have a 10 week old and he has started feeding more to a schedule in the past 2/3 weeks often 7.30/8 am then every 2.5-3hrs till 6.45, 10.30 dreamfeed, 2am, 5am.

He fed almost constantly for the first few weeks though!

My five month old feeds every two hours in the day and at least three times at night if that's any help

DS became a bit more predictable after his 6 week growth spurt, IIRC. Before then he seemed to feed forever, after then I felt I could guess more or less when he would need to feed, which meant I could sort of engineer a loose routine around it. He only really departed from it if he was unwell, when all bets were off, or during growth spurts.

Do you need to plan? The best thing about bf is you can go out all day and not have to think about bottles or schedules etc. Let the baby fit around your routine. The first few weeks is relentless I know but by 3 months feeds take about 10 minutes and drop to 4/5 times a day, maybe 1/2 at night. But obviously every baby is different! I bought some DVD boxsets and lay on the couch all day eating chocolate. Believe me I miss those days! x

It depends I'm afraid. They settle into a routine, then out of it, then in again...

You just stop noticing the randomness of it the longer you feed.

And congrats by the way?

For me things improved at 6w then at around 12w. The early weeks had no discernible pattern, spent a lot of time feeding and very little else got done but i tried to go with it and chill. I know of babies who slept for 3 hours, woke, ate, slept for 3 hours... Not that many though!

I guess they are all different. Fwiw I'm happiest when i take the lead from my daughter, otherwise I become convinced I am not doing things right.

Good luck, keep up the good work and look forward to your first smile :-)

By 'plan' I simply mean things like the 30 min bus journey I have to take to get her to her newborn hearing test next week, etc. Today she's fed for 20 mins every hour or so, apart from a monster feed and sleep in middle of day. Prior to yesterday she was doing more of an every 90 min to 2 hr thing. I'm just nervous of being caught out in a situation where it's difficult to, or I can't immediately feed her cos then she gets in a right old tizz...

Was given GF contented baby book at around 18 weeks and before I threw it in the bin I noticed that dc1 was roughly in the routine she suggested without me having to do anything.

Agree that one of the benefits of bfing is that the baby and their milk are both pretty transportable and you can just take Lo with you. It's only in recent times that so called baby experts have advocated that our babies should be in a routine. There isn't really a need to be in one but if you would like one try Babycaliming by Caroline Deacon. It's not prescriptive like some other books, instead it explains why your baby could be behaving in the way it does and helps you find your own routine

In the future you will be a master breast feeder and be able to feed baby on the bus etc in a baby carrier and no one will know. (Totally reasonable not to have such honed skills yet though)!

Yes - how do I bf in a stretchy wrap carrier for eg? If I could learn that, that'd make a massive difference. But I can't see how I can get baby down to nipple level, get my nipple out, etc, all while she's in the wrap...

You could have a look on YouTube?

In my experience my babies tend to sleep on buses, especially if they are in a stretchy wrap. When he was very little then going for a big walk with the wrap or sticking him in there round the house meant a longer break between feeds.

In terms of routine, I never really kept track except that at first it was very often and now it's less often that he feeds (10 months).

my dd is 3mo and has a routine now that she has settled herself into. It's more based around sleeps, feedin is less predictable, I just feed her when she looks hungry or asks, or it's convenient for me.
Eg if I'm doing the school run in the afternoon and kids have an activity afterwards, I'll change and feed her before we set off for school, that way I know I will at least get the school run done, kids changed and fed and dropped off wherever before I need to feed her again.
Same with shopping, I feed before I go, and then again before I set off home (unless I've been shopping all day in which case obv I've fed her between times too) that way I don have to listen to a screaming hungry baby all the way home, or if god forbid we get stuck in traffic and a 10 minute journey ends up taking an hour

In the future you will be a master breast feeder and be able to feed baby on the bus etc in a baby carrier and no one will know. (Totally reasonable not to have such honed skills yet though)!

Doh sorry double post. I feed in the ergo baby

They may not, but what will happen is you will become awesome at BF'ing and it won't matter as you can feed anytime, anywhere.

My solution to needing to do something or be somewhere that wasn't that convenient for feeding was my moby wrap too. Both DC just used to go to sleep as soon as they were in the sling.

I've been known to get a nork out on the bus too though.

Doh sorry double post. I feed in the ergo baby by loosening one or both straps till ds is around nipple level. A few of my bf tops are ones with slits down the front so I part these and wiggle my nipple into his mouth. Sometimes walk along kinda holding his head in position or even with one hand on my boob! But with the 'sunshade' up no-one can see anything. Sorry I am not familiar with the stretchy wrap. As they get older they get more predictable and fast (5mins per boob is slow for ds). And they are able to stay latched and to re-latch more easily (if walking with a sling on etc). I also have a much simpler ring sling where he feeds easily, but wouldn't use it to walk far or in a situation where you need 2 free hands.

My little one used to feed without a pattern etc for a few months. But she always slept when in car, pushchair, sling etc. if I was on my way somewhere like a longish car journey or somewhere difficult for me to feed (lots of boob on display due to very poor latch and severe tongue tie) I always offered her milk just before leaving which worked 99% of the time. My lactation consultant suggested demand feeding was when either of you demanded!

I was wondering/asking this question myself a few weeks back. I cant remember exactly when it happens but it was quite a few weeks ago for my now 12 week old ds. Like some of the other posters said, the patterns will change but you will start to notice that the spacings between feedings are equal/predictable (e.g.every 2 hours, or 1.5 hours or whatever) after the first few weeks. So its not so much at set times, but set spacings between feeds. So say they are going 2 hours between feeds, you can predict what time they will want their next feed and can plan around it, or if its at a really inconvenient time, i just top him up before i leave whether he is due or not - he will usually take it.

My ds night feeds are at predictable times now, 12.30am and 3.30am, but i always give him his "last" feed at 8pm before putting him to bed which is probably why. I didnt start this until around 10 weeks though and the hv advice would be to keep baby downstairs with you until 6 months so its up to you whether youd want to try something like this eventually.

Mine were happy to wait in a sling if they'd fed within the hour. So if I had to go out, I'd feed just before, stick in sling then feed when i got there.

Great - thanks everyone. I tried the stick-boob-in- mouth prior to going out in sling approach and it worked a treat. Just need to leave myself plenty of time as she feeds for anything from 5 - 45 mins, totally randomly.
kingrollo that routine sounds great - I'm envious!