Do you ever get into a routine with bf'ing?

[marleymooo]

I FF DS 1 and we were in a good routine after about 6 weeks. I knew when he was expecting a feed, when he was going to nap etc. BF DS2 (5 weeks) has been going surprisingly well. I'm really enjoying it, I started off saying I'd take one day at a time and here we are, we're really enjoying it. However there is no semblance of a routine forming whatsoever! I know this is par for the course at this stage but just wondered can I try and establish one after a while? With a toddler in tow it would be nice to be able to plan days a little rather than is it going to be a sleepy or hungry day. Thanks ladies.

I vaguely followed The Baby Whisperer's EASY routine (Eat, Awake, Sleep, You or something like that, never quite got to the You bit), in that they had a sleep, fed them when they woke up, then they were awake for a while, and the cycle started again. It did morph a bit with feeding on demand, buit I definitely fed them when they woke up. That was about the sum of routine! But they were generally easy babies, I was very lucky.

Yes, but I can't remember when it happened first. By two months ds could definitely wait though and we were very relaxed feed/sleep anytime until nearly bedtime (I didn't worry about a set number of naps for example, just let him sleep on me/in the pram/in the carseat/in the sling whenever.

Would a routine help you?

Sorry, I know you said you want to have one, what I meant is aside from knowing when to feed do you want to be tied to trying to keep the baby on a routine?

The nice thing about BF is you don't really need a routine quite so much.

Food is always on tap, available whenever, wherever......

But yes, in my case it did settle down and feeds eventually fell into a pattern.

Think one is just emerging at the moment(12 wks), by which I mean definitely a couple of hrs between feeds, distract able with chatting and sounder, longer spells of sleep in evening. That said, every night is still a journey!

I think it depends on the baby. DS1 fed all the time for months and months (lucky to go 2 hours between feeds, for the first 4 months it was every 60-90 mins during the day). I basically could never really leave him for the first 8-9 months as you just never knew when he was going to want milk (he was a fat pie baby, on the 99th centile).

However, DS2 is a totally different kettle of fish. At 2 weeks he started feeding every 2.5 hours day and night - it was like clockwork, never any earlier or later and he kept this up until about 9 weeks, when he went 5-6 hours at night and 3 hours during the day.

He also used to need a sleep every 2 hours for the first 3 months, so whenever he'd been awake for 2 hours, he'd go for a nap (DS1 fought sleep and naps all the time - so glad I got my 'hard' baby first :-)

I didn't do anything different with them, both were fed on demand but both were completely different feeders. You just never know what kind of baby you'll get.

Yes. I needed some sort of routine to work around school.

At about 12 weeks DD2 got herself into a routine herself. But the beauty of BF is that you can feed any place, any time, and if the usual nap routine is knocked out, feed to sleep!

Thanks a million ladies. No I don't need a routine, and I certainly won't be pushing him into one, I just wondered if he was likely to fall into into one iykwim?! Already he can go 3-4 hourly at times and he's usually only up once a night and goes down again. I'm 6 weeks post section next weekso will hopefully be getting out and about a bit more, and yes knowing when he'll need a feed would be convenient but as one poster said I have the equipment with me so its not a big deal!