absolutely no idea what to do...when do you stop demand feeding?????

[bumbly]

baby now 11 weeks old

mother says at some point you feed baby when you want

so far am feeding on demand and that is still a very erratic timetable

baby still vomits, still needs to sleep on me at night etc...so...so far the feeding thing for me has just been just feed on demand when LO cries

but I know my mom has a point in that soon babies need to have a routine..

but when? how? what? where?

argh!!

They don't NEED a routine.

Sometimes babies will slot feeds and naps into a predictable pattern.

Sometimes the parents will follow a structured routine, some with great success, some less so.

If you are happy with the way things are, then carry on - don't feel you have to do something because your mum, or anyone else says so. Your baby will do just fine if you carry on as you are.

However, if you would welcome a bit more structure / predictability to your day, there is no harm in gently encouraging your baby down that route.

You can either follow a routine from a book, ie Gina Ford, or the Baby Whisperer, or you can find your own pattern that suits you and your baby.

Strictly IMHO, a bit of a routine can be a good thing. to start off, I would try and start your day at the same time, maybe 7 am, even if this means waking your baby to begin with.

At that age, feeds should be no more than 3 hours apart, and your baby shouldn't be awake longer than about 1 1/2 - 2 hours before having a nap.

The Baby Whisperer's EASY routine is good, if you want to give it a go, as it follows a regular pattern rather than being set by the clock ( it'll make sense when you see it.....)

However, your baby is still very young, adn you mihgt decide there's plenty of time for all that in the future.

Whatever you decide, do what's right for you and your baby. Trust your instincts and don't feel pressured into doing something because someone else thinks it's a good idea.

Your baby will be fine whatever you decide.

I wholeheartedly agree. Don't feel pressured to do something you don't want to. Equally if you want to gently encourage a routine, then that's fine too.

I still bf on demand- dd is 21 weeks- but she has found her own unique little routine which we're happy with. I'm happy, she's happy and when we start to think about solids I may try a bit of structure but tbh I'm happy to follow her lead.

I never stopped feeding DS on demand, just one day I realised that he was less 'demanding' and had sort of settled into a pattern, if not actually a fixed routine. I found his routine really fell into place re feeding/sleeping after 6 months when he started to have solid meals at set times (still had bf all over the place to start with as well ). And he was a puker too, seemed to get hungry again quickly...

11 weeks is still v small, things change so quickly at this age. One book I found useful was the No Cry Sleep Solution by Elizabeth Pantley. Has gentle suggestions for helping your LO to sleep.

Well done with the bf, is so hard and knackering in the early days, but worth it

you don't need to give your baby a routine, they will find it themselves.

i still feed my dd "on demand" and she is 8 months old. but she usually 'demands' it first thing in the morning, mid-morning, mid afternoon and bedtime, and then maybe once in the night, maybe more in the day if she is poorly teething etc.

she does have a routine - up at 7,milk, breakfast, morning nap, milk, lunch, aft nap, milk, tea, milk, bed. but she developed that routine by herself rather than me putting it in place for her iyswim!

she started to have some sort of routine about 8 weeks ish and sleep a bit better at night around that time too.

try not to worry too much - when our mums had use they were generally advised to give babies a routine and feed them evry 4 hours etc, a lots changed since then!

oh , not for a months , 11 weeks very early, baby will guide you... i think not before 1 , both mine still had as much milk as and when, in fact DD, who is 2 still drinks lots, i;d rather she had milk than juice.. esp. as she is not a huge eater, and can often go a day or two without eating a meal..

And I fed DS to sleep for a long time, both for naps and nighttime. Now he's 14 months and usually goes to sleep by himself in his cot (except tonight as he'd had a really exhausting day and fell asleep in my arms during his bedtime bf ).

Bumbly, the only advice I can give is to start watching your baby carefully. I was hopeless at this, and could not get my baby to nap, but when I started doing this, did find it much easier. 11 weeks is still quite young, but as others have said, a little gentle nudging should work. I think a lot of them do find their own pattern, and the more you respond to that, the more it beds in, if you see what I mean - watch for sleepy/hungry cues, and see if you can distinguish between them, etc. Should add, you'll get all settled into a pattern at some point, and then the little buggers darlings will go and change... (bewildered as dealing with sudden change of napping habits!).

When they are established on solids and can take water from a cup, then you can restrict your milk.

How would you like it if your fluids were restricted? (don't mean to be mean saying this).

BABIES DO NOT NEED A ROUTINE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I still bf DD on demand and she's 9 months. She has solid food 3 times a day (although she's bit hit and miss with that) and when am at work (3 days a week) she has formula from a cup. When I am with her she is bf on demand. I found that around 7 months she started to fall into a pattern of her own of feeding at more predictable times.

At 11 weeks we were still very much go with the flow. I would say if you want to encourage your baby into more of a pattern then you could start to write down her feed times for a few days and see if she's already in a pattern of her own. But that's only if YOU want to, not your Mum or anyone else. I am also getting murmurs from my own Mum who thinks feeding on demand is 'exhausting' and 'draining'. Not sure where she gets that from as I have certainly not complained about it. Anyway, it's definitely not exhausting and draining for her - or for me either, particularly - so I just ignore.

sorry, bit ratty tonight, had another lecture from my 'let them cry it out' acquantaince

I still feed ds (six months) on demand during the day and at night we co-sleep so he feeds when he wants.

However I do now have a routine for bed time - he has his last feed before "In the Night Garden " and then he is off to bed. Also I try to get him up around the same time every day.

If you want to put baby into a routine, I have heard "The No Cry Sleep Solution" is a nice gentle "go with it" type routine. But if your Mum wants you to put baby into a routine... well what's it to her? (Sorry don't mean to be rude but really it is your decision not hers.)

Highlander are you "making a rod for your own back" by any chance? So am I. I paint mine, too, and carry it in a little case.

I agree with all the other posters that babies this tiny don't need a routine. Mine all found their own pattern over time, but I didn't impose a routine until ds was on solids and had to be fed in time for the school run in the morning. The older ones were always more relaxed.

I did find that it helped in the early months to pretend to have a routine I would name each feed as dd1 demanded.....early morning feed, breakfast, late breakfast, midmorning snack, elevensies, lunch etc, making up as many names as required.

I also didn't try and put them to bed before I was going for the first 4 months or so, and they all sleep at a rasonable time now.

dd was at east 6 months , ds was probably more predictable a bit sooner (from when he started to sleep through so about 12/14 weeks). I always understood that demand feeding was two way , initially baby led but gradually more mutual. If you analyse it you wil probably find there is some sort of pattern to your day (ie. he wakes roughly same times, give or take an horu so so, you bateh and settle him to bed etc), just it may well be more variable than your accustomed definition of routine. tbh it really doesn't matter unless not having a strict routine affects you negatively.

agree with everyone here my lo is 14 weeks and has a pattern of naps and feeds he found all on his own my other ds was like this too. the only thing I did do was introduce a bed bath routine at about 3 weeks as I needed to get 2 to bed on my own a lot as dh works away sometimes

other than that go with the flow my ds is at school and sometimes the routine and monotony sucks

Bumbly,please don't impose a routine on a tiny baby with a stomach the size of a walnut who needs feeding little and often and who needs to be close to those she loves.

How would you like to be told when and where you can sleep and eat?
Now impose that idea on a tiny baby and you quickly see how wroing it is.

A natural routine will develop in time. by 6/7 months, I could work out what my babies wanted and when, and go with it.

I did get my DS into a routine at 3 months. I couldn't deal with the stress of waiting for him to get into one. I did Baby Whisperer which like someone said is not about clock watching but about a set series of events in yours and your baby's day. I found it really helped me feel less stressed about the idea of going back to work.

I never deny my baby food and if he's tired, he sleeps. But I know when he's going to wake up, when he's likely to be tired during the day and when he's going to be ready for bed.

Bf on demand until 12 months and 24 months with my last (demand when I was around as I had to go back to work) and that included a lot of night-time feeding. I think 11 weeks too early to give up demand-feeding. How do you know what your baby needs? Sometimes they need to feed more often to build up supply. If you really want to exclusively bf then on demand is the only way as far as I am concerned.

bumbly , aren't you bottle feeding now ?Slightly different to breastfeeding in terms of demand feeding.

Why not build your own routine based on what you do in your day?

I found that by about 12 weeks DD was waking at a sinilar time each day. Once this happens you can predict what lo will need and when to a certain degree. You will learn tired cues and hungry ones. You can start putting them in the cot for naps etc which gives you some free time.

Really they will lead you and before you know it you are in a pattern of sorts. It is helpful if you want to go out and do the shopping to know lo won't need feeding halfway around

I still demand fed until about 24 months- although the feeds did even out quite a lot -to roughly every 4 hours-ish at about 3 months or so and got fewer as time went on. You're about to hit a growth spurt at 12 weeks so it wouldn't be a great idea to start a feeding routine right now. Not sure if you are BF or not but your baby will find it's own routine pretty soon. If you are BF - well dd1 and 2 did establish a routine of feeding but I still fed them more if they hurt themselves, were ill, or even if they just fancied it.

I demand fed until ds was about 2

up until this point IMO most children have no way of delaying his gratification, saying "no" just made him miserable

age 2 he could be distracted quite easily, and I could also say "not this minute, wait until we have..."

Your baby doesn't have to have a feeding routine - feeding on demand is good for babies, and when you feed your baby is up to you, not up to your mum

i am bottle feeding btw

Ah sorry bumbly I think my experience may not be relevant. I am not sure. I don't really know much about bottle feeding - maybe start a new thread saying "when do you stop demand feeding if you are bottle feeding?" A lot of people were under the same misapprehension as me, I think