Feeding on demand = 'higher IQ'

[coffeeaddict]

Another weekend, another piece of research to send me into a tizzy. I have always veered towards feed on demand, while gently trying to get the baby into a routine by a few months old.

But I am now on number 5. I can't let her sleep in till whenever she wants. She has to be up with the family and fed at 7, to get the show on the road.

Also: when she was little she was very sleepy and we had to wake her up for feeds. We used to set alarms in the night. So we had to impose some sort of routine for her. She didn't demand enough, that was her problem!

Of course now having seen the research at the weekend I am freaking out and thinking 'I've done the wrong thing' while DH tells me it's all a load of bollocks. NOt even sure what the researchers mean by 'a routine'.

It's all very well. You can do what you like with your first baby. Once you have a few, it's impossible to be so 'go with the flow'. So if this is right, are last-borns inevitable going to have a lower IQ???

PS apologies if there is already a thread on this, couldn't find it.

Can I just point out that it's perfectly possible to demand feed formula (or to schedule feed with BF for that matter).

This isn't a BF / FF issue as far as I can see, although it may well be fair to assume that the majority of demand fed babies were BF and the majority of schedule fed babies FF.

Erm, that really wasn't clear was it?

What I mean is just because a woman chooses (or is forced) to FF, for whatever reason, doesn't mean their child(ren) are automatically excluded from receiving the benefits of demand feeding.

So, while a demand fed BF baby would get the benefits of BF + the benefits of demand feeding, a FF baby would still benefit from demand feeding.

Surely that's excellent news?

I agree Hetty. Problem is that it's more or less impossible to ff on demand if you make up your bottles according to current DFE guidelines. And all the formula companies recommend making up the bottles in the same way. So unless you're ok with ignoring the instruction on the tin, or are able to cough up for ready made formula proper feeding on demand is going to be a bit of a challenge. Plus very expensive as you're likely to end up throwing away quite a bit of milk if your baby is feeding little and often.

Surely you could just make up smallish quantities - maybe 3 or 4 oz bottles ?

I think it's just a different culture really - FF has always led itself/ catered more for the scheduled feeding agenda.

When I've fed babies in nurseries I've always tried to make it more "on demand" and at least not try to make them finish the bottle (because I always felt that must be better for them)

With my own two I BF very much on demand. They are geniuses BTW so it must all be true

Oh, that should probably be "has lent itself"

a bit of dyslexia or old age creeping in there, sorry

Bugger. Didn't work with me. ds fairly average at everything.

They're right about the grumpy bit though.

I demand fed my DD formula. She couldn't BF when newborn so switched to formula. She was sleepy and wouldn't feed so I had to offer her bottles very regularly. I just made up small feeds and she took what she wanted when she wanted it. She was a very happy, easy baby (and chubby!!) but seems to be pretty average on the development front :)

dd wasn't bright enough to feed on demand so I had to feed her by the clock- otherwise she wouldn't have had many meals

she is pretty good at equations/Shakesperian monologues/the theory of evolution, though, so her IQ must have been high enough to afford a few points being knocked off

but not high enough for her to work out that you need to EAT

I think these quotes sum it up really:

Penelope Leach, author of The Essential First Year, said: "A baby's optimal brain development depends on communications between his 'emotional brain' and his mother's immediate and sensitive responses. The baby expresses strong feelings, the mother instantly recognises, responds and regulates them, comforting the baby when he is angry, soothing him when he is afraid; bringing him back on to an even keel when he is over-excited. A lot of that communication takes place around the baby's primary need and greatest pleasure: feeding."

Oliver James, the psychologist and author of They F* You Up, said: "I'm not surprised to hear that women who feed on demand are more likely to be tired and tearful. Nor am I surprised that, if you are given good quality care as a baby, which includes being fed on demand, you are going to be more likely to be able to concentrate, have less trouble with authority and do well at school."

It makes perfect sense that a baby whose needs are responded to immediately fares better than a baby who is left to cry.

Routine led parenting is geared towards the comfort of the parents, not the baby.

Excellent posts shagmundfreud

I can only read the abstract for the article, but at a glance, it seems that there is only a correlation between those fed on demand and higher IQ. Correlation is not causation. There are so many more variables that could contribute to the IQ levels of these children.

Another stick to beat mothers with

I don't think it is another stick. It is just research.

Researchers do not spend a great deal of time, money and effort doing research to make people feel bad. REALLY they don't.

Higher IQ doesn't mean high IQ. If you were daft as a brush to begin with you would just be slightly less daft.

Do you think there is any research that would convince a scheduled feeder to change?

at Cherry, very good point.

"There are so many more variables that could contribute to the IQ levels of these children"

Well - they did try to control for as many as possible.

They controlled for education level BUT they didn't control for IQ of mother. Intelligent women are the more likely to breastfeed on demand; even at a particular level of education, women with the higher IQ are more likely to breastfeed.

I don't think that is true Shagmeundfreud, surely most people feed on demand. Who the hell is going to sit there and comfort a screaming hungry baby for an hour, for the sake of scheduled feeding? It's actually quite easy to make up a semi instant bottle, have sterilised bottle ready, boil kettle, make up formula, cool under running water. Fair enough it's not exactly instant, but only takes 5-10 minutes.

I don't get the people who boil the water, add it to a bottle, let it cool, then add the formula and heat it up to room temp (or not). It's quite obviously unsanitary, if you are going to do that, boiling the water, then adding the formula, then cooling and storing in the fridge would be better (I did do this for night bottles).

We demand fed 3 children with formula, obviously babies who never cry for food would need coaxing. We did have a fair amount of wastage, but you can't make a baby who is full finish a bottle anyway.

We did use a fair amount of the ready made stuff by child 3 though, so much easier, especially when out and about.

yes of course I know that. I would appreciate not being patronised. really I would.
I just find it striking how often the most innocent and well meaning pieces of research becomes stick for beating mothers,

This all utter bollocks.
At least here.

Dd1 was demand fed until 4 mos and then self weaned. True enough, gifted.
Ds1 was demand fed until 10 mos - every 2 hours day and night. Still gifted but iq ten points lower than his big sis.
Dd2 - not demand fed at all. She was in SCBU and tube fed every 4 hours, then was completely nocturnal as her muscle tone was too high to feed during the day. I only bfed for 6 weeks as a disabled baby and two toddlers was really not conducive and her suck was so weak. Her iq is streaks ahead of both her bro and sis. In the vs range across the board.

You have no idea how much I wept that I couldn't bf her. I managed to latch her on once. For about a minute.

Yep, in general, bf on demand. But if you can't/don't want to, don't sweat it. Happy mum, happy baby.

What I liked is the vindication that if you demand fed, you would get a higher IQ child, but would be a grumpier mum.

By variables, I meant things like where they live, what activities the parents do with them or if the just let them sit in front of the TV, what their diet is like, education of parents, family income etc etc. These are all things that could have an effect on the IQ of a child, and may not have been accounted for in the trial.

But by looking at the mothers who've tried to schedule feed but failed along with the mothers who always wanted to demand feed you're taking out one of the big biases, which is the type of mother you are, and how that relates to your feeding choices.

Yes of course there are lots of random things affecting IQ, which is why studies like this need big big numbers either to drown them out or slice the data into controlled group.

The (I think) 3,000 odd babies in this study is a good start, but by the time you've sliced it into sub-groups it's not enormous - you'd need to do more work, perhaps in a different culture, and with different definitions and procedures, to replicate it, at which point you could start to say that "Happy Mother, Happy Baby" was definitively busted .

It would be interesting to see this kind of study done in a culture where there is no direct correlation between maternal education/social standing/income and breastfeeding.