OK, so twice in the last couple of weeks I've been reminded why I don't like putting young babies into routines

[hunkercaribou]

Twice, I have seen babies screaming for a feed and their mothers "trying to make them wait for it" because "it's not time for a feed yet".

[heart breaks]

What would you do in this situation?

Happybebe, there's also research to say that colic doesn't exist... (not commenting on that though - just saying that whatever you want to say, there's usually research to back it up Except about leaving babies to cry...)

I hear another can of worms being opened
No my ds has never had colic - if it exists.....

Joey's in a routein - rough one but one all the same - one he's instigated I might add - he feeds then plays then sleeps but upon waking I ahve to be sat down boobs at the ready or we have a full on crying fit! lol - (it's normally 2.5-3hours ish).

my M/W said to me I should force him to feed every 3 hours by day to make him sleep more by night when he was a week old - we tried it for one day to wake him up every 3 hours and drag out the shorter feeds - result, one v v unsettled baby and grumpy one v v unhappy/tired crying mummy, so I went back to shoving my boob in when he cryed! lol. althou he's always been no less than 2 hours.

I'd never restrict his feeds/not give em just cos he wasn't on 3 hours or wake him up cos he'd gone 4 hours - little minx if he goes 4 hours between one feed the next one will be 2 and so on.

(had this row with MIL when he was 2 weeks old - demand feeding is that not making himwait 4 hours then feeding him after he's hysterical)

what would I do thou - just say shove yer boob (or a bottle) in and feed! althou that's prob why Joey's been putting on 9oz p/w since birth! :o

I don't think that the problem is with routines per se, the problems come when the baby and the routine does not match!

I had a loose routine with my DD. I followed the babywhisperer and spent the three days observing my baby's natural rhythms and then built a routine around her and her needs. This meant that I had confidence as I knew what I was doing, and she was happy because she was largely being fed when she wanted. Our routine was not clock based, but order based... so if she slept 10 mins late, then the next thing followed 10 mins late and so on.

It is a generalisation to say that routines have to be clock watching, and whilst I would never agree with forcing a baby to clock watch, I do see the value in order based routines.

rarrie- that's what we've been following a v rough plan but it works for us and Joey seems happy and content.

Happybebe, that sounds like the sort of thing doctors, HVs and so on say because they don't actually have any facts to go on but think they have to say something. Shame they don't admit it's a guess though. No-one really knows for sure what causes 'colic' or even whether it is actually related to digestion.

Wonder how 'they' work out that it takes exactly three hours to digest a 'full' bf or ff? Given that they can't exactly cut open a baby's tummy to see? And that every baby is an individual? And that each one gets to grips with running their own bodies at their own pace?

I don't have a problem with a baby being in a routine. But I do have a problem with them being forced into that routine with much crying and gnashing of gums.

lol dont shoot me just repeating something i heard somewhere!

One thing that I cannot get hunker, is how these mums can DO listening to their babies cry!!!! I couldn't impose this sort of thing on a tiny baby (because I believe with babies you take the path of least resistance and give them what they want!) and also because I could not bear to hear my DS cry, not for any length of time, and not when I knew what to do to stop it...I did try everything I could to jolly him along a bit longer between feeds, because he did take more at a time if he went longer, but when it went from grizzle to cry, that was it - feed!

I don't know where the tolerance to listening to the crying comes from, to me it would be like listening to nails down a blackboard endlessly....

imo i think you need a routine with bottle feeding as it's soo efficient. i thought that was what dummies are for? to replace the comfort feeding part of breastfeeding. if you let them do that on a bottle on a regular basis they'd get huge. I don't mean one-offs of course but on the whole...

It is upsetting to hear babies cry - I think that once you have had a baby the sound seems to go straight to your emotion centres, but I don't think that means that you have a right to judge someone else. So they do things differently, but are you there all the time to know how that baby is? Maybe feeding with particular intervals works well for that family, or the mum despairs of wasting lots of bottles, could be lots of reasons. I had one easy routine baby (something he fell into naturally from birth) and one complete nightmare. She wanted feeding all the time and screamed if she wasn't carried around all the time. It was horrible, I was stressed, tired and miserable. If someone had made an unsupportive comment about it, I think that I would have killed them! Now she is lovely, but some babies are really hard, and some babies cry and cry regardless of what you do. Of course some mums have completely different styles than others, and it's OK to slate them here if it helps us not to be to nasty in real life, but I think that we should all watch out for thinking the way that we have done things is the best.

Leaving babies to cry for feeds or comfort goes against the grain for me. Babies don't want for much imo and I jsut nthink it's not right if you deny them the only things they really want for. I was swimming with my DS and there was a Mum there who took her older child and left the baby screaming in his buggy for 3/4 of an hour whilst the older child swam, wtf?

I'm with nooka on this one.

Do you know what, I'd rather the deleted messages had been left in place - I rather like it when a namechanger makes a tit of themselves (no pun intended).

oh! why were they deleted?
I was reading this thread yesterday, I know things were a bit heated but can't say I remember anything madly contentious in the posts.

There again my memory is rubbish!

No, I didn't think they were that offensive - a bit dim, showed the poster as not the most supportive nork-sling in the drawer, but not delete-worthy

Hunker is the new "icon" to bash.....move over cod...

All I can say is child abuse. We adults get hungry at different times of day and more hungry some days than others. Brings tears to my eyes really.

wonder why then? [nosy emoticon]

I thoroughly agree to routine, especially if bottle feeding, BUT not at the expense of the child. Like hunker said earlier. My ds was gently nudged into a routine but never left to cry and cry for a feed. I think I was lucky as he took to it quickly and seems to thrive on it, being a very contented baby. I don't know what I would have done if he'd have been a cryey baby so I can't comment.

BUT in defense of women who do leave their babies crying, all the advice I had from midwife to the hv, was not to give in to snacking, and to only offer water in between feeds etc etc. So if your a first time mum, the advice is to leave them to cry, (for upto an hour one hv told me) which isn't at all helpful.

I thoroughly agree to routine, especially if bottle feeding, BUT not at the expense of the child. Like hunker said earlier. My ds was gently nudged into a routine but never left to cry and cry for a feed. I think I was lucky as he took to it quickly and seems to thrive on it, being a very contented baby. I don't know what I would have done if he'd have been a cryey baby so I can't comment.

BUT in defense of women who do leave their babies crying, all the advice I had from midwife to the hv, was not to give in to snacking, and to only offer water in between feeds etc etc. So if your a first time mum, the advice is to leave them to cry, (for upto an hour one hv told me) which isn't at all helpful.

Curiously, for those who strongly believe in 4 hourly "routine" feeds for babies, is this continued on with children and the adults?? Meaning no snacking or drinks of water or cups of tea in between their meals?? Bugger that!!! I have breakfast at 7:00am and are lining up for a cuppa at 10:00am.

I remember in the "early days" (when I was nobbut a lass) my boy used to snack and snack and snack on formula. My HV told me to cut down on the number of his feeds, and I recall after a week of sheer hell DP asking what was the matter with DS. "He's hungry but I can't feed him" I replied with tears streaming down my face. "Why on earth not???" says DP incredulously. Good question. Why do you have to get into a routine with formula? If they take the same amount over the day, does it really matter how often you feed them? I formula fed DS on demand and he's skinny as anything. I have a half formed theory, (based on nothing ) that the tendency for formula fed babies to be overweight (if that is true) may be linked to the regimented feeding routines adopted. Anyway...

So I picked up my child when he cried, fed him when he was hungry, and let him sleep on my shoulder (if only I had known about slings). Slowly, slowly, he has managed to make me see the error of my ways and now taps the clock at 11:27am to inform me it is his naptime, tries to climb into his highchair at 4.32pm for his tea and waits by the fridge at 6.45pm on the dot for his bedtime milk.

Despite my best efforts at bohemian child rearing I gave birth to Gina Fords genetic twin. But the most important thing (to me) is that he did it all himself, in his own time.

Squarer I agree with you and the other part of my theory is that they tend to overeat because they've been starved and are determined to get their hands on food!

Do people who do four hourly feeds really not give their tiny babies even a drink in between? I couldn't go four hours without a cup of tea either, except when asleep!

My theory's also based on nothing by the way!