Feeding on demand / feeding on schedule

[Loobylootwo]

Inspired by a current thread in chat about a feeding schedule from 1970s I'm curious as to what's most common these days. For your newborn/younger babies, do you:

• feed on demand or feed on schedule?
• breast feed, formula feed or combi

2 babies bf on demand. I’m sure you can make other more archaic systems work for some babies - most mums who find any given thing isn’t working probably just adapt, so anyone on here who has had success with a schedule is probably the owner of a baby that feeds more milk less often. The average baby esp. breastfed needs feeding on demand.

It was never needed in our case, the moment my milk came in my boobs looked like an enhanced glamour model.

My DD had a very low birth weight and I had to feed to a schedule because she was too sleepy and wasn't waking to feed enough. I needed to set a timer to ensure she stopped losing weight and started gaining. Once she had put on enough weight got past the sleepy new born phase I switched to feeding on demand.

My baby is now 11 weeks and has been mixed fed since birth. She started sleeping through the night from 9 weeks. We feed her roughly every 3 hours - sometimes she's hungry after 2.5 and sometimes after 3.5hrs, so its a flexible schedule. She also went through a period of wanting to cluster feed in the evening, which we did. I'd say aim for a schedule but be flexible and give your baby what she needs. Also remember that just because a baby cries it doesn't mean they're hungry - they could be overstimulated, tired, have a wet nappy, want a poo. Having a loose schedule makes it easier for us to eliminate what might be making our baby upset (ie if she fed an hour ago then she's not crying now out of hunger).

Feed on demand for a newborn definitely. Once they are older and with introduction of solids you can introduce some sort of schedule, but still I would feed on demand if I was able to. Totally disagree with previous poster saying that feeding on demand instils "comfort" feeding. I can't comment much on formula feeding, but with breastfeeding the purpose is definitely more than just feeding. It's to provide comfort for them as well. I don't understand this need to take away comfort from our kids. Also, babies know their needs better than what's on a feeding schedule. Sometimes they may need to be fed more regularly and are more hungry than usual and they recognise this and ask to be fed more often. Other times they may be less hungry than usual and even when you offer a feed they won't take it, because they do great with recognising their body's needs.

@purplemama1990 but you can comfort them by cuddling them, soothing them, talking to them. I don’t believe they start out with a need for boob for comfort, I think we teach them that boob is comfort by offering it every time they cry.

We fed on demand until he fell into his own pattern of feeding, which then obviously changed as he started weaning, dropping feeds etc.

I breastfed on demand. Doing it on a schedule makes no sense to me. I would never have been able to build up a decent supply if I went by a schedule. I used to let dd nap still latched on and basically use me as a soother. She had a medical thing and was very hard to settle.
She used to go mad cluster feeding at times. I was advised to go with it and feed her as much as she wanted so I did. She would feed almost nonstop for a couple of days, then sleep a lot and suddenly it was like she’d been updated. She would be able to do something new or have taken a big stretch. She fed a lot when she was sick or teething as well and when she got older and overstimulated I think she would feed to de-stress.
If they are a fairly chilled out baby and a good weight it’s a different story, but if they cry a lot, you’re not sure if it’s hunger or something else and they really need comfort either way, you’re not going to sit looking at a clock thinking Well, they’re not due a feed for another two hours. Same if they’re struggling to gain weight. I was on my own with my lo quite a lot of the time. I nursed to settle her for lack of any better ideas at times but I had no one to hand her to. If she cried, offering the breast was automatic for me.

I was one of these crazy mothers who tracked every feed for far longer than was really necessary (9m, twice ) and while I didn't feed to a schedule, looking at the graphs on the app it did turn out to be very similar each day. Both were BF but had dummies too so if they were grumpy and hadn't long fed I would try the dummy before offering a feed. I did basically the same for both kids and had one scrawny little one who struggled to gain weight and is around 9th centile. Followed by a wee chunk who is on 90th centile and was heavier than his big sister by the time he was 10 months. He is now 18m and a bit more of a snack feeder now but his dummy is long gone so it feels more like a replacement for that than actual hunger.

I agree. Makes for very happy contented babies.

For bf babies, they feed for thirst as well as hunger. So in hot weather it's normal for babies to have lots of regular quick feeds so they get the fluids they need.

Also bf babies have a higher level of a hormone which regulates hunger/appetite, can't remember what it's called now, but that's why the research suggests bf is less likely to lead to obesity. (I'm not saying in all cases...)

I bf on demand with DC1, will do the same for DC2 too.

I bf on demand but think you tend to fall into a rhythm somewhere between 4-6 months where the baby naturally feeds at similar times each day around naps (either before or after depending on your approach to sleep) and again when they start having more substantial meals.

Bottle fed on a schedule, my oldest was born when that was the norm the youngest was born when it was frowned upon. I fed them on a schedule regardless, I had work and later school runs and stuff to fit in so I needed them to fit around my days. Mine only woke once in the night and slept through from six weeks so suited me a great deal

I've always fed on demand. Both of mine have settled into 'demanding' 3/4-hourly mostly past the 12-week kind of period but on grizzly days or when DD2 is poorly or just having a growth spurt then she can snooze while snacking on and off boob for 3 hours or so.

Both have mine have been cheerful good sleepers too. Very fortunate!

Genuine question, how do you not feed a baby on demand? Surely you'd have to be ignoring their cries?

You feed them before they cry. Mine were never the babies crying on the school runs because they had been fed before we left, had been winded and were back to sleep. It didn't take very long before they were in the routine anyway. If they didn't wake naturally on time I woke them. I didn't use a dummy either so I never left them to cry and in fact they rarely cried and slept well.

The fed on demand babies I knew were small, thin and fractious. Probably because they spent too much energy snack feeding and not taking very much milk.

What utter nonsense. My children are adults now but I can assure you when they were babies, they were not small, thin or fractious, and they were both breastfed on demand from birth.

• Lots of people seemed to be told by midwives to wake their baby up to feed every 3 hours.

I've never heard that as babies wake up if they are hungry.*

And midwives are right. It's great if your baby wakes themselves up. My baby had to be woken up to feed in the early days. I stopped doing that (I thought the same as you) when he was 3 days old and he ended up back in the hospital when I, in fact, couldn't wake him up at all as he got too weak with low blood sugars. He's only gone without feeding for about 5-6h overnight. It was a very, very scary experience, an ambulance ride to the hospital and I'm still traumatised. He's otherwise a healthy baby, not premature and not a low birth weight. So please, wake your baby at least in the very early days.

God, my breastfed fed on demand DD1 was gigantic! She went from 50th at birth to 99th by 3mo DD2 is on the 75th centile so not quite as big, but has stayed the same centile since birth.

Thousands of child development specialists disagree with you. There's a reason that dummies soothe babies - it's the suckle reflex. If sucking didn't comfort babies, dummies wouldn't work.

You feed them before they cry and demand it. Think of it more like wake windows, where you’d start settling to sleep before they got ragey with tiredness, except for feeding. Usually it involves a strict schedule all round though because if feeds are at set times then naps need to be too so you don’t miss feeds if baby is asleep. Obviously it isn’t for everyone, and I imagine it’s harder if breast feeding, but it really worked well for mine.

Yeah I don't see how this would work for a breastfed baby, mine would sometimes go 3 hours and sometimes 30 minutes. There was no rhyme or rhythm to it until she was at least 6 months, and cuddling/rocking/singing/walking wouldn't make the blindest bit of difference.

Oh please can we just fucking not?

I (breast)fed all mine on demand, which I think is the official advice anyway but I don't think it's cruel to follow a schedule. Presumably people who do wouldn't actually just leave a baby crying for hours because it's not feeding time yet if the baby is clearly hungry. I assume that you tailor the schedule to your specific baby and have some flex in it, not follow Truby King!

Why do we only seem to be able to make parenting decisions by deciding the "other" option is clearly tantamount to abuse? Just stop it. Different things work for different people. A schedule would have been stressful to me yet I'm sure some people would be stressed by the idea of demand feeding.

I think it's horses for courses tbh without a routine I'd be stressed out. I like to have time for myself outside looking after a baby. So I liked to know that I could get in the bath, make and eat a meal, do the chores knowing that baby would be asleep until the next feed. My sister once said (she breastfed on demand) her babies filled her day and my babies fitted in around my day. Not saying either is wrong or superior just that I'm very different to my sister and what worked for her wouldn't work for me and vice versa.