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

Mine are now 10 and 15 but I always fed on demand. I'm 37. DD breastfed until she was about 8 months, DS til 13 months.

I loved it. Didn't mind that I was constantly bf in the early months.

@Womeninthesequel so don't you have breakfast lunch and dinner at roughly the same time each day? Isn't teabreak at work roughly the same time each day? Don't toddlers have breakfast, snack, lunch, snack. dinner, bottle, bed, at roughly the same time each day? I think an awful lot of people have routines in their day and so not as unusual as you imply to eat and drink on a schedule.
Mine were fed every three to three and a half hours so as to fit in with school runs, nursery runs, toddler's naps, homework and people needing feeding. me wanting a bath and to cook and do housework and the lives of everyone else in our household tbh.

Baby has set himself into the schedule of between 3-4hours.

If he cries before 3 hours i play/distract/change nappy to see i that calms him, if he is starting to show hunger signs then i'll feed him, but it doesn't happen very often.

I wouldn't just feed him because he's crying

But if she needs a drink in between meals, they let her, right? And so do you?

Milk is not just food for babies, it's drink too. Babies experience thirst as well as hunger.

I eat on a rough schedule, yes. But I don't drink to a schedule. I drink whenever I need to, much more frequently than I eat. Most people do! Babies drink for thirst as well as hunger.

Yup I can't imagine telling my (now older) kids they could only drink every 4 hours !

I personally found it difficult being around friends/people at groups with crying babies when they wouldn't feed a baby because it wasn't time. They tended to be happier with a fussing baby.

If your baby is genuinely only hungry/thirsty every 3hours then you are feeding on demand. If they're hungry or thirst in-between and crying them you're denying them.

And I found it difficult listening to babies crying in the school playground because they wanted feeding that minute and they would need to wait until they got home. Mine would always be asleep because their schedule meant that they slept on school runs. Either way, whatever you choose, you can't always drop everything to feed a baby.
I had eighteen months between my first two and twenty one months between my second two I didn't have time to feed on demand if I wanted the others in school, in nursery and fed and bathed and dressed themselves as well as running a home.

I had mine mid 2000 both breastfed and to a loose schedule , so didn't offer breast every time they cried as it may been wet nappy etc
By a couple months prob quite a routine and both slept through at 6 weeks ( well 11pm-6 )
If they were hungry before scheduled time of course fed them and never left them crying , but didn't instantly feed at every cry either

I will add if they were hungry I wouldn't of said you have to wait, just tried to have a loose routine
If they had't fed long then it was likely they were going to go less time
My 2nd was a breeze and slept and ate and never really cried at all and wouldn't take a dummy, he put himself in a routine tbh
Each baby is so different