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Babies: 0 - 3 Months
Stephanie2167
member
BF moms: what was your feeding schedule?
Stephanie2167
member
My DD is 11 days old and I have yet to get her on any sort of feeding/sleep schedule. What is/was your feeding sleep schedule early on? Also, do you feed every two or three hours and do you counr from the beginning of your last feeding or from the end?
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Re: BF moms: what was your feeding schedule?
dd goes to sleep at 10 and doesnt wake until 2 and then again at 6...after that we nurse on demand, usually every two hours..sometimes every hour.
you time feedings from when they start nursing, not when they end. hth
Mine didn't make it up to birth weight so for a while there I was feeding her on demand but making sure that I woke her up every three hours at night and every two during the day (counting from the beginning of the last session to the beginning of the next). And she takes 45 minutes or so to BF, so it felt like it was non-stop.
Alex (11/14/06) and Nate (5/25/10)
"Want what you have, do what you can, be who you are." - Rev. Forrest Church
DS will be 4wks on Monday and man he is no where near a schedule. Strangely, while we were in the hospital, he was pretty punctual about wanting to eat every 2hrs, but since we got home that's all a distant memory.
I wouldn't expect any kind of schedule at 11 days. At that time for DD and I it was just feed when ever she fussed pretty much. Now, these days, she doesn't eat nearly as often and since we BF I don't concern myself with a feeding schedule cuzz she self regulates and I'm a SAHM.
We have a loose nap schedule and a defined bedtime schedule.
I fed on demand for the first couple weeks and wrote down the times she ate, which gave me an idea of her internal schedule. I was able to tweak it a little to feed her every 3 hours during the day and every 5-6 hours at night. Right now our schedule looks pretty much like this:
7, 11, 1, 4, 6, 7 (I cluster feed in the evening), and 3 am
I feed her (about 40 minutes on one breast), then change her diaper and then she sleeps until the next feed.
Obviously, sometimes she goes through a growth spurt and wants to eat more, so I feed her more often - usually this means one extra night feed.
If she's sleeping during the day, I'll wake her up if it's been 3 hours since her last feed. I want her to eat more during the day to cut down on the night feeds.
So far, this is working really well for us! (DD is 4 weeks now).
I also really like that I can plan things around her schedule. Like, it's really easy to make lunch plans with girlfriends because I know I can feed her at 11, then put her in her stroller, and she'll sleep through lunch until 1 or 2 p.m. at which point I'm usually back home and if I'm still out it's not big deal to pop into a Starbucks, buy a decaf latte, and feed her there.
Eleanor Noelle - 18/05/12 Claire Elisabeth - 16/-5/10
My LO is 8 weeks now, but in the beginning I didn't really have a schedule (as much as I tried). It was pretty much on demand, which did help my production. At her 2 week weight check, I asked the DR about how often she was eating and she said to try and stretch it to two hours or unless she was REALLY asking for it. Also, if she is napping to not let her go more than 4 hours and to wake her up to feed. As for the hour count, it is from the time you start just like contractions.
You count from the beginning of the feeding. You need to wake the baby up if he won't wake himself. We had to wake for feedings for 5 weeks (but he was a month early), until he started to wake himself, and then we let him go as long as he wanted, despite the advice of our pedi to continue to wake him every 4 hours. We woke him every 3 hours from beginning to beginning of feedings, for the first month or so. Then the last week we let him go 4 hours between feedings, when our pedi told us we could.
So: if a feeding starts at 2 pm, and takes 40 minutes, you still start again at 5, for example. It really stinks if your baby takes forever to eat like mine (mine takes an hour...still) and are pumping afterwards too. But it gets easier! We fed on demand after 5 weeks, and he wakes himself every 4-5 hours usually (though we've gotten up to 7).
HTH!
On demand - always.
No more than 2-3 during the day w/out eating and 4hrs max at night, until LO is back @ birth weight. Once back @ birth weight, let the baby sleep as long as they want!