demand feeding / v’s routine for NB

Hi ladies

I already asked this in the july bubs thread, I would be interested in hearing what others did with their nb did you follow a routine / advice out of a book with feeding and sleeping or did you demand feed?

Jayden did start off on his own little 3-4 hourly routine now he seems to have his day / nights mixed up with sleeping and also his feeds some times he will have 50ml other times he will take over 100ml! so im thinking of trying to get some consistency going and developing some kind of routine

also did you wake your bubs up to feed during the day or let bubs wake up to feed? when sleeping for long sleeps?

good to hear other peoples experiences

thanks ladies

I demand fed ... she put herself onto three hourly rotation. I never woke her (even though Plunket said too lol).

She used to cluster feed quite alot around 5pm when she was ickle (under three months) and I just used to feed her (she snacked - didnt feed as such).

i have been waking E for a week now to try it and see if he would settle better and he's worse..lol.. lilfatty Plunket told me he was fine without waking...lol....they often seem to give conflicting advice depending on the nurse! when E was little he slept through the night much better..lol:) I think a lot depends on the baby as well..

In the beginning I was forced to do a routine for day times. But after the first few weeks I let him just demand feed.

For the first 6 weeks I demand fed which gave me a chance to get to know how often Gabs would like to feed. From then on I routine fed her every four hours during the day and from 9weeks she has been sleeping through.

I will wake her to feed her if she is asleep, but often she will wake up about that time anyway.

Alot depends on the baby too, Gabs has never feed less than 3 hourly and would often be 4-5 hours between feeds, so I tried to keep it to 4 hours so she would get enough to sleep through the night, but any closer together for her and she wouldn't drink very much.

I demand fed all my kids. It didn't go all that well with DS1 he took to going no longer than 1 1/2hrs in between and I simply couldn't strtetch them out. With DS2 it went fine but neither of my boys slept through till gone 2yo. DD is a different story, she is demand fed anywhere from 2-4hrly now but in the start if she wanted a fed after an hour to help settle her to sleep then I'd do that. DD cluster feds between 5-8.30pm although she's starting to drop that now, and she has been sleeping through the night more often than not since 9wks. Never woke any of my kids at night but they've all gained weight fine so no need to.

I did a combo. I had heard a lot about making sure they don't feel too close together as they can tend to get a sore tum if they have lots of little feeds and no good sized ones. I tried to keep the feeds 2 hours apart (which was hard as Elle was a 10min napper...long story). We fed 2 to 2.5 hourly for the first 4 months or so and then it gradually extended out. She didn't move to 4 hourly until really late (can't remember when).

Before I had her I was planning to follow a babywise type routine. In my ignorance I thought it made sense and sounded easy. Some kids do thrive on those kinds of routines but mine wasn't one of them. You generally need them to do good long sleeps in between feeds in order to stretch the feeds out and that is where we can unstuck.

I would say we used a routine, but it was flexi.

Both mine had jaundice and were sleepy in the early days so I woke them every three hours for a feed and demand fed through the night. This seemed to put them into a routine of self-waking every three hours for a feed.

Caleb cluster fed from about 6pm and I woke him at 10pm for a dreamfeed. This lasted him until 4am then he was up at 7am. Brooke still woke every three hours through the night for feeds however.

i demand fed both of mine until around 7-8mths and fortunatly they found their own routine which i then turned into their routine it works great

Thomas demand feeds. The only time I wake him up is late evening (11pm-12am) if he hasnt woken already after going down at 7pmish. Otherwise he wakes at 2am and stuff getting up then anymore. He'll go from said time above till 4am now.