Feeding patterns

[punkbaby]

Just curious if anyone can say their BF bubs has a feeding routine? My mum was here the other day and it got me thinking, i have always demand fed my kids, mum turned around and said Oh you still know roughly when she feeds right? She offered to watch the kids so i could go shopping.

I dont, the only routine that i have is at night which is something like this
6pm bath time, cuddles, a few grizzles sleep around 730pm, dream feed at 11pm and sleep till 6am or 7am, depending what she has during her dream feed)

I am stoked with her feeding things are going really well but i thought to myself, wouldnt it be nice to feed her and be able to leave her with dh during her sleep to get the kids from school or to go shopping etc or just run to grab milk without taking them all? I love taking my kids everywhere, yes it gets crazy sometimes but its all i know so its never really been an issue.

Anyhow i have worked out that indies day feeds are all over the place, which is fine but it got me wondering how many other bf mums can say that they actually have a feeding routine? We tend to have anywhere from an hour break, we have a 3 hour stretch we have a 1 hour feed LOL a 5 minute feed and i cant predict her, somedays she will totally suprise me and sleep for 3 hours, other days she will sleep for 1, somedays i feel like i havent hardly fed her and other days i feel like i havent stopped!

Ok confusing myself now, soooo tell me about your feeding patterns/routines

[jacks mum]

yeah I did with both boys, every 4-5 hours. When they started sleeping through it was 7,11,3,7 for DS1 and DS2 did the 6,10,2,6. and now he's on the bottle it's just brekky, lunch and dinner bottles.

it's what suited us and I could have the freedom to leave them at home or with mum and pop out if needed.

[jayisa02]

no routine here except DD sleeps all night but feeds whenever during the day

[mumx3littlies]

Our kids were all demand fed and I just BF them wheneva they were hungrywether it had been 4hours or 1hour

[jpm3]

with my 6months old i tend to do a mixture of routine and demand.. mostly i feed her every 3 hrs some feeds are stretched out to 4 hrs some sooner but i know that she is good for 3hrs if i wanna leave her with DH to go to the shops or something..

[punkbaby]

Oh cool i am glad that i am not the only one then! LOL i guess i can always go shopping at midnight LOL
She will have days where she has a massive feed and then half hour later she wants more and its like wtf you just had heaps!!

[pkbub]

DS is 7 months. I rarely try to stick to a schedule but it turns out he usually demand feeds about every 3-4 hours during the day. Only in the first 3 months did he ever feed again before 3 hrs was up...so our schedule might go like this on an average day: 6am, 9am, 12:30, 4pm, 7pm...and night may be once, twice or not at all.

I usually give a top-up feed in the mornings right before we go out somewhere, or if I'm going to leave him for a couple hours, cause I prefer to feed at home. And I know he'll be fine till lunch then.

[Sheer Bliss]

A few months after we started solids, we developed a sort of rough routine - but up until then - it was all over the place. Demand feeding can be a bit disorganised in that way i guess, but IMO it's best for bubs, so that's what we stick to! DS is almost 12months, and if he is overly wingy at any time, and he isn't tired - it's booby for him - it ALWAYS calms him down.

[deb1234]

Isaac is usually every 3 hours for the first few feeds of the day and then it gets a bit unpredictable in the afternoon/evening. You never really know how much they are getting, so sometimes a 'big' feed might not be as much milk as you think! During the evening i just keep offering if he's grumpy and eventually he'll fall asleep.
He's still not having solids though, so i guess once that falls into place his breastfeeds might become a bit more routine.

I don't mind demand feeding though, if i know he should be tired i feed him to sleep and if he's grumpy but not tired i feed him....feed, feed, feed! That's the great thing about bfing is you can easily fix a grumpy baby!

[Hollywood]

I never had a routine, still don't at 14 months. I just feed when I think he might like it, or if he's getting grizzly for no apparent reason. I never EVER look at the clock when feeding and couldn't tell you how long since the last feed.

Sometimes when DH gets home from work and is playing with DS, he asks "When did he last feed?", and I don't usually know exactly, I'm only able to give him an approximate time.