Do you put breast fed babies on a schedule after a certain point?

I have an 8 week old, and I am still feeding him on demand. Shoud I be doing anything to get him on a schedule? He is up every 2-3 hours during the night and seems to sleep longer during the day.
Any advice would be greatly appreciated

Re: Do you put breast fed babies on a schedule after a certain point?

I didn't with DD, but learned my lesson second time around.

I was feeding him every 4 hours, and I tried to get him to eat at the same times every day.. 6, 10, 2 and 6 again.

Middle of the nights we played by ear until we knew he could go longer.

There is a book called 12 hours by 12 weeks, which has some good sleep/feeding guidelines in it. I didn't even read it til DS was 15 weeks, but I really thikn it had some good approaches. I modified for myself-- but am still working on the 12 hours. I do sometimes get it, but it's mostly 10 hours now at 6 months.

Re: Do you put breast fed babies on a schedule after a certain point?

Thanks, I will look into that book

Re: Do you put breast fed babies on a schedule after a certain point?

That "12 hour" book is pretty extreme. I'm all for CIO at 5 or 6 months, but I don't like the idea of an itty bitty 8 week old crying from hunger for an hour, to "teach" them to be hungry every 4 hours on the dot. Read up on it carefully before you decide to use it.

My BF baby wasn't on too much of a schedule until 4 or 5 months. She kind of set it herself. We noticed that she'd be hungry every certain number of hours. Then I knew to be ready to feed her at certain times. As she got older, she could go for longer and I could plan to feed her at specific times, before she got so hungry that she'd cry.

8 weeks is really young! You've got another couple of months of feeding on demand ahead of you, but you'll start to notice patterns soon and it will give you an idea of the best times of day to go out.

Re: Do you put breast fed babies on a schedule after a certain point?

Oh, and if your baby is up a lot at night and sleeping a lot during the day, you can fix that! When LO wakes at night, what do you do? You should keep all the lights off, not make eye contact, not sing or talk. Just pick up, feed, put back down to sleep. LO will see very soon that it's no fun to be up at night and hopefully sleep a little longer. You also don't have to run when you hear crying... wait it out for a little bit to see if he goes back to sleep. Also, if you go to him after 10 minutes, maybe the next night he'll wake up 10 minutes later and you can wait another 10 minutes, and so on, until after a while he's waking up to be fed an hour later.

Re: Do you put breast fed babies on a schedule after a certain point?

Re: Do you put breast fed babies on a schedule after a certain point?

You really can't schedule feedings with an EBF baby if they're mostly nursing. It may hurt your supply, esp in the beginning. (If you're at work and have to give them bottles of pumped milk, it's a little different; obviously pumping needs to be on more of a schedule). However they're getting breastmilk, getting hungry every 2-3 hours is normal for an 8 week old. Eventually my DD worked out a routine so I could kind of guess when I'd need to nurse her next, but it wasn't an exact science.

If he's sleeping more during the day then at night, then you'll want to make sure the lights are on and you're making noise. At night, make the room dark and quiet. He'll figure it out.

Message edited 8/17/2012 8:26:32 PM.

Re: Do you put breast fed babies on a schedule after a certain point?

At 10 months, I still nurse on demand, they usually find their own schedule. My friend uses The Baby Whisperer if you are interested in implementing a schedule.

Re: Do you put breast fed babies on a schedule after a certain point?

Thanks for all the advise, I am just nervous about pumping when I have to go back to work and when the caregivers at the daycare will feed him. I hope they will still feed him on demand.

Re: Do you put breast fed babies on a schedule after a certain point?

This:

Do you put breast fed babies on a schedule after a certain point?

Nope never did. Always on demand.

Re: Do you put breast fed babies on a schedule after a certain point?

I did w DS. At @ 6 weeks I began pushing him to an every 3 hr nursing. He did fine w it and slept better at night. He started sleeping 8 hr stretches at night at 10 weeks. I also worked out specific times to feed him during the day to coincide w my work schedule- like nursing him at 6 am and then he'd get bottles at 9, 1230 and 4 and I'd nurse as soon as I got home at 7.

Now w the twins they mostly nurse on demand since they're little. but I will start trying to get them on a schedule once they're weights are up.

Being on a schedule was the only way I could make BF work- it saved my sanity! I used the eat play sleep routine of baby wise to make it work.

Re: Do you put breast fed babies on a schedule after a certain point?

Re: Do you put breast fed babies on a schedule after a certain point?

I wouldn't let baby sleep longer than 3 hours during the day without eating. I'd also try "cluster" feeding in the evening. Feed him a bit more and maybe he'll sleep a bit longer during the night.
As far as daycare, if you want him fed on demand, just tell them that. I will say having the baby on a bit of a schedule (I used baby whisperer) helps with determining whether he is really hungry or not. For us, swaddling and using the pacifier at night helped.