routine's?

[lesleyann]

Ok so i no its to early right now to try and get a set routine but wanted to no when is the best time to try and put in place a routine from being demand fed?

and how did you manage to stop the demand feeding and inplace a routine? Did you just up an oz or so in a bottle to make Lo last longer find way of distracting baby for a while so there more space inbetween the feed so Lo takes more?

Oh by the way the whole distract for as long as possible to get Lo to take more to therefore last longer is what a friend of mine sugested.

 

[rach321]

How far apart are your feeds at the moment - roughly ? 2-3hrs?
You can try extending the time between feeds by about 15mins then after a few days add another 15mins etc etc until you get to the feed spacing you want. 15mins isn't too long to distract a hungry baby! Trouble is at that age they are still so small and will still feed regularly through the night but that's no reason you shouldn't try spacing them out a bit so you get a bit more rest in between. You could also try cluster feeding in the evenings so that LO will get all the calories they need and hopefully will sleep for a slightly longer stretch at night. We started on a routine at about 8-10 weeks and although it has changed a lot - its been a great help to us and LO is much happier.

 

[lesleyann]

How far apart are your feeds at the moment - roughly ? 2-3hrs?
You can try extending the time between feeds by about 15mins then after a few days add another 15mins etc etc until you get to the feed spacing you want. 15mins isn't too long to distract a hungry baby! Trouble is at that age they are still so small and will still feed regularly through the night but that's no reason you shouldn't try spacing them out a bit so you get a bit more rest in between. You could also try cluster feeding in the evenings so that LO will get all the calories they need and hopefully will sleep for a slightly longer stretch at night. We started on a routine at about 8-10 weeks and although it has changed a lot - its been a great help to us and LO is much happier.

what is cluster feeding? just like lots of feeds in a small amout of time lol

 

[katieandbump]

At first when lilly was newborn she was waking up 3/4am ish for a feed and then for another one about 7am she did this for first 4 weeks then she was lasting longer waking up at 5 so we gave her a bottle then.
One time OH decided to just put her in the bed with us to give her comfort instead and see what happened and she fell back to sleep and woke up at 7 since that breakthrough for the next 3 weeks when she woke up at 5 ish like she normally did for a bottle but instead we just put her in our bed and she got used to it straight away going to sleep.
Gradually over time she was taking her night bottle earlier and earlier from original time of 12 to 9 and then 7/8. This is when she started sleeping through the night and not even waking up to come in our bed she now has her bottle at 7/8pm and lasts until 6.30am. Halelujiaaaaaa! xx

 

[rach321]

Cluster feeding is exactly what you said. SO if for example you normally feed every 3 hrs eg 7am,10am,1pm,4pm7pm then bed you would add an extra feed in the evening to try and make them sleep longer at night so you would feed 7am,10am,1pm,3pm,5pm,7pm - if you see what I mean. Doesn't always work but at least if they wake up at 9pm you know that they are definitely not hungry! Always a good strategy during growth spurts as well so you don;t have to do so many night feeds.
Hope that helps.

 

[elmaxie]

I just went with the flow with Nathan...even while I was exclusively BF (I now combine)

But we generally notice he started to get hungry around the same times of day and at night when he was first born had a feed at 10pm and would sleep for 3 hours, feed, sleep for 3 hours....then he started feeding at 9pm and would be asleep by 10pm not waking until 2am and waking at 7am and since introducing the bottle he brought his bedtime forward to 8pm, still waking at 2am to 3am ish then back to sleep until 6am or 7am.

So now we just need to work on stopping the 2am feed, which we have noticed he is taking less of his bottle!, but he is still young so am not too bothered plus he is so good and goes straight back to sleep.

I think their wee bodies set their own routine...we tweak it slightly!

Emma.xx

 

[Kimboowee]

I was giving Josh 3-4 ozs at 11pm then he would wake at 2/3am...

I still do that then give him another 1/2 ozs at 12am, then he normally sleeps til 6/7am.

We have no routine for the day but i just top him up before i go to bed

 

[nataliecn]

My little guy is gradually starting to get himself into his own routine... having his bottles usually around every 3 1/2 hours.. some days seem to be a little crazy, where he'll eat way more frequently, and others he seems to space them out more.