How does "demand feeding" fit in with "feed-play-sleep"?

[OceanPrincess]

If at all????

We are demand feeding DD - in the early days/weeks I would feed her when she was hungry and she has had great weight gain, always weighs in the 95 percentile.

I have no idea how frequently she fed in these first weeks, I was not timing as we weren't trying to enforce any routine or 3 hourly feed concept or anything like that.

Around 6 weeks I started noticing she was naturally developing a feed-play-sleep routine, she would wake hungry and crying, I'd feed her and then she'd play and then get tired.

My problem now is how this fits in with demand feeding. She now wakes and sometimes is hungry and crying but sometimes she is quite content to chat away, sit and be cuddled, play with her toys, before looking for a feed. But if I offer her the breast as soon as she wakes, she will feed - she is just not "demanding" it in the strictest sense.

If I feed her at the start of every feed-play-sleep cycle, she ends up feeding every 2hrs, as she is only awake for an hour or so and asleep for about the same.

If I feed DD strictly only on demand, she may get to the end of her awake time and then get hungry and grizzle for a feed and I end up feeding to sleep. Which sometimes doesn't work as she just gets overtired and then needs to be rocked to sleep.

So how do these two ideas fit together? Do they at all??

[MantaRay]

Actually you're right - the two ideas don't really go together. Feed-sleep-play is not really the way babies normally work. In the early days with DS1 when I thought I had to follow the parenting books, I tried to implement feed-sleep-play, but always ended up with feed-sleep-feed-play etc. What ended up happening with both boys was that they fell into their own ryhthm and I just went with it. Things worked so much better when I let them lead the way.

[OceanPrincess]

So if I want to go back to just demand feeding, I should let her dictate? If she is happy to chat and play and doesn't necessarily want a feed as soon as she wakes, I should just go with that?

I might try that tomorrow... I have a home day, might see how we go.

Still trying to figure all this out...

[AliBaby]

Hi hun, I let DD dictate as well.

For example after some sleeps she is quite content to play or coo at me (so in that circumstance its sleep, play, feed, sleep).

Other times she will wake wanting a feed (so its sleep, feed, play, sleep).

She is a happy baby so I just go with whatever and when I go to the MCHN and they say how is she going, I just say great. I save all my questions for you guys as I find they dictate to me only one way that DD can be otherwise.

HTH

[MantaRay]

OP, whatever works for you is probably the best thing to do. I found that following their cues worked best - so in that case yes, if she's not hungry when she wakes then hold off and feed her when she is. It takes a while, but you get to know the sleepy and hunger cues. Crying is a late sign of hunger so with practice you can figure out when she's hungry before it gets to that point.

The other thing though, is still keep in mind the "guidelines" - this comes in handy when you miss the cues (which will happen at times). So what I mean is, a young baby usually will only stay awake for 1 1/2 hours tops. So if it's been 3 hours then it's probably best to try sleep even if she doesn't seem tired. Same for feeding - if it's been a long time since the last feed, then I would offer a feed.

It might sound confusing, but once you are doing it, it seems to fall into place quite easily.