feeding schedule for a breastfeeding-snacking baby

Oops, sorry. I didn't realise (probably not reading things properly!). Hope you find someone suitable soon - I know from going to the doctor with my sister it's so incredibly frustrating when you feel they're just not getting to the bottom of it.

Who do you see? We've always been to Dr Hamzeh at the Meadows Clinic and have found him brilliant. We just moved up to Al Waha so now we go to Dr Gupta at the Ranches, who also seems very good. We had to take DS to the ER at City on Friday (probably the equivalent of trying to crack a nut with a sledgehammer, but nowhere else was open) and the doctor was rubbish, whereas Dr Gupta had him diagnosed in seconds yesterday morning and he's now on the mend. I have heard many, many people recommend Dr Keith Nichol too. I think he's on the Beach Road. PS DS was a bit of a cranky little boy until we got his sleep sorted. He'd be OK as long as he was being entertained, but he was totally incapable of a) entertaining himself or b) paying attention to anything for longer than two seconds. He was just ridiculously overtired all the time, and thankfully didn't have any health issues such as reflux, but if your little one is tired on top of the awful reflux that won't be helping :(. <em>edited by DubaiCat on 25/09/2011</em>

Reflux sucks :(. My sister had a horrendous time with her DS because of it so you have my full sympathies! I'd agree with kiwi, though - try to work on the naps. I found DS at that age could only stay up for an hour, maybe an hour and a half after he got up and the better he napped in the morning, the happier he was throughout the day. He'd go down in the morning, then again after lunch, and then have a third nap late afternoon. It did restrict our movements during the day but I'd had such an awful time with him not sleeping and me having PND I really didn't care as long as he got his sleep :). He was so much happier once I'd sorted that out. I do think many of the popular books are entirely geared towards bottle-fed babies. Breastfed babies - the ones I've met, anyway - just don't seem to have the same routines or the same predictability as bottle-fed ones. Maybe because you don't know how much they're getting, maybe because there's more of a comfort aspect to it... I don't know. But I do believe demand-feeding is still appropriate at that age. DS naturally fell into more of a routine as he got older so hopefully your little one might do the same. Good luck! PS Also as kiwi says, at four months they should begin to develop habits with regard to sleep so you're looking at it at exactly the right time and you have more chance of avoiding some of the more common pitfalls that lead to sleepless nights (or so I believe, anyway).

Ladies, many thanks. DD is gaining weight and she has regular wet/dirty nappy. Happy baby? Hmmmm.... She is only happy after she wakes up in the morning (she can play for 30 to 40 mins). I notice she is not so happy after her day naps; when I put DD in her playmat she plays for less than 5 mins then she cries so I play with her but after a few minutes she cries so I pick her up or sometimes she does not want to be put down. She prefers to be in upright position, honestly, I cant understand anymore why she still cries even she is already in my arms. :( Hello.Again.Kitty - yes, I have been reading The Baby Whisperer. I also have GF's book which I think is strict and can't be implemented to DD. :) In my experience, unhappy right after a nap means nap was too short, which you already know. ;), less than 45 minutes and they didn't really get a full sleep cycle in even but 45 minute is ok so long as they have an extra nap or 2 to compenate and are happy when they wake. If earlier/later nap times don't work then you can try other techniques like going in and soothing her the second she starts to wake, with the hope she will transition into another cycle. Or, if the sleep was only 20 minutes and she won't go back to sleep, try putting her down for another one after only 30 minutes or so of "up" time. The BF advice in the BW book is unfortunately no better than GF, just plain wrong (from a scientific viewpoint) and showing no understanding of how breastfeeding works. The feed/sleep schedules are pretty similar to GF, but there is a little more lee-way in terms of adapting it for tired signs etc. I did like the idea of the EASY routine but unfortunately it isn't the best for a snacker as your supply will drop if you stick rigidly to those times with short feeds, you can use the nap times as a rough guide for your own schedule though. At around 4 months sleep times become more predictable, so it is good time to work on developmenting a routine. Initially a good first nap might be 8am or 9am depending on when she wakes for the day and once you are getting a fairly predictable nap there (at least 45 minutes), you can try and set a time for the second nap rather than just working on 1 or 1 1/2 hours after she wakes from he first etc. good luck! <em>edited by kiwispiers on 23/09/2011</em>

Have you had her checked for reflux? My nephew was the same - screamed unless he was upright and being held, and even then sometimes just carried on screaming - and it turned out, after many trips to the GP and eventually a reluctant referral to a paediatrician, that reflux was his problem.

Have you by any chance been reading The Baby Whisperer, Kie? If so, move on to the next chapter and forget the Branding Baby bit... it gave me the biggest hang-up ever as a first time mum because the Book told me DD was A Snacker and That Was Bad. She wasn't, she just happened to be a very efficient feeder. She only ever had from one breast per feed too (oh, shock horror - not sitting there for 20 minutes on each side?!) and by clinging resolutely to the 91st centile, proved that the Book knew jack about my own baby. Secondly, breastfeeding works on demand, or rather it's baby-led. Babies each have their own pattern of hunger and thirst, just as we do as adults, so by all means keep track of frequency and/or by-the-clock times, if it helps you to understand your baby, but the big trick is to juggle pre-empting (oo, nearly 10h, you'll be hungry soon) with the flexibility and observation to recognise when your baby's pattern changes (as they grow, it will space out more, completely naturally). Any number of us could say "oo, 2 hours"... "oo, 3 hours" or "only every 4 hours", but that would be based on our own experience with our own babies... which aren't the same as your baby. Lastly, really, the bottom line is that it doesn't really matter. If they're thriving and content, it doesn't matter how often they feed. That's my Top Tip as a second mum... with DD, I went as far as creating a colour-coded excel spreadsheet to plot her activities... with DS, I couldn't actually tell you how often he fed each day.. possibly every 3 hours, possibly not!

Mine fed/feeds like that and when he was EBF (ie before solids) I fed him more or less every 1.5 hours, plus whenever he wanted to (he would have starved had I left it entirely to "demand" as he was just to busy playing for eating, so I would give him plenty of offers ;). I didn't feed by the clock really, I would feed him when he woke from a nap and again before he went down for one, and any other time he seemed hungry or unsettled. At around 9 months old I started spending less time actively encouraging him to feed and left it up to him to demand it when he wanted, at 13 months I still feed 3-6 times a day, mostly in the afternoon/evening as he has decided he doesn't like to feed first thing in the morning. Its important to know that if you feed frequently then the milk does not separate in your breast so you don't have to worry foremilk/hindmilk issues, that is only something that applies to longer 3-4 hour gaps between feeds. Scientific research has shown that babies who feed often actually get higher calorie feeds overall (basically your milk is fattier when they snack vs bigger gaps). Keep an eye on your baby's weight, that will give you a clue if you are feeding often enough, that said, my baby sat perfectly on the 50th centile (with 3 hourly feeds) from 2 weeks old until he started snacking at 3/4 months at which point he went up to (and stayed on) the 85th, so it can be hard to tell if your baby is "thriving. To encourage a slightly longer feed, you can keep swapping from breast to breast and back again 3 or 4 times during the feed so that they get little burst of faster milk flow, but really frequent snacking isn't a problem at all in terms of nutrition, and I found it actually was a better way for my baby as it helped his reflux a lot. Feeding so often seems like a pain but since the feeds are so short (5 minutes would have been a long feed for me) you are never stuck anywhere feeding. I mostly couldn't feed in public as he was too distractable but I could easily excuse myself for 5 minutes to pop into a changing room if at the mall or duck into a spare room if at a busy playgroup. I have always had a sleep schedule though, so you don't have to feed on a schedule to have nap times/a routine. take care Emma

Hi I may be saying what othes have already said, if thats the case sorry;) My DD is now 4 months old and she sucks her thumb too. She never sucked it from birth. She only started to suck it propery a couple of weeks ago. I too breastfeed her and to be honest even at her age I do not have a feeding routine for her. I still feed her on demand, esp if we have been in and out of the house a lot. What you may find as she gets older is that she will set her own feeding schedule. I have found now she is going evey 2 hrs. But she wants more then that then I am more then happy to give her more. It does get so much easier when they are a little older as things really do settle. Now she is sleeping for longer periods at night, sometimes not waking up till 5:30. Honestly just go with what she wants

Why not just try watching her signals and feed on demand? As long as you're getting plenty of wet nappies, she's putting on weight well and is generally happy then she's getting enough milk. She'll let you know when she's hungry, tired, etc. Every baby is different and as below posters have said - sometimes 5 mins is enough!

Please don't worry about this. I know its easy to say but really trust your baby and chuck your books DD would empty both breasts in under 5 mins. She was extremely efficient. Look for clues instead, is she happy? Does she have dirty diapers regularly? Are they a good colour? Enough wet and dirty diapers and all is well. As for sleep, my DD and all my friends DDs ( except for one) only did 25-30 min stretches during the day. The best thing I did was start a nighttime routine when she was 2 months old which we still follow today. Don't stress, enjoy your baby and trust me! It all settles down and once you are in the flow of things, you will know what to do naturally! Don't go by books and what people around you say. She is still young, enjoy, relax and breathe in that baby smell! I cannot tell you how much you will miss it in a few months :)

If you are successfully breastfeeding, don't worry about a routine too much at this age. It is so stressful and the wonder of feeding on demand is that you actually have a lot of flexibility - it just doesn't always feel like it ;) . I've just gone through the same thing and now my DD is 8 months I look back and wish I'd gone with the flow more and not worried about it. Even now we are not in much of a routine. Best advice I was given was make sure bedtime routine is up and running and the rest will sort itself out. I really wish in hindsight I'd never set eyes on Gina Ford's book. Plus, other thing I've learnt is often, once you have bust a gut to get a routine set up, something comes along like teething and throws it all out of whack. So frustrating. (I know Gina would say if you have a solid routine it all works anyway but never did for me).

At that age, it is recommended that babies are fed on demand. <em>edited by AnonDubai on 21/09/2011</em>

When you say she only latches for five minutes, do your boobs feel like she's emptied them in that time? DS was an incredibly efficient feeder and would sometimes drain one in under five minutes. I read Gina Ford - who says babies need at least 30 minutes to get any hind milk at all - and convinced myself I was starving him!