Hi tanyato! I'll be the odd Mom out; I did go ahead and schedule my wee one around 2-3 months or so. She was fed on demand prior, and she would go longer stretches at some points during the day at that time, up to 5 or 6 hours. I never declined to nurse her due to her schedule, let's be clear. If she asked, she got. But I implemented a 3-hour schedule at first, starting when she woke up, and would feed her, play with her or otherwise spend time with her, and then let her nap until she woke up. She would almost always wake up about 3 hours after her last feeding, then we'd start again. That schedule worked fabulously for us, and she seemed to actually know what would happen next, which she seemed to enjoy. For example, after eating and burping she'd hunt around for a toy and smile. About an hour after eating she'd look to find me, rubbing her eyes, and drop her toy.
At about 4 months we moved to a 4-hour schedule because she was not hungry every three hours. You can't stick a nunnie in a baby's mouth unless they want it, we learned. I stressed out about it, because this was about the same time she started her slide off the charts in terms of height (weight stayed 50% or better) and I noticed she wasn't outgrowing her clothes or shoes. A couple of very kind people finally got me out of panic-mode by pointing out that there wasn't all that much of Mama, either, and small Moms don't tend to make big, strapping baby girls. We coasted along on the 4-hour schedule until maybe 6 months or so, when separation anxiety hit. Prior to that, we weren't nursing to sleep. But now, she has associated falling asleep with me being more than .01 inches away, so nursing is the only thing that works. We also started solids at about 6 1/2 months, so our schedule evolved to meet those new needs. Now, our schedule starts at 8am with breakfast. Her last overnight nurse, if she's nursed all night or only twice, is usually at 6:30am or 7am. So 8am breakfast of yogurt and prunes, 10am nurse to sleep. At noon she gets lunch, and at about 1pm she nurses for a few minutes and cat-naps on my lap afterwards. It's probably more about wanting comfort than hunger at that time. At about 4pm I nurse her off to sleep again for her afternoon nap. At 6pm she eats a solid dinner and then at 8pm I nurse her to sleep for the night. I should mention, though, that lately she's been trying to crawl and trying to cruise (she's keeping her options open!) and so her stress level is high, and she's been nursing once or twice more in the afternoon. She usually spits up after those nursings too, since she's over-full. She's still in the 25th percentile for height on a good day, but she's well-padded and stays above 50% for weight, so I'm satisfied she is not starving to death. That's my schedule, for what it's worth. Until solids and water, she was EBF - we kept an emergency ration of formula in the cupboard which I just happily donated to charity.
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