With both kids I followed the idea of “feeding in demand”. Which means, giving them to boob whenever they seemed to want it. That was what the books I read said (again, especially the (in)famous Dr Sears) and it made sense to me. Now, all is well that ends well, and Zach seems relatively well adjusted for a 3 year old and hopefully Maddie will be as well, but I think they would have done just as well with a little less boob. I think I overused boob by a lot with Zach, and by a bit with Maddie. It is the easiest way to comfort a baby, so I did it. But the result was that for the first 6-12 months of their lives, it was hard for other people to comfort them. For some people, it may work to do a little less feeding on demand, and a little more finding other ways to comfort, only because it may free you up a little. I am sure this varies tremendously from baby to baby…
I only say this because if you are reading Sears, you may think that trying to organize a feeding schedule for your baby is some kind of cruelty, but I’ve seen people do it, not as a rigid schedule, but as a routine, so that they would generally know if the baby was hungry, and if the baby was fussy at a time that it was unlikely to be hungry, they would try other ways to soothe the baby.
My friend Jill was a pro with EASY: she got it from a book (I forget which one) and it stands for Eat Activity Sleep You, and it’s the idea of making that the pattern…you baby wakes up, you feed it, you have some active time (for newborns, not more than 1-2 hours for sure!!!) and then you soothe it to sleep (the implication here is that you do it w/o the boob) and then you have some time for YOU.
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