Feed on Demand or Feed on Time? Which is more scientific? The first thing you need to do is to make sure that you get it right!

Especially breastfeeding mothers are particularly entangled, can not see how much the baby ate, the heart is always hanging in the balance. The first thing you need to do is to get your hands on a new pair of shoes or boots, and then you'll be able to get your hands on a new pair of shoes or boots, and then you'll be able to get your hands on a new pair of shoes or boots.

I've seen moms spend a lot of money on a precision scale to weigh themselves before they eat, and after they eat, in order to solve this anxiety, which is really exaggerated.

What does it really look like,

Usually we look at it through the following 3 points

1, look at how much the baby urinates per day

The diaper can be wetted 5-6 times per day, or 6-8 times per day if it's a cloth diaper.

2, weight gain in line with the growth curve

The baby was just born because the discharge of meconium, the weight will be reduced a little bit, after that it should be should be in accordance with their own rhythm of increase, on the weight increase how much is considered normal, to see is not the absolute weight gain of how many pounds, but to see whether it is in line with the growth curve Oh! About what is the growth curve, you can poke this article: "think the baby head low weight light? The pediatrician is wrong, are you doing the right thing?

3. Babies are relaxed and contented after eating

Newborn babies who are full of food usually look disoriented and sleepy (although they will probably play a little bit more before going to sleep), which is a bit of a "milk drunk" feeling

The first day of my newborn's life, I was able to get the baby out of the hospital, but I was able to get the baby out of the hospital. On the first day out of the hospital, my Sugar Snapdragon didn't eat enough throughout the day because of my overly dogmatic insistence on breastfeeding and 3 hour feeds. The first day of the hospital, I was too dogmatic to insist on breastfeeding and 3-hour feeds, so he didn't sleep. He didn't sleep, stared at me and kept asking to be held or rocked, and then he cried hard when he was put on the bed or unswaddled, and then I couldn't bear to give him a bottle full of water and fed him until he didn't want to eat it, and then he swaddled and put it away, and then he fell asleep.

My best friend's family's fart pockets behave differently, my best friend said, fart pockets no matter how much to eat will sleep, eat more will sleep a little longer, eat less will sleep a little shorter, it is really worrying about the baby boy.

With these three you can determine if your baby is full?

Of course, every baby is different, the performance of eating full or not is even different, as the baby gradually grows up, flatulence, tummy have clucked, spit up, disturbed sleep and other factors to join, it is more and more difficult to determine whether the baby has eaten enough.

There are two schools of thought that have been fighting all along

These two schools are the "on-time feeding" school and the "on-demand feeding" school, and if you go abroad and ask a pediatrician, different pediatricians will present two different statements, and different books have different conclusions.

And the truth is, neither is perfect, and each has its own strengths and weaknesses.

Traditional "on-time feeding" has both advantages and disadvantages

On-time feeding is the more traditional way of feeding, that is, looking at the table to feed the baby every 3 hours (many years ago, the parenting world used to advocate for every 4 hours), because it's the old way, and it's centered on the parents. The new generation of mothers are spurned because it's an old way of doing things, centered on the parents.

But the old way has the advantage of the old way: feeding on time brings out the baby more regular, know when he is hungry, sleepy, the mother can be more relaxed. Each meal because more hungry, the baby will also be more likely to eat more full, sleep longer and more, the state of mind will be very good.

The drawbacks are also obvious: more dogmatic, without considering the actual situation, especially for the baby within a month, some of the stomach capacity is relatively small, the fierce upsurge in the period of frequent, more in need of a sense of security, too strict on-time feeding will be a lot of time to let the baby's needs are not met, from the baby's point of view, is very aggrieved.

The emerging "on-demand feeding" pit is also very big

On-demand feeding is the emerging feeding method in recent years, advocating not to look at the time, as long as the baby wants to eat milk, give him to eat.

The starting point of this feeding method is very high, baby-centered, fully meet the baby's needs, so that he feels safe and secure. There's nothing wrong with the theory itself, and I agree with the need to respond to your baby's requests in a timely manner.

But the theory is rich, the reality is very bony. If you're a fan of on-demand feeding, it's easy to fall into a huge pit, and this pit is so big that I'm going to have to say a little bit more about it:

1, it's easy to get into the habit of "comfort feeding"

A baby crying can be due to hunger, or it can be due to a tummy full of gas, or it can be due to being tired and wanting to be a baby. The first thing you need to do is to get your hands on a new pair of shoes or boots. The difference between this new mother is very difficult to distinguish, on-demand feeding thinking makes you always feel that the baby cried is hungry, always with the milk to solve the crying, and most of the time it does work, because sucking on the baby is a comforting role, in fact, is to eat milk into a means of comfort, the mother's chest becomes a comfort pacifier, so that the mother and the baby can not be separated from the moment, very exhausting.

2, the habit of snacking on milk

Because the interval between on-demand feeding will be shorter, each time the baby is not very hungry, eat not ferocious, eat not much, and soon hungry again, eating milk into a snack. Especially breast milk, each time you do not eat much, you will eat a lot of thin pre-milk, nutritious protein-rich and fat-rich post-milk did not eat much, resulting in more easily hungry, next time you eat or pre-milk, vicious circle.

3, on-demand feeding extremely affects the baby's sleep

The little baby eat and sleep are closely related, he ate bad, certainly not sleep long, if you feed once an hour or two during the day, the baby will tend to keep the same frequency at night. Even if you wear out the adults, the lack of deep sleep will affect the baby's own growth.

4, will let the new mother from now on into the irregular parenting

This is actually the most important, the baby cried on the feed, it seems to always meet the needs of, in fact, is a simple and rough practice, because in doing so you do not need to distinguish between the different needs of different baby cries, disregard for the baby's need to communicate, and also can not improve their own Parenting skills. It may seem exhausting, but in reality, you have not gained half as much useful experience. Even if your baby is 100 days old, you'll still be scrambling to get the hang of it.

In a nutshell, babies who are fed on demand are more likely to be irregular, difficult to bring up, and cry a lot, which makes it extra hard for new mothers. The baby's needs are important, but the mother's physical and mental health are equally important! How can a mom who lacks sleep and is tired take care of her baby?

This is why I don't agree with the idea of feeding on demand.

Feeding your baby is not about dogmatically following on-time or on-demand, it's about developing your own way of dealing with your baby's situation.

If your baby is an angel, low-demand, out of the womb to eat and sleep, if you cry it must be too difficult, naturally, you can spoil him some, casually when he eats, not regular some does not matter, such a baby even if there is a bad habit to change it is easy. Even if the bad habits do not change, it will not be particularly tiring.

If your baby is a sensitive baby, it's better to put some effort into making him as regular as possible, because he'll cry if he's not feeling well, and it's very important to figure out what he's crying about, because if you're doing it wrong, he's going to cry even more. If he's sleepy and you don't let him sleep and think he's going to eat, he'll have a tantrum when he takes a few bites and realizes that it doesn't solve his sleepy problem, and then he'll be even more sleepy. Sugar Bean didn't have a routine for a while, really cried from morning to night, the whole family was in a tizzy, and he was still upset all day long.

So, I always say, the baby should try to "eat - play - sleep, three hours a cycle".

When I say "as much as possible", I don't mean that you have to do it all at once, but you have to know in your heart that it's the right way to do it, and slowly work your way up to it, so you can do it in a cycle of eating, playing, and sleeping, and then you can slowly lengthen the cycle.

The mother of the month to face the pressure to increase milk production, the need for the baby to suck a little more frequently, in addition to the newborn baby's stomach is relatively small, it is also easy to eat more frequently, which is acceptable for the time being. If out of the month, or even more than two months, is still no regular, snack milk addiction, with up to exhausting, then you need to review, is not your baby should strive to transition to a regular routine. Because he's clearly not a good fit for the "on-demand" model.

1, more burping, not feeding confused milk, make sure the baby is full

breast milk is enough, but the baby is not full, either eat eat eat and fall asleep, or a lot of air bubbles in the stomach to occupy the stomach. So it's best to keep your baby awake when breastfeeding, wear less, feed when you're just waking up with a better spirit, feed for a while, burp, and then go on to feed as much as you can in order to hold out a little longer.

2. Try other ways to soothe your baby when he or she is crying

Try other ways to soothe your baby when he or she is crying

You should try to breastfeed him or her after you have tried other ways to soothe him or her.

I've also written many articles about this: about how to soothe a baby when it's sleepy; how to deal with flatulence; colic. (I'm not going to repeat myself here, but if you're interested, you can go ahead and take a look.)

3, with bottle feeding, do not have to be too obsessed with chasing the milk

Some newborn babies have a small suction power, and need to eat for a long time to fill up, and do not eat for a long time, fall asleep, and do not sleep for a long time to wake up to eat, and get into a dead end cycle. If you are very tired, do not take the bull by the horns have to be all breastfeeding, on the bottle to give yourself a break is not a sin, first let the baby suck 10 minutes on each side, and then the bottle filled to let the baby sleep well, so it is easier to develop a regularity, of course, there will be some risk of nipple confusion.

4. It's best to end each breastfeeding session within 30 minutes, don't dwell on it for too long

Eating for too long becomes a side-by-side digestive experience that never ends. If breastmilk is too slow, pumps and bottles can help a bit.

Does your baby always want to eat because of the surge phase?

Sometimes your little one will have a day or two where he's a big eater and eats frequently and a lot (frequent and a lot, not just frequently but very little), and then his milk supply and weight will suddenly go up a notch, signaling that his body is surging and needs more food.

This surging period doesn't show up in every baby, either; some babies may suddenly be able to eat a lot one day, while others grow slowly.

After the surge period, regular babies get back into a routine and don't eat as much as they did during the surge period.

The surge period lasts for two days at most, it can't be a surge period every day. If your baby is asking for milk very frequently for many days, it must be something else, so don't let the surge period take the blame

Is breastmilk less hungry than formula milk?

And! Nope! There is!

Breastfeeding mothers in general do not have confidence is true, because they do not see how much the baby ate, and suspect that they did not feed him, even if the baby ate a lot of breastmilk, but also afraid that the quality of their breastmilk is not good enough.

Babies on formula can last a little longer, but that's because it's not very digestible.

Remember, breast milk is the most suitable food for babies. Don't be so presumptuous as to think that a breastfeeding baby can eat for three hours at a time, and if the baby still cries for more after eating a lot of milk, it must be because of other reasons (upset stomach, need to suckle for comfort, etc.), not because of anything like "breast milk doesn't satisfy the hunger".

Do I need to re-feed after spitting up or pooping?

Not really! No! You need to! No, you don't!

As long as you don't have that kind of projectile vomiting, you don't need to re-feed if you spit up a mouthful or two. Although it may seem like a lot, you can put 30ml of water on the floor to feel it, and the bottle will flatten out to a huge puddle, and it's unlikely that a baby would vomit up all of the contents. And a lot of babies spit out the excess because they ate too much (bottle-feeding babies have this problem in particular), so if you continue to feed them, you're not overdoing it again!

As for the poop after eating, there is even less need to re-feed, the little baby is very easy to eat on the poop, because the stomach and intestines together peristalsis, causing the reaction of defecation. What is discharged is only what is in the intestines, the stomach is still full of milk ah, although the child is small, the stomach and intestines are not straight ah. The person who invented this argument is also too big a brain hole.

How to distinguish between a baby fussing because he is hungry or because his little tummy is uncomfortable?

The baby is not quite able to distinguish between hunger and tummy ache, the performance of the unity is the mouth everywhere looking for food, if it is flatulence tummy ache, milk will only make him more difficult, so be sure to pay attention to the distinction.

First, look at the time, usually record the baby's milk time, summarize the baby about how long to eat the law, from the last time to eat too close to the time, obviously not because of hunger.

The second is to try to feed a little, to see the state of milk, if not seriously eat, gripped sleep, or eat while twisting, obviously not because of hunger, do not hard irrigation.

Third, look at the performance, tummy ache and hungry crying or slightly different, hungry baby will generally be a regular cry, and more and more loud, tummy ache of the baby will like to curl up the body or vigorously beat up, the voice will be more sharp, of course, there may be other manifestations of this need some experience. As long as you pay attention to the usual more attention to observe, try more, will find out the pattern.

Do I have to wake up for milk if I sleep too long?

If your baby is having problems with jaundice and will be drowsy, make sure you pull up once every three hours for a full feed.