Day 72: Scheduling feedings

I've never really scheduled feedings. When Mari was younger, I fed on demand. More recently, I've been noticing she hasn't been as demanding -- she can go for longer between feeds, even if she is in fact hungry enough to eat well before she starts to fuss to be fed. So more recently I've been trying to offer her the breast every three hours or so during the day. However, I haven't been very consistent about it. Of course, when she fusses to be fed, I feed her right away. But sometimes I've been feeding her more often or less often as convenient.

I've decided this needs to stop. Mari needs a better-wound internal clock, not just for naps, but also for sleep. Also, if I feed her more often during the day, hopefully she won't need to feed as much at night. For the moment, I still won't push the night weaning issue. However, I will as of tomorrow try to feed her at more consistent times, every 2.5 hours during the day, so ideally she gets six feedings in during the day. Also, I should be more consistent about nursing her before she gets solids, so she's getting the important calories in first.

One variation in the every 2.5 hours rule is that I will try to nurse her before her afternoon nap. At all times, I will not force her to nurse if she doesn't want to. If she's about to go down for a nap and doesn't want to nurse, I'll let her go to sleep without worrying. She's unlikely to wake up because she's hungry, as she has proven she can go four hours or more between feeds during the day. If she refuses to nurse when she's up, I'll try her again in half an hour and try to make up for the stretched-out feedings by offering her the breast every two hours, rather than 2.5, after her afternoon nap.

So her ideal schedule should now look like this:

7 AM - Up and nurse
7:30 - Breakfast (solids)
9:30 - Nurse, followed by naptime routine
10:00 - Nap
11:30 - Active play
12:00 PM - Nurse, followed by lunch (solids)
2:00 PM - Nurse, followed by naptime routine
2:30 - Nap
4:00 - Active play
4:30 - Nurse
6:00 - Dinner (solids)
6:30 - Bath and bedtime routine, including nursing close to end of bedtime routine
7:30(ish) - Sleep

I will continue to allow half an hour of flexibility on either side for naps, depending how how tired she seems to be.