getting BF baby on a schedule

i know most people feed on demand. with my twins i had them on a schedule (fed them every 3 hours) from the day they came home from the hospital.
i'd like to get this baby on my twins' schedule (of sorts anyway) and i was wondering if that's possible with an EBF baby.

 

Possible? Yes. Fun to make s/he wait? Not really. To me a schedule is a little unrealistic due to growth spurts. They NEED to eat a bunch and some days it's every 2.5 hours and some days it's every hour. You can't really predict it in advance. I would think around 2 months you'll start to see patterns and by 3 you'll have a schedule.

 

I agree with Michelle - it's possible but in many ways can be more stressful than feeding on demand. It can also interfere with establishing your supply as it imposes an artificial time limit on the supply/demand balance.

You may have better luck with a flexible routine like EASY (eat-activity-sleep-you). I did that with Emmett pretty much from day 1 & he settled into an average of 2-3 hours between feeds once my milk was in. Basically you just nurse babe first thing when they wake, followed by activity time (although with a newborn all the activity they really can handle is nursing, diaper change, burp) then back to sleep. Then there's time for you & your other kiddos.

Try not to over think it too much. If you can stay open & flexible you'll have an easier time of it.

 

My girls were older and in kindergarten and dance and piano so my baby had to conform to their schedule, but that didn't mean he had to wait to eat. They only time I didn't feed him if he wanted it was while in the car going from place to place. Get a good carrier, I had a ring sling, but I'm not sure that's the best option now that there are so many kinds available, it's just what I had from before the twins were born. But I could feed him in the sling while waiting at the girls' piano lessons, while helping them with some craft at home, while braiding their hair, while making them a sandwich, while pushing the shopping cart around the grocery store. He also slept really well in there so until he got too heavy for me to use that all the time (around 9 months) he lived his life within our schedule, without having to "schedule" him.

 

I also think it is actually easier not to schedule. I have a very similar age spread and if I needed to be available for the twins (to feed them dinner, put them to bed, etc) I would just feed the baby a little early and then put her in the swing while I was busy. I basically fed her in the AM while the twins were eating breakfast, played with them while she slept, fed her when she woke, played with them some more, fed them lunch, put them down for nap, fed her again, got them up from nap and fed them dinner, fed her again, played with them more, did bedtime routine and then nursed her to sleep. Sometimes she went 2 hours and sometimes 4 but I followed her cues. If I had tried to schedule her then I would have had a crying baby that I had to calm instead of spending time with the twins.

I also agree that early scheduling is just asking for milk supply problems too. I demand fed my twins and I think that this is the main reason I had no milk supply issues despite some latch issues and a small weak wimpy boy who took awhile to learn. As Michelle mentioned, babies fall into their own schedule as they get older, but the first 2 months are vital to baby learning how to eat and you learning his/her feeding cues.