Re: help with routine
Yeah, I am not a scheduler myself, but LO has a schedule he pretty much keeps me to. But the schedule definitely revolves around sleep -- not nursing. We have a typical nursing pattern, sure, but it is more variable than sleep by quite a lot. Part of this is that I trust him to experience his own hunger and to be expressive about it -- in fact, I feel that given our current obesity epidemic in the US, helping my child to attend to his feelings of hunger and fullness is one of the more important contributions I can make to his longterm well being and health. So there are times he goes three hours between feedings (that only happened after he was eating significant solids!) and times he feeds several times in an hour. If you feel uncomfortable with the pattern for personal reasons, perhaps you could try working on LO drinking expressed milk from a cup? That's my go-to now when my boy wont settle enough to nurse well even though I can see that he's hungry. Perhaps part of the situation is that your LO is distracted and thus not eating much per nursing?
Kate
Mother to a sweet boy, born at 34 weeks on 2/11/11.
Proud that I grew 26 lbs of baby before solids, and still counting...
We received banked milk in the NICU. Thank you, donors!!!