Yes this. And if it doesn’t work it’s not your fault! Normally I’ve seen “get parents into a routine first, then try getting baby in a routine at 3 months”, because you’re a bit more likely to see success instead of being discouraged because baby totally doesn’t know how to do a routine yet
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I think the big thing with “on demand” is just, don’t try to skip feeding them if they’re doing hunger signs and crying and stuff. But you can try to move stuff earlier and what have you, and try to arrange the order you want to do eat/sleep/play.
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Pipsqueak never had clear cues so we fed from a schedule pretty early on. I usually offered every 2 hours I think? Or right before and after every nap? I don’t remember but it was very scheduled and she ate what she needed.
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Yeah there’s a big difference between “I only want you to eat every 4 hours so I won’t feed until then, regardless of signs” (lookin at you, 1950s) and like “I’ve got a timer running because your signs are hard/absent/variable/too late to be useful, but also if I somehow miss my window or you’re hungry sooner I’ll feed you then, too”.
People get angry cuz they think people mean the first one. Pretty sure these days 95+% of people mean the second one!
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I legit had a friend who did the former within the past four years, starting when he was still pretty little. Going out to dinner with them and watching the baby hunger fuss for up to 30 min while they 100% waited for the timer to go off before feeding him was…uncomfortable, even as a non-parent.
I went for more of a routine-based schedule than a time-since-feed-based one, and daycare asked for a general timeframe schedule, but had carte-blanche permission from me to stick a bottle in her mouth whenever she needed.
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that would be very uncomfortable.
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A midwife/ nurse told this to my mum in the late 1980s! Mum tried it very briefly and decided she knew baby animals better than the nurse and that it wasn’t worth being vomited on by a baby who had overfed out of hunger (though we now suspect some cmpi played a part given Duckling and pumpkin)
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I think I’m gonna ditch the schedule for now. Too stressful. Thanks everyone!
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I know people who have scheduled their babies, but usually when they were doing formula. My doctor was saying that volume and digestion time for formula is more predictable so outside of growth spurts etc those babies are more timeable.
For feeding on demand, you can absolutely feed on demand as long as you want, but even people I know who do extended bf (like 8 years) find that they don’t WANT to feed on demand forever. I think with my older one it was just before a year that we did one stretch of stretching out night feeds (we found he was actually hungry at about 5h) and around 14 months I think I started setting boundaries around day feeds. Everyone and their babies have their own timelines.
I come from the attachment parenting side so things will sound really different than from someone coming from another background, plus we all mix and match.
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I did Taking Cara Babies and ended up following her schedule (which is very loose) just because our days and nights were a complete disaster and my baby never slept more than 30 min at a time unless held and actively rocked or fed, but this was at 6 weeks - I forget how old yours is?
Most of her information is on Instagram or website.
In her newborn class, she basically says don’t worry about anything for the first 4 weeks and then try a schedule if you want.
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Do you have regular (weekly?) check ins with your spouse? Do you both have things to contribute or is it usually one sided?
At this point I have to check in with my bosses daily about what’s in the work queue that will eventually cross their desks so I’m not wild about duplicating that at home.
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When I PMS we have daily or multi times a day check ins and it is v crucial.
Maybe one other check in a month? Not scheduled.
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Not really formal or scheduled. But when we do check in, yes it’s always both of us.
Oh… G has things to contribute but is scared to share.
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About what? I can’t think of anything that needs a formal meeting with dh.
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We have check-ins but only casually scheduled (like, “i have shit I need to run past you. When’s a good time today?”) Otherwise I end up doing all the household and Ponder starts drowning at work. It helps bring him back to managing his time much better and I dont panic when I thought he would be available and he’s not, and also i don’t feel alone in things like household purchase decisions. Also because we’re both super tired and need to actually concentrate for 5 mins otherwise important stuff gets forgotten.
Every morning we run past plans for the day but its not formal. Like when bug meetings are for him so im on my own with toddler, whether anyone got sleep so I can make decisions to do more or lie on couch all day
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I think this would depend on how much time you have to discuss things as they come up, and how each person processes things? We can mostly chat about things as they come but when we’re both stressed I often send a text in the middle of the day when I’m thinking about it that says “FYI we need to talk about patio furniture tonight”. That could easily be a running list that gets discussed on one day a week instead but we usually spread it out.
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I started scheduling ‘household business meetings’ once a month. The children can air any grievances, we can discuss anything that requires discussion, and then usually play a board game or something to wrap it up.
Last month was ‘family emergency planning’ where we made sure we all knew who the emergency contacts were and where we would meet in case of catastrophe.
A few months ago was parents only and we did our (late) income taxes.
It’s basically there as a placeholder. I’d been wanting to have an emergency plan for awhile, and we kept not getting around to it. Same with the taxes. I scheduled the taxes as an appointment, and since it worked well, just set up a monthly meeting.
This month our meeting is the last week of November… We’ll probably decorate for Christmas if there isn’t anything pressing.
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Today Kiddo had a dentist appointment and martial arts class, we also usually switch off who is cooking and who helps Kiddo with homework. If there’s some odd one-off thing happening in the week then maybe one person would cook two nights in a row. I’m usually the calendar keeper so I reminded Mr. Meer earlier about Kiddo having a dentist appointment, he acknowledged, and then totally lost track of the time and we almost missed the appointment.
On a recurring basis, after school Kiddo is supposed to wear an eye patch on alternating eyes as a way to strengthen his eye muscles and since Mr. Meer does pick up every day it would make sense to fold that into part of the “coming home” routine and yet I end up being the one to remember quite a bit. I lose track of things too but right now I’m having to remember a lot more stuff and it’s becoming a Thing.
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Yeah, so my system on that is really healthy. I bottle it all up for 2-3 weeks and then unleash in a torrent of I can’t do it all. Sometimes I make eye contact with him while I rage text my friends.
But a daily or weekly standup also got really unhealthy for us.
The best solution is if I rage text a friend from the bathroom while I am angry about it and then reword and discuss later.
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