Fixing Routines Around “Normal” Feeding
When weaning your child, you may want them to eat during “normal” feeding hours or have a more normal weaning schedule. This can provide sleep for both you and your partner at night, and many mothers find it much easier to feed their children while they eat.
There are two types of feeding schedules for babies. There is the fixed feeding schedule, which you dictate, and there is feeding on demand, which your child dictates. If your child is eating breast milk, it takes them anywhere from one to three hours to digest what they’ve eaten after each feed. This means that they will be feeding every two hours or every three hours. This is normal for a new born, and giving in to your child every time they are hungry means you have started a feeding on demand type schedule.
Waiting three to four hours between each feeding can be done to much older babies, around two to three months old. You can give them around four feedings a day, and maybe one feeding at night when they are still below four months of age. You can fix these four feedings around your own eating time, feeding your child after or before you eat each meal, including an afternoon snack, or feeding them after each meal.
When on a feeding schedule that you set, make sure your child has enough to eat at each feeding, and that they are full at the end of it. Getting enough milk in their system is integral to their being able to wait till the next feeding. And when night falls, having had enough food during the day will help them sleep through the night.
Since you have set a feeding schedule, you will find that weaning is much easier. Setting your weaning routine around your already fixed schedule will be an easy transition for your baby because they know that they have to eat at this time. While giving them the bottle may still be a challenge, it will be less of a challenge as if you had started and kept them with an on demand feeding schedule.
Choose a feeding schedule that you are happy with. The predictability can be comforting for both you and your baby. To help the weaning even further, let your child play and familiarize themselves with a baby bottle while you directly breastfeed them. You can introduce the bottle to your child a week before you actively start weaning, and during the feeding session you would first like to eliminate as a breastfeeding session.
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