**Ktbug613**

MammaBear81

This is the BFing "schedule" that worked for me (and if I get flamed, so be it)- here is how long I was able to nurse the others- my goal was always 1 year (I know not everyone's goals are the same).

#1- 7lbs 2 oz- nursed for 10 1/2 months

#2- 8lbs 3oz- nursed for 9 months

#3- 7lbs 1 oz- nursed for 8 months

#4- 6lbs 2 oz- nursed for 7 months

#5 6lbs 14 oz- nursed for 11 1/2 months

Unfortunately my work schedule did not allow me to pump at regular intervals for babies 3&4, which is why BFing didn't last as long as I would have liked.

In the hospital: I nursed baby no more frequently than 2 hours, if they slept longer, I let them sleep, the few times they woke up sooner I gave them a paci, and laid them on my chest (this would generally get them back to sleep until it was "time" to eat). They would generally nurse 20-30 minutes on each side and fall back to sleep.

With my first child the nurse made me wake the baby up every two hours, he had NO interest in nursing,she said to strip him down to his diaper (because the cold air would wake him up) then he would scream bloody murder, latch on, suck for 5 second and fall back asleep...  It was horrible all the way around, when I got home, my mother suggested letting him sleep (he will wake up when he's hungry), tried it, and everyone was much happier!

When I got home:  My kids all had jaundice and the pedi wanted to make sure they were "getting enough" so every other nursing session (during the day) I would pump 20 min prior to "feeding" time, and give baby what I had just pumped when he/she woke up (it was generally about 1oz for a week, and then slowly increased). 

After the first week, jaundice was gone so I dropped giving a bottle every other feeding and nursed during the day (except one bottle a day, but this was purely because I knew I was going back to work) and then I started to pump for 10-15 minutes after each session (during the day, I'm not a fan of pumping at 2am!) and I would just nurse at night.  This allowed me to build my supply and my frozen stash very quickly, without being a human pacifier.  Same schedule, nursing no more than every 2 hours, if baby slept, let them sleep. If baby woke up before "feeding time" I would give the paci and calm them down, this didn't happen often, if they were inconsolable, then I would nurse them (my theory was if a paci calmed them down, they weren't really that hungry)

At about 2 weeks I cut back to pumping after every other session during the day, at 4 weeks I had enough "frozen stash" that I was comfortable to just nurse all the time until I went back to work. If you are not going to work, then you probably don't need to pump like I did for 4 weeks

As baby started to have "awake" time he/she would wake up, nurse, spend some time awake, and then go back to sleep (this is also know as "eat,play, sleep"), this is usually when the intervals of nursing dropped mostly to every 3+ hours (generally baby would wake up, nurse for 30, spend 30 minutes awake, and then sleep for about 2 hours). At night I would always nurse with only a night light on, and put baby right back to sleep after burping and changing his/her diaper.

I never would nurse to sleep (again, not wanting to be a human pacifier) and I did not want them to have the correlation of needing to nurse/have formula to get to sleep.

As baby spent more time awake (nurse for 30, spend 1.5 hours awake, sleep for 2 hours) it just stretched out the schedule longer, we never went more than 4 hours between nursing, unless baby was sleeping, and then I would let them sleep.

So you can see all of my nursing "no no's" but it worked for me. I hope this made sense (typing between tasks at work shhhh!) if you have any questions, please feel free to ask!