How long do you leave your baby for?

Rachelde17 · #1 January 27th, 2008, 10:09 AM

I'm EBFing, and my baby is 10wks old. Generally during the day she goes 2- 21/2 hrs for me. Sometimes I leave her with DH for only an hour or two and she cries the whole time as if she's hungry.

Do you leave your baby for any amount of time, and for the moms who have been EBFing for a while, when does it start to strech to a longer amount of time between feedings?

srs · #2 January 27th, 2008, 10:31 AM

Assuming no bottles, at that age I could leave DD for maybe an hour, like to go get grocery shopping done. I would usually nurse her to sleep and then leave, and hopefully she was still asleep when I got back. Until she started actually wanting to eat solids, which was only a few weeks ago, I could leave maybe 2-2.5 hours from about 4 months - 9 months. Now we can go 3 hours, usually with some solids in the middle, but I haven't left her longer than that.

For us anyway, solids have been the key to spacing feedings at all. Some babies get into them much sooner than DD did (like six months) which could make a big difference in when you could expect to go for a lot longer.

Beaker · #3 January 27th, 2008, 10:34 AM

My baby is 3 months old and still eats every 2-2.5 hours during the day. I only leave for an hour. It took a few times before DH was comfortable (baby too) with that. They both had to learn. I kinda started slow with showers and such. GL

LaLa · #4 January 27th, 2008, 11:26 AM

My daughter was about 6 months before I started leaving her for more than an hour or two at a time. She was closer to 3 or 4 months before it stretched over an hour. She also nursed every 2 - 2 1/2 hours until she was around 6 months old. Initially, she would cry nonstop - but I think that was just b/c I was gone (I tried to do anything that required me being gone while she was asleep to avoid that). I always fed her just before I had to go too.

Personally, I think BFing is natures way of making sure our babies stay with us. I tried as much as possible to be seperated as little as possible for as long as possible. Buying a baby carrier (I had 3 - a Moby Wrap, a MeiTei Baby Hawke, and a Zolo Sling) helps tremendously b/c I was able to do things like grocery shopping, run errands, etc - hands free while she slept.

Lala...