How about "feed the baby whenever s/he wants to nurse"? Or "whenever she
lets you know she'd like to"? When I talk about "feeding patterns" (a phrase
I rarely actually use with parents, 'cause they so frequently aren't seeing
any pattern to it), I talk about how sometimes *they* (parents) just seem
extra-hungry for no particular reason, and other times they may not be
hungry even though the clock says they should be. I ask if they've ever had
that happen, and most have, or will say something about other eating
"peculiarities" they have, and I point out that babies are kind of like
that, plus they're trying to double their weight in 6 months.

Someone pointed out that there's a real tendency for "scientific" kinds of
parents to have real trouble getting a handle on learning to read their
baby's cues. We see a lot of that in Ithaca, with the universities. It's so
hard for me, an "instinctive" kind of person, to say "your baby needs to be
fed 60cc every 3 hours" or whatever it might be. It's just as hard for the
science-types to understand what I mean when I say, "the baby will tell you
when she's had enough". Also what makes life interesting though, isn't it?

Cathy Bargar