>Her baby has been a 3-4 hour feeder from early on  and sleeping through the
>night, and growing beautifully.

Yet the mom went through a very scary time of faulty MER as well as early
menses.

>I suggested a day of no dress and skin to skin and *lots* of
>playing--spontaneous, mindless play and laughter.  She agreed that she had
>grown very serious.  She liked the idea of play and skin.

Even in this forum, I worry that I'm being heretical.  But I feel as if
nursing every 3 hours *or even 2 hours* is way out of synch with our
primate carry-the-baby history, even when it seems to work, and can
ultimately take a toll on the mom, the milk supply, the nursing
relationship, the baby's gut - whatever the weak link in a dyad's system
is.

My brother-in-law teaches human nutrition.  I tried to get him to tell me,
some years ago, that the true human condition for humans of any age is
"grazing" thru the day.  He responded that the true human condition is
adaptability.

Perhaps the babies who nurse happily and well "about every 3 hours"  - or
every 4 or 2 - are simply adapting to a pattern that doesn't really fit
their or their moms' physiology.  They grow fine, their stomachs
accommodate the larger meal, their moms' breasts store and deliver larger
quantities, and everything's hunky dory...  except for the woman whose MER
fails her, or who gets her period earlier than she expected, or the baby
who goes on strike, or the baby who "weans himself" at 18 months, or the
mom with recurrent plugs, or the baby who falls on solids like a starving
man, or the woman with overactive let-down, or the baby with an irritated
gut.

How many of these problems are solved, in large part, just by nursing "on
whim" - mom's or baby's  - by taking the "feed" out of "breastfeed" and
connecting to the baby through very frequent little butterfly meals?  How
many of us can look back at our first nursing relationship and see little
glitches that more frequent nursings would have reduced or eliminated?  Is
it perhaps time to get even the "about every 2 hour" notion reworded to
embrace the total normalcy of multiple small nursings each hour and the
somewhat less normal but usually workable pattern of longer feeds every 2
or so hours?

Diane Wiessinger, MS, IBCLC  Ithaca, NY