Yes, it is enormously variable from mother to mother and baby to baby.
That was the answer that I got from LLL when I attended, and it is the
one I still give. The babies I used to hear about who went down to a
couple or three feedings are roughly as rare as the ones who are
sleeping without nursing all night at that age (i.e. very rare). I would
have jumped to the conclusion that similar parenting practices
(scheduling, mother-baby separation) might lead to both except that my
sample of two sets of twins revealed great differences within the pairs,
and I was far too busy to parent them differently. Other patterns?
Frequency is higher when dyads are at home. Older babies can be
distracted from nursing (by food or activities) more frequently but
*not* more easily. And, last but not least, mothers who are told their
babies will bf less frequently (as opposed to more simply, as Elisheva
describes it) are about as frustrated as those who were scared into
thinking we would give birth prematurely and ended up going to term with
multiples... What is supposed to be a good thing doesn't seem that way.
Telling mothers that quick little check-ins are wonderful moments that
occur more often when breastfed babies are older might be more helpful.
Imagine a mother asking: "How often does he hug when he is a year old?"
Jo-Anne

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