Ewan is everywhere now! He is 8 months old, crawling, and pulling himself to stand. I have been practicing on-demand breastfeeding his whole life, but now he is too busy playing that he forgets to ask for it. I've had to alter my strategy a little.
For the first 5 months, Ewan initiated almost all nursing sessions. He would try to squirm into position in my lap if I was holding him, or when he was very little, he would "bob and sweep" looking for a nipple on the skin of the person holding him. I called that his "pac-man" moves, because he would peck at me with an open mouth. I almost never had to remind him to eat. He would want to nurse at least every two hours if not every hour or 45 minutes some times. I never had to worry about it.
He started forgetting to eat at 5 months when he could sit up by himself. He could play so much more and was content. I would look at my watch and realize that it had been a few hours since he last nursed. I would have to stop his playing and offer him the breast. He would usually take it happily.
Now, he is so excited to be mobile that he forgets to ask for it at all. When he is tired he will crawl over to me and want to get in my lap. He associates nursing with going to sleep, I guess. But, most nursing sessions are initiated by me. Also, if I nurse him in the play area, he won't nurse for very long and wants to get to playing again, so I end up taking him to his room sometimes.
His longest nursing sessions are when he goes down for his two naps and when he goes to bed. That's three good nursing sessions. He also nurses alot between 5am and 8am when I am trying to get him to sleep more and after he wakes up for the day. That's an undetermined amount of nursing (I'm half-alseep for most of it), but I can tell he's had alot if my breasts don't feel too full. And, he nurses before (or after) lunch and dinner.
I'm pretty sure he's getting enough milk, but this routine is so much different than before, that it took some getting used to.
I still call what I do "on-demand" because if he asks for it, I would never deny it, even if he just nursed 5 minutes earlier. If he wants to nurse, he needs to nurse. Babies have growth spurts all the time, so if he seems extra hungry one day, that's ok with me.
I also still nurse him in the middle of the night if he wakes up. Apparently, some breastfed babies still wake up for the 2 am nursing session up to 1 year. Ewan doesn't always wake up in the middle of the night. He has good nights when he sleeps by himself until 5 or 6 am, and bad nights when he wakes up 2 or 3 times and I'm exhausted in the morning.
On-demand nursing is all about knowing your baby. I use the clock to give me a general idea of when he needs to nurse--usually every 2 to 3 hours now, instead of 1 to 2 as before. I look for clues, like fussiness or crawling in to my lap, that are really "I'm hungry" statements. I have also established an eating and sleeping routine (not schedule!) so it is very unlikely that I will forget to feed him.
