Infants don’t have the ability to control or postpone their needs.
If they’re hungry or need to be comforted, they desire immediate gratification. When you respond to your infant’s cries, providing food and comfort, your baby begins to trust her world and to feel some small ability to affect what happens to her. If her cries for food are ignored, she has no way to satisfy herself.
Feeding your infant on demand, which means whenever your baby begins to fuss, is one way you can meet your baby’s needs.
Demand-fed babies and their parents are usually calmer and more content than families with babies who are fed on a schedule. This is because an infant fed on demand does less crying for food and comfort, and her parents spend less time distracting her since she doesn’t have to be held off until a scheduled feeding. A demand-fed baby also may be easier to put to sleep since she can be soothed with nursing or a bottle when she seems tired. There’s no chance of overfeeding a demand-fed baby; an infant will not drink more than she wants or needs.
Parents who don’t choose to feed their baby on demand, but rather on a schedule, may find themselves unsuccessfully trying to comfort or distract their crying baby. Your baby might want to be fed, but you may think that she should wait three or four hours because she’s “just been fed.” Since it’s often hard for parents to listen to their baby cry, this can be a difficult situation, and one that probably takes as much time and energy as the extra feedings given to a demand-fed baby. While it’s true that some babies can wait four hours between feedings, it’s equally true that some babies need feeding much more frequently.
New parents often decide to feed their baby on a schedule because of advice from friends, relatives, and their pediatrician. In the face of
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such advice, parents may find it difficult to trust their instincts and begin demand feeding. They also worry that demand feeding means giving in to their child and letting her have too much control. Yet an infant, because she’s helpless, needs to feel she has some control and some ability to make other people respond.
The decision to demand-feed or feed on a schedule is often influenced by the way a baby is fed—by breast or bottle. Although either method can be adapted to scheduled or demand feeding, it’s more likely that a breast-fed baby will be demand-fed, if only because of the ease of feeding. A mother can easily offer her breast at any time, while the parents of a bottle-fed infant must first prepare and warm bottles.
A bottle-fed infant is more likely to be fed on a schedule, because her parents can easily see how much milk she’s drinking and thus can decide when they think she’s had enough. Parents of a breast- fed baby, on the other hand, don’t know how much their baby is drinking. When she cries soon after nursing, her mother is likely to offer the breast again because she may not have had enough milk at the last feeding.
You can be successful breast feeding or bottle feeding, but using either method, you’ll satisfy your baby best if you feed her on demand. If you feel you must follow a schedule, be flexible. When comforting doesn’t work between scheduled feedings, your baby’s cries probably mean she’s hungry or so tired she needs to soothe herself to sleep with a feeding. At such times, ignore the clock, follow your instincts, and meet your baby’s needs.
Is my child too dependent on me?
Many new parents are surprised at how much time, attention, and effort raising a child involves. When they discover that their baby is naturally demanding and dependent, they sometimes worry about
“giving in” to his needs. If they pick him up when he cries, offer a bottle or breast on demand, or keep him near throughout the day, will he soon become too dependent? In our society, independence is viewed as a positive trait, and many parents are concerned if their babies seem too attached to people. Yet, when parents fully under- stand their child’s dependency needs, they can see there’s no need to worry about their baby’s lack of self-sufficiency.
Infants and young children are almost totally dependent on adults;
this is a natural and necessary condition of early childhood. It’s normal for your baby to want the constant comfort of being held, fed, changed, loved, and played with, and there’s nothing harmful about giving in these ways to your young child. A child whose needs are met and who has a strong attachment to his parents develops a foundation of trust and security that will allow him to gradually become independent.
Some parents feel that it’s never too soon to start teaching their child to become independent: “He’s going to have to learn sometime that he can’t always have his way.” “He has to find out what life is really like.” And some parents believe that giving in to a child’s needs in infancy will make it that much harder to get him to give up his dependencies later on.
Parents who are uneasy about how dependent their young child is may, in an attempt to foster independence, make conscious deci- sions not to meet all of his needs. They may hesitate to pick him up when he cries, or hold back on cuddling or frequent nursing. They may feel guilty and full of self-doubt whenever they do give more than they think they should.
However, if your baby learns to trust your care and support, he’ll turn into a toddler who explores his surroundings with confidence.
And as he grows, his natural drive for independence will begin to show. A ten-month-old will want to feed himself, a two-year-old
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will cry out, “I’ll do it myself,” a three-year-old will feel good going off on his tricycle, and a five-year-old will happily spend time with his friends.
Your young child will always have a strong need to be cared for, of course, but as he gets older, he’ll become more and more inde- pendent. Although there will be times when your child temporarily becomes more dependent—when he enters preschool, if your family moves, when a sibling is born—if his early dependency needs have been met, he’ll move into the world with a greater sense of trust and confidence.