Is it really impossible to use Gina Ford's schedule/technique if Breast Feeding a baby?

Anyone breastfeed their baby %26amp; still able to have success with Gina Ford's suggestions? I keep reading how hard or impossible it is to apply her technique or suggestions if your baby nurses.

Can it still work with nursing babies? Even if NOT followed to a strict T?Is it really impossible to use Gina Ford's schedule/technique if Breast Feeding a baby?It's impossible because breastfeeding works on a SUPPLY and DEMAND process. Are you familiar with how breastfeeding works? The first few weeks are CRUCIAL in establishing your milk supply, and it's vital you let your baby nurse as OFTEN and for as LONG as she wants. If you schedule feeds from day 1, your breasts don't get the signals to make more milk -- thus your breastfeeding relationship fails and you'd need to supplement with formula.



I personally wouldn't do it with bottle fed babies either. Babies should always be fed when they're hungry, regardless.Is it really impossible to use Gina Ford's schedule/technique if Breast Feeding a baby?I think Gina Ford is awful- and incredibly ignorant as to how breastfeeding works! Babies need to be fed when they're hungry, not on a schedule conjoured up by a woman whose never had her own children. Babies need to nurse when they want to, for as long as they need to. It's what nature intends, and it's this which ensures a mum has the right amount of milk for her child- the supply and demand thing which is crucial for successful breastfeeding. Depriving a hungry baby of food, or forcing them to eat because it's "time" is IMO cruel. And have NO idea why her routines include adding a bottle for the 10pm feed!



It's far more important to liten to, and be guided by, your baby. They know when they're hungry. Gina Ford acts as if all babies are identical, like they've come off a production line or something!Is it really impossible to use Gina Ford's schedule/technique if Breast Feeding a baby?For 99% of mothers, it's not possible. Her schedules are too strict, and too infrequent -- and she is clearly VERY poorly educated about how breastfeeding works. (i.e., telling mothers to pump for bottles so they don't have to nurse more often during growth spurts.)



But certainly all women are different, and, just as a FEW women were able to breastfeed successfully back when the 4 hour schedule/ baby sleeping the night from a few weeks of age was the norm -- a FEW women can probably breastfeed successfully on Ms. Ford's 4 hour/baby sleeping the night from a few weeks of age schedule.



Your baby knows when she is hungry. You don't need a book to tell you this.Is it really impossible to use Gina Ford's schedule/technique if Breast Feeding a baby?
Useful research:



"Physiological: Regardless of one's parenting philosophy, there are limits to human physiological adaptation in terms of producing milk (on the mother's part) and growth and health (on the child's part). It is POSSIBLE for some women to produce sufficient milk when nursing on a three hour schedule, or even a four hour schedule. However, many many women will not. Breast milk production is a DEMAND-driven system. When the baby latches on to nurse the physical stimulation of the nipples triggers her pituitary to release oxytocin and prolactin. Prolactin is the hormone which tells the breasts to make more milk in the early weeks and months of lactation. Prolactin has a very short half-life in the bloodstream, about 30 minutes. Thus, if the baby is nursing frequently (several times an hour is the "plan by design" whether you think that design comes from God or evolution) then the prolactin levels are continuously elevated and mom makes lots of milk. That's why it is possible for women to nurse twins and even triplets. If the baby nurses infrequently, then blood levels of prolactin fall very low between nursings, and the mother doesn't produce much milk.



Later on in lactation, past about 3-4 months postpartum, milk production is driven by how much milk is removed from the breasts, at the level of the breasts (not mediated by the pituitary or prolactin). Thus, if the child nurses a lot and removes a lot of milk, the mother's breasts will make more to replace it. It the child nurses only occasionally and doesn't remove a lot of milk, the mother will make only as much as was taken out. You can even have a child who nurses from only one side, and that side will continue to make milk, while the other breast stops making milk.



Also, frequent nursing raises the fat content of the milk, as well as increasing the quantity produced. So frequent nursing results in lots of high-fat milk, which is just what the baby needs to grow properly. If allowed to nurse on demand, children will regulate their frequency of nursing to get exactly the quantity and quality of milk they personally need. Infrequent nursing results not only in low quantity, but also in low fat milk. [It's like the difference between a quart of whole milk and a pint of skim milk -- babies need the former, in this analogy, but nursing on a three-hour schedule provides only the latter.]



Now, women vary with respect to how much prolactin they release with each stimulus, and how much milk their breasts make in response to a given amount of prolactin. So yes, some women CAN make plenty of milk with only three-hour nursing intervals (it will still be the low-fat variety). But, as I said before and can't say too many times, most women will not produce sufficient milk of sufficiently high fat content, while nursing on a three-hour schedule to meet the needs of their infant. This leads to fussy behavior in the child, who is chronically hungry, and can lead to poor growth (mom will be told she "Doesn't have" or "Can't make" or "Isn't making" enough milk or that "Her milk isn't good enough" and baby needs a supplemental bottle of formula, which cuts down even more on the stimulus to the breasts, so she makes even less, and soon the baby is totally bottle-fed).



In extreme cases, where a physician is not monitoring the baby's progress, this can lead to growth retardation, dehydration, and even death. Especially when parents are hoping to have a quiet placid baby -- which is exactly how dehydrated, about to die, babies act -- quiet and placid, sleepy and lethargic. Thus, while it might be convenient for moms to only nurse once in every three hours, it is unphysiological and will usually result in inadequate milk production and poor growth in the baby.



The parent-controlled approach to breastfeeding also assumes that babies nurse only for nutrition, but this is not true. They are also getting immunological factors in the milk that help them cope with infections and diseases they have been exposed to, and they are regulating their temperature, heart rate, and blood pressure through nursing also. There is no way to tell "why" the baby wants to nurse -- you have to trust God/Evolution that when the baby says it wants to nurse by crying, rooting, being fussy, that it *knows* what it is doing. This may not be convenient for the parents. If you want convenience, get a doll.



When newborn babies cry very hard for very long, they can suffer from skyrocketing blood pressure, intracranial bleeds, and persistence of the fetal patterns of circulation of the blood through the heart, which can keep the postnatal circulation of the blood from being established correctly and can lead to brain damage (see the work of Gene Cranston Anderson on why it is dangerous to let a baby cry). Babies who routinely are left to cry, and who sleep alone have been shown to have permanently elevated levels of the stress hormone cortisol in their bloodstream. Babies also