Hiya Purpley, I was wondering if you'd be coming in on this one!
i think the problem comes with the differing interpretations of 'feeding on demand'.
I started off very much planning to feed on demand, but to me that meant feed whenever they cry because no-one had told me any different! So I came a cropper pretty early on- partly because I was inexperienced and partly because my baby gave hungry cues for all sorts of things! If she was tired she would start rooting, if she had wind she would start rooting, and so on and so on. You might say 'Well why not just feed her then, if she's asking for it?' The trouble was that if she wasn't actually hungry and I tried to feed her, as soon as the letdown happened she would become hysterical! This had alot to do with the fact that I have a very fast and strong letdown, so the milk would spray down her throat which often upset her even if she was hungry let alone if she wasn't.
So I ended up not knowing whether I was coming or going. It was particularly bad in the evenings when she had colic, from the way she was acting I would swear that she was hungry- rooting, crying, trying to latch on to everything in sight, but then I would try to feed her and as soon as the milk arrrived she would start crying even worse! I used to dread trying to feed her, the whole thing was very stressful.
I also had a very over-abundant supply, far too much for just one baby! So frequent feeding just made that worse as well, which in turn made the letdown even stronger and feeding even harder!
It wasn't until I tried to space out how often I was feeding her a bit, and she started to calm down and give clearer signals that things started to improve for us. Once I spaced feeds out to every 2 hours the horrible fussing and crying at the breast got much better. Even now though I don't stick to a set time between feeds, now she's older she gives much clearer signals for hunger so I generally know when she needs to nurse and I follow her rather than a schedule. Often she does go 3 hours, but almost as often it's 2 hours, sometimes 1 1/2 and sometimes even 4 hours!
But if I get it wrong and try to nurse her when she's not hungry she still throws a tantrum! :wink:
So no, I don't believe in making a baby wait if they need to nurse, be it for comfort or food. But I DO believe that you can nurse too often once the first few weeks are over. So some sort of clock watching can be helpful, just as long as you use time as a guide and not as a master!!