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I have been consistently opposed to feeding a baby regularly.As a doctor, mother and scientist in child development I believe there is nothing to recommend it, from the baby’s point of view.

Mothers, doctors and nurse alike have no idea of where a baby’s blood sugar level lies.All we know is that a low level is harmful to brain development and makes a baby easily annoyed. In this state, the baby is difficult to calm down and sleep is impossible. The baby asks for attention by crying and searching for food with its mouth.

It is not just unkind but also dangerous to say a four-hourly feeding schedule will make a baby satisfied. The first of the experts to advocate a strict clock-watching schedule wasDr Frederic Truby King who was against feeding in the night. I’ve never heard anything so ridiculous.Baby feeding shouldn’t follow a timetable set by the mum. What is important is feeding a baby in the best way, though it may cause some inconvenience in the first few weeks.

Well, at last we have copper-bottomed research that supports demand feeding and points out the weaknesses of strictly timed feeding. The research finds out that babies who are fed on demand do better at school at age 5, 7, 11 and 14, than babies fed according to the clock.By the age of 8, their IQ （智商）scores are four to five percent higher than babies fed by a rigid timetable. This Research comes from Oxford and
(E)ssex University using a sample （样本）of 10,419 children born in the early 1990s,taking account of parental education, family income, a child’s sex and age, the mother’s health and feeling style. These results don’t surprise me. Feeling according to schedule runs the risk of harming the rapidly growing brain by taking no account of sinking blood sugar levels.

I hope this research will put an end to advocating strictly timed baby feeling practices.