title: Infant feeding: the effects of scheduled vs. on-demand feeding on mothers' wellbeing and children's cognitive development.
abstract: BACKGROUND
  Many popular childcare books recommend feeding babies to a schedule, but no large-scale study has ever examined the effects of schedule-feeding. Here, we examine the relationship between feeding infants to a schedule and two sets of outcomes: mothers' wellbeing, and children's longer-term cognitive and academic development.
  
  
  METHODS
  We used a sample of 10,419 children from the Avon Longitudinal Study of Parents and Children, a cohort study of children born in the 1990 s in Bristol, UK. Outcomes were compared by whether babies were fed to a schedule at 4 weeks. Maternal wellbeing indicators include measures of sleep sufficiency, maternal confidence and depression, collected when babies were between 8 weeks and 33 months. Children's outcomes were measured by standardized tests at ages 5, 7, 11 and 14, and by IQ tests at age 8.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Mothers who fed to a schedule scored more favourably on all wellbeing measures except depression. However, schedule-fed babies went on to do less well academically than their demand-fed counterparts. After controlling for a wide range of confounders, schedule-fed babies performed around 17% of a standard deviation below demand-fed babies in standardized tests at all ages, and 4 points lower in IQ tests at age 8 years.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Feeding infants to a schedule is associated with higher levels of maternal wellbeing, but with poorer cognitive and academic outcomes for children.
authors.affiliation: Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Essex, Colchester, UK. maria@essex.ac.uk
authors.forename: Maria
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Iacovou
authors.forename: Almudena
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Sevilla
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001942:Breast Feeding; D002657:Child Development; D002675:Child, Preschool; D003071:Cognition; D005247:Feeding Behavior; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007223:Infant; D007231:Infant, Newborn; D007360:Intelligence; D007407:Interviews as Topic; D016015:Logistic Models; D008297:Male; D008429:Maternal Welfare; D009035:Mothers / Q000523:psychology*; D015999:Multivariate Analysis; D010549:Personal Satisfaction; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires; D013997:Time Factors; D006113:United Kingdom