While the course instructs parents to feed a hungry baby and to weigh babies to make sure they are gaining properly and even providing a check-list for doing so, the text also stresses its schedule to a degree that some mothers, as the ones Kearney dealt with, may ignore other advice.

And while a formula-fed baby may do fine on a fixed schedule since formula digests slower than breast milk, experts say limiting a breastfeeding baby's feeding time could be detrimental.

Katie Powers, a registered nurse, lactation consultant in Bradenton, Florida, and director of Manatee Memorial Hospital's MOMMS Place, explains that a breastfeeding mother's body responds to the baby's needs based on supply-and-demand basis.

The more that is demanded of it, the more it provides.

Auerbach and other experts explain that because of a hormonal response that occurs when the baby nurses, the mother's brain tells the mammary glands to make more milk. Experts say barring other complications, the more of the hormone, the more milk, particularly in the early days when the process is more hormonally dependent.