I agree with Snodger, the basal should keep the glucose the body naturally releases at a good level between meals and overnight. the bolus insulin is to tacke the spike that meals cause.
If you find your are having to snack between meals to keep your BG up, your background is too high, same as if you are having to correct high BG's.
Obviously exercise and other factors can affect this so it's always best to build a good set of results to spot any patterns.
I can comfortably leave meals a few hours late without any harm, indicating my basal is good.
About injecting times;
Some people bolus before, some after. I bolus before meals, but for one reason, i am TERRIBLE at remembering i have diabetes, if i tell myself 'oh ill bolus after' i wont do it, i just simply forget.
The advantage to injecting after is that if you don't tend to eat the whole meal or snack then you can reduce your insulin, like the whole 'eyes to big for your belly thing'
i pretty much eat all of what i prepare, so i'm not very often caught out having too much insulin and too little food.
I've only ever used novorapid, which so they say kicks in after 20 mins, Most carbs won't kick in that early at all anyway, unless your meal is hypo treatment! especially when often teamed with other food groups that can slow down absorption.
the basal bolus regime, is more flexible enabling you to eat how much you like and whenever (of course reasonably) but as laughing hyena says, it doesn't mean you can stick to a routine on it too, i still always have my lunch at 12 at work, and breakfast roughly at the same time. I think the point is to be flexible WHEN you need it.
Routine is very good for figuring out doses and tweaking things, like they say 'the defination of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result' i'm actually not sure who said that haha! but im pretty sure it means if you keep failing, change something!
Trial and error peeps, by all means ask what other people do, but at the end of it, it's all individual, you can use the exact same insulin as another and have the same meal, but your body will process it at a different speed or need more insulin to tackle it.
What works for one, doesn't for another.
