Baby Sleep Problems - Can Feeding Have an Effect?
Many parents search for the underlying cause of the problem, hoping to find a solution. This also leaves many parents wondering if feeding might have something to do with the problem.
The aim of this article is to dig further into the different aspects of feeding your small baby and contemplate the effects that feeding could maybe have on a babys sleeping schedule and habits.
First, we should list the different feeding areas that we will be considering. These are:
Mixing Breast-feeding and Bottle Feedings
Feeding your baby to sleep
What are YOU eating and may it affect your babys sleeping pattern?
Could solids help your baby sleep?
Mixing Breast-feeding and Bottle Feedings
It is believed that the mixture of bottle and breast in feedings could possibly cause sleeping problems. There are a number of different reasons for this when you are breast-feeding your small baby. With each feeding, the breast is signaling to the brain that more milk needs to be produced for the next feeding. When a bottle is incorporated into feedings, this process could be interfered with. The breast will begin to produce less milk due to the less frequent breast feedings.
Moreover, during the times when you do breast-feed your baby, he or she will not get as full with the breast-feeding because of the lessening of milk supply. This means your baby will need to be fed more regularly which will mean his or her sleep patterns will be interrupted by the requirement for feeding.
Feeding your baby to sleep
Feeding your child until they're asleep may be causing a problem with their sleep patterns. Your baby will soon begin to realize that you feed him or her at bedtime. This will become something they depend on and expect. Generally, this will be the case with each waking throughout the night as well.
There are of course, techniques you can use to stop your baby from depending on feedings to drop to sleep.
First, change the time or the length of time you feed your baby when nearing his or her bedtime. Doing so will disconnect the association of bedtime with feeding.
Another option to try is feed your child earlier in the night instead of as a bedtime routine. When you do these things your child will not associate eating with bedtime. This will help your baby learn to drop to sleep on his own accord.
What are YOU eating and may it affect your babys sleeping pattern?
The answer quite simply is yes. As a breast-feeding mother, everything that you drink or eat affects your breast milk. If you don't eat the proper amount of foods and calories each day, your breast milk is affected greatly. It is important that you eat the recommended three meals each day and maybe a few snacks in between. Your milk needs to have enough calories in it in order for your baby to feel nicely full and satisfied. If it doesn't, he or she will want to continue to feed longer until he or she is full.
You need to eat fresh healthy foods and attempt to eat them more often, as well as having sufficient to drink during the day. This will help your
milk supply, thus benefiting your baby and his or her sleep patterns. The fuller your baby feels, the better he or she will sleep.
Will solids help your baby to sleep?
Many people believe this will help, but numerous studies haven't associated any change in those babies who were fed by the breast or bottle and those who are fed solids. This has not been proven to help the baby with sleeping at all. Doctors recommend not adding solid foods prior to six months old.
Chris Towland
Chris Towland is the author of The Baby Sleep Solution. The 35 minute audio program that gives the simple techniques that will ensure your baby sleeps through the night, every night.
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