Baby Sleep Problems

Baby Sleep Problems - What Effect Does Feeding Have?

Ask a New Mum or Dad what their main worries about Junior are and the chanches are that one of them will be that baby is not sleeping as well as she or he should. In research Mums and Dads with several children expressed similar concerns.

When looking for a cause a lot of parents ask if feeding could have something to do with this vexing problem. This article intends to investigate further into the different aspects of feeding your small baby and examine the effects that feeding could perhaps have on their routine and sleeping habits.

To begin with I want to set out what I will be discussing and they fall into four main headings:
Mixing Breast-feeding and Bottle Feedings
Feeding your baby to sleep
Are YOU eating something that is affecting your baby’s sleeping pattern?
Can solids help your baby sleep?

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Mixing Breast-feeding and Bottle Feedings

The current thinking is that a mixture of bottle and breast in feedings could potentially lead to sleeping problems.

There appear to be several different reasons for this.. The breast is pretty muched tuned into the mother’s brain and with each feeding, the breast sends a signal to the brain that more milk needs to be produced for the next feed. Introduce a bottle and you run the risk of interfering with the process. The signal is not been sent so the breast produces less milk. Also, during the times when you do breast-feed your baby will not get as full with the breast-feeding because of the lessening of milk supply.

The result is that your baby will require fed more frequently which will mean that their sleep patterns will be interrupted by the need for feeding.

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Feeding your baby to sleep

If you feed your child until it goes to sleep then you may be setting up problems with their sleep pattern. What happens is your baby begins to recognize that it is fed at bedtime. This will become something baby depend on and expect. Normally, this will be the situation with each waking throughout the night as well.

I’ll give you a few tips and techniques you can use to stop this happening.

The most important tip is to change the time or the amount of time you feed your baby when nearing his or her bedtime. Doing so will gradually remove the association of bedtime with feeding.

Another technique is to feed your child earlier in the evening instead of as a bedtime routine. When you do these things your baby will not associate feeding with bedtime. This will help your baby to learn to fall asleep on his or her own accord.

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What are YOU eating and can it affect your baby’s sleeping pattern?

Mums and Dads are often surprised when this question is asked but the answer quite simply is yes! Think of it this way Mum, if you are breast-feeding then EVERYTHING that you drink or eat will affect your breast milk. If you do not eat the correct amount of foods and calories per day, your breast milk is greatly affected. It is important that you eat the recommended three meals daily and maybe a few snacks in between. Your milk needs to have adequate calories in it in order for your baby to feel nicely full and satisfied. If it does not, he or she will continue to feed longer until full.

You need to eat healthier foods and eat them more regularly, as well as having plenty to drink throughout the day. This will help your milk supply, thus helping your baby and his or her sleep patterns. It makes sense that the more satisfied your baby is the better he or she will sleep!

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Will solids help your baby to sleep?

There are a large number of Grandparents and Parents out there who believe this will help, but studies have not associated any change in babies who were fed by the breast and / or bottle and those who are fed solids. It has not been proven that solids help baby to sleep and generally, Doctors do not recommend adding solid foods prior to six months of age.

Kevin Hart

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