As for milk sleep, some people said [it is normal to feed it four or five times a night, and it is right for mothers to work hard for their children], so I was speechless… do you try to wake up several times a night and go to work as usual the next day? For a long time, the whole family’s work and rest may be disrupted.
This statement not only fails to realize that milk sleep may form bad sleep habits, but also forms moral kidnapping for parents.
In fact, many babies wake up frequently at night and sleep irregularly. Analysis shows that they have formed the habit of eating milk to sleep, which is what we call “milk sleep”.
Nursing and sleeping? Take it easy for a while. Trouble is yet to come.
Eating milk can fill the stomach and satisfy the baby’s nature of sucking, hugging and being close to his mother, so the baby will fall asleep easily at this time.
Many parents may think that it is very labor-saving to sleep after eating two mouthfuls of milk without coaxing them to sleep.
In the first three months of the baby’s life, the influence of milk sleep is really not big, but abusing this [big trick] to appease the baby’s sleep may bring more and more problems with the passage of time:
Don’t want to fall asleep by yourself: Milk sleep will change the baby’s expectation of the way to fall asleep and form the habit. It will be difficult to let the baby fall asleep without nursing in the future.
Habit to wake up: The baby has a short sleep cycle and is easy to wake up. If he is used to continuing to sleep by eating milk, it is difficult to try to sleep by himself. After a long time, he becomes habitual to wake up.
Tired of milk: Babies are used to eating milk when they are sleepy, which will also affect their willingness to eat when they are awake, resulting in tiredness of milk.
Affect eating habits: Frequent nursing at night will lead to poor appetite during the day.
See here, ding ma seems to understand. Milk sleep, may be parents covet a moment of ease, step by step to dig a big pit for themselves… Let’s talk about how to avoid jumping pit, or have jumped pit, how to climb out.
Three Misunderstandings about Milk Sleep
Myth 1: Milk Sleep Should Be Absolutely Avoid
Milk sleep is natural, and it is also a unique way of intimate contact between breast-feeding mothers and babies. There is no need to turn pale at the mention of it. Especially for small-month-old babies, it is difficult to completely avoid milk sleep at night.
Not to prohibit milk sleep, but to control the number of milk sleep, to avoid abuse.
Try to end nursing when the baby is not fully asleep, especially during the day, and try to gradually extend the interval between nursing and sleep so as to give the baby the chance to learn to sleep.
Myth 2: Not feeding will make the baby insecure,
Some mothers feel that when the baby wakes up at night, they have to nurse to feel safe, but often this way, the mother is tired and the baby is tired. On the contrary, after the correct sleep guidance, the whole family is relaxed and everyone’s state will become better.
There are various sources of security, and there are many ways for mothers to appease their babies.
There is no absolute standard answer for each different individual. The key depends on how you better understand and respond to the needs of your baby.
Myth 3: The baby fell asleep while eating milk and could not wake up.
If it is not a long-term habit, it just happens to fall asleep occasionally, so there is no need to be too nervous or wake up hard (especially at night).
However, if you have formed a long-term habit, you still need to consider not letting your baby fall asleep after eating all the time.
How to prevent babies from relying on milk to sleep?
Milk sleep can be roughly divided into 4 categories according to the time period of use:
A. Sleep during the day B. Sleep during the day
C. Sleep at night D. Wake up at night
Categories A and B: It is not recommended to use too much milk to sleep. For babies aged 0-3 months, they can sleep with milk as appropriate when they have difficulty falling asleep. After 4 months, they should gradually reduce and avoid it.
Class C: You can keep the milk to sleep, but you should be aware not to let the baby fall asleep completely, and gradually set aside time for the baby to tumble to sleep after eating the milk.
Class D:
0 ~ 3 months: If the baby does not wake up frequently at night, parents can observe more. In some cases, the baby can fall asleep again without nursing, or it can be comforted to fall asleep just by hugging and patting for a short time.
If the baby is just whispering, first make sure that it needs to be fed before feeding, not immediately. If you are hungry, you should feed it in time and don’t let the baby wake up crying.
Four months later: focus on reducing the adjustment period for the baby to wake up at night. If it is difficult to appease, it can be fed 1-2 meals in time to respond. Try not to feed the rest of the baby when it wakes up at night, and sleep again by other means.
Don’t always eat before going to bed, eat to sleep, have eaten to sleep, to take out nipples or pacifiers in time.
What if you already rely on milk to sleep?
There are already problems, and we can only face them calmly.
1. Try a variety of ways to appease
Use pat, hug, cart and other methods to replace milk sleep appropriately.
Step 2 Change your sleeping habits
Relying on other ways to replace, or directly trying to fall asleep independently, help the baby realize that he can fall asleep without feeding milk.
Step 3 Reduce unnecessary night milk
How to judge which meal can be removed? You can postpone the night milk after the first long sleep, or combine previous experience to observe the easier points for the baby to fall asleep again, which are often easy to remove.
Step 4 Try to fall asleep on your own
From the perspective of growth, the gradual transition from infancy to mature sleep is exactly the transition from milk sleep, embrace sleep to autonomous sleep.
At the end of the day, confidence is very important!
Babies rely on milk to sleep, mainly because they have not practiced other ways of falling asleep. Parents rely on milk sleep, mainly because they are not familiar with other comforting methods and lack confidence in whether their babies can accept other comforting methods.
Some mothers will be very troubled and feel that [the baby used to be able to sleep with milk, but now he has not fallen asleep after feeding], or [he fell asleep with his arms and coaxed, and woke up once he put it down].
In fact, from another angle, this is a precious opportunity for the baby to adapt to his sleep. If you don’t regard this as a worry, but as an opportunity for your baby to make progress, your mentality will be completely different.