Feeding to sleep is normal for human babies

Drifting off to sleep with a feed and a cuddle is normal for human babies. It’s what the biology of the baby evolved to expect over our long evolutionary history. Babies naturally feel sleepy after a feed. This is neurohormonal. You might have noticed the same in yourself after a large meal.

Today, in the 21st century, it’s still much easier feeding and cuddling your baby to sleep, than it is trying to put him down in a bassinet or cot while he is still awake. Of course, if putting your baby down somewhere safe while he's still awake works for you, with the baby calmly dropping off to sleep, why not! But most babies dial up when you try this.

Have you been told that bottle feeding to sleep or using the bottle responsively sets up bad habits?

You might have heard that

• Bottle feeding your baby to sleep sets up bad habits

• Your baby wakes excessively at night because he's feeding frequently and flexibly

• Your baby wakes excessively at night because you feed your baby to sleep.

None of this is true.

From the 1950s and 1960s, mothers have been told that feeding their baby to sleep makes life harder than it needs to be, and sets up bad habits. Although this advice is intended to help, it continues to create disruptions and worsens exhaustion for families. Sleep becomes much harder for families if they believe they can't feed their baby to sleep. The baby's biological needs for frequent and flexible feeds or sensory stimulation haven't been understood.

For example, you might have been advised to burp or hold baby upright after feeds, which tends to rouse him. Accidentally waking him up after feeds to burp or hold him upright overrides your baby's powerful biological cue of sleepiness after feeds. It makes it hard for him to fall asleep when he is sleepy! Because babies feed many times a day or night, disrupting the cue of sleepiness after feeds can disrupt your baby's sleep patterns and make sleep much harder than it needs to be.

Sleep is under the control of rising sleep pressure and the body clock only. Baby sleep isn’t controlled by associations with bottle feeding or cuddling the baby. Excessive night waking results from disruption to the circadian rhythm or body clock, not from bad habits set up by feeding and cuddling.

Human babies are hardwired to dial up if they find themselves on their own in the night, away from a loving adult's body. Being dialled up makes it harder for the sleep pressure to do its job. The way to teach your baby to feel safe in the night is to respond and keep your baby as dialled down as possible.

Most parents adopt a rather relaxed, “I’m here if you really need me” approach to their baby's night waking as baby grows older. They wait for a little while in the hope baby will drop back to sleep on his or her own! But it is important to respond before your little one starts to cry, or everyone in the household will be wide awake.

Feeding to sleep teaches your baby good habits, which last a life-time

Your baby will have learnt that when he wakes during the night, the most lovely way to go back to sleep is in your arms, feeding from the bottle. This is not a bad habit! This is a wonderful gift that you have given your baby! Your baby has developed the habit of expecting your loving response, and this is very good for your baby’s developing brain. It sets up

• Mental and emotional habits of expecting life and people to be responsive and caring

• Healthy psychological attachment styles, life-long.

There will come a time, however, when you decide to wean your baby or toddler from milk in the night. That’s when you'll teach your baby something new about going back to sleep. You can find out about night weaning from the bottle here.