Feeds and cuddles help babies sleep

This page is part of a collection of short articles called Brief & simple, which together make up a quick summary of The Possums Sleep Program in plain language. For comprehensive information and support, please go to The essentials section of The Possums Sleep Program, and begin to work your way through the program's online text and videos.

Going to sleep with a feed and a cuddle is normal way for human babies to go to sleep. It is much easier than trying to put babies down while they are still awake!

Going to sleep with a feed and cuddle doesn't cause bad habits, whether your baby is breastfeeding or bottle feeding. Rather, going to sleep with a cuddle and feed in the first year of life sets up good habits of feeling loved and safe at sleep time.

Acknowledgements

I'm grateful to Professor Sophie Havighurst, Ros June, and Caroline Ma at Mindful, The University of Melbourne, for their feedback on the articles in the Brief & simple section of The Possums Sleep Program. They helped to keep the language plain and the concepts as accessible as possible. For comprehensive information and support, please go to The essentials section of The Possums Sleep Program, and begin to work your way through the program's online text and videos.

Recommended resources

Frequent flexible breastfeeds help make baby sleep easy

Breastfeeding your baby to sleep doesn't cause bad habits

Frequent flexible bottle feeds help make sleep easy if you're not direct breastfeeding (and baby is under five months of age)

Feeding your bottle fed baby to sleep doesn't cause bad habits

It's biologically normal for babies to need physical contact, feeds, and comfort when they wake in the night