Following the series of entries related to the most widespread myths about breastfeeding today we are going to deal with the one that relates breastfeeding to sleep, or rather, the one that tries to break that relationship.
It is very common for babies to fall asleep while breastfeeding, it is common even that after having suckled they stay a little longer sucking, precisely to finish catching the dream. Given this fact, there are mothers who explain that "I think he is using me as a pacifier", something that worries many women and that it would not be a major problem if they found professionals to redirect the error. However, sometimes it happens that the answer they receive is the myth that says: "Try to avoid it, babies should not fall asleep to the chest, because the chest is not a pacifier".
The chest is not a pacifier
As I say, there are several mothers who have explained to me worried that they have the feeling that the baby is using them as a pacifier. Well, as they say, what happened before, the chicken or the egg? The female breast exists since the woman exists. The pacifier exists since the last century. It is very rare for a newborn baby who has no knowledge of what a pacifier is to decide to use his mother as if he were one of those. Rather, it seems that babies do what all babies have done for millennia and that it is we who have invented a small, soft breast to replace the breast at some times.
In other words, the baby does not use the breast as a pacifier, but instead use the pacifier as if it were a chest, something he does when he isn't too hungry, because if he has one he complains.
Why children should not fall asleep to the chest
Once this is resolved, it remains to be discussed why children should not fall asleep to the chest. For a long time some (theoretical) experts in childhood sleep have tried to separate food from sleep and have recommended by active and passive that children eat only when they are awake and that after eating they are still so that they do not associate a thing with the other.
Lately the recommendation has become a bit more flexible and they admit that it may be that the child comes to sleep while being at the breast, but that when he has finished eating we should get a little bit, try to break his sleep, then put him to sleep without his chest. Something like teaching him that to sleep he doesn't have to be sucking: "OK, you have fallen asleep with your chest, nothing happens, I leave you, but if what you want is to keep sleeping, you will have to fall asleep again for yourself."
Thus, in theory, you get the child to be able to fall asleep alone without needing the mother's chest for ever and ever. I say in theory because although it may result in some children, it is very likely that most complain enough about such a treatment "jo, mom, I had already fallen asleep, and with you, do you wake me up so that I can go back to sleep now, and alone? ", and not only because of the incongruity of waking up a child who has already fallen asleep so that he learns to get himself alone, but because if we look at the association between breastfeeding and sleep it seems that the most logical thing is do nothing and act based on what the baby asks for and not based on what someone who wants to avoid does not know what future ills.
What is the relationship between breastfeeding and childhood sleep?
Breast is sleepy. Suction calms them down. Drinking warm milk in mom's lap numbs. Filling your stomach also makes you sleepy. And period
Now I explain it longer. Breastfeeding is sleepy because it is an act that tires, the baby has to move the jaw and suck and as he gets tired he needs to rest, so he can be sleepy if he does a good time. If the baby had to stay awake after breastfeeding the milk would be much easier, so that he did not have to exercise so much and could stay awake without problems.
Suction calms them down, appeases them, makes them calm, so much that they can fall asleep. Surely more than one mother can tell how her children put eyes of "pleasure" to start breastfeeding, to start sucking, as if they were going to sleep in a dream that they wanted to be eternal. Again, if the baby had to stay awake, the milk would not come out by sucking, but perhaps after touching the nipple with the hand or something, taking it at a distance.
Drink warm milk in mom's lap numbs anyone, and the mothers know it and that is why, when their older children cannot sleep they prepare a glass of warm milk and go with them for a while to hug them while they sing a lullaby and caress their hair. If the baby had to stay awake after breastfeeding, the milk would come out cooler and it would not be necessary for Mom to be there giving it, perhaps a huge stream would come out for a limited time that would have to be collected in a container and then the baby would take it from there.
Filling your stomach also makes you sleepy, and if you don't ask me after eating, let's see if I feel like taking a nap or not. Warm milk, mom's arms, mom's smell, sucking and full stomach. How the hell is a child going to stay awake?
But this is not all, if we analyze the milk, it turns out that the very damn one contains an amino acid called L-tryptophan It helps babies fall asleep. The most logical thing, if the baby had to stay awake, would be that the milk did not carry that substance or even that it had an exciter that would help it not to sleep.
For all this, and concluding, it seems incredible that someone can recommend that the child does not sleep on his chest and even more lies that he suggests that the ideal, normal and logical thing is that babies fall asleep after breastfeeding, alone and Never to the chest.
