Breastsleeping: the secret to a blissful nights sleep with your newborn?
@thebirthcoach
It’s considered a bit of a controversial, often ‘hush-hush’ topic, but I want to jump right in and share my personal experience of breastsleeping with you. Why? Because it made the first few months of night-time feeds with our newborn total bliss! And, what new parent doesn’t want that? I’m not saying what we did was right or wrong, or even the best thing to do, this is just our personal journey to discovering the benefits of breastsleeping. So, please take what you want and leave the rest.
“I must have looked either stupid or like I was lying…”
Before having our daughter in June last year (2020), I had never even heard of the term breastsleeping. It wasn’t until I was talking to friends and family about our experience that I started to question what was going on. People would ask, “is she sleeping through the night?”, “how many times are you getting up with her?” and, most of the time I felt I must have looked either stupid or like I was lying. My answer was often “I don’t know”. As I shrugged my shoulders their bewildered looks got me questioning, well, should I know? Does it make me a bad mum that I’m not too fussed about it all? In my mind our baby was happy, content and gaining weight so what did it matter how many times she woke through the night? But, why did I not know what was going on? Most mums could tell you almost to the minute when their baby woke, fed, and went back to sleep. Why couldn’t I? What was going on?
I started getting more curious so, naturally, I took to Google to see if there were any other mums experiencing the same thing. To my surprise there was a name for it, I wasn’t going crazy and I was definitely not alone in my experience. That’s when I discovered breastsleeping.
So, what is breastsleeping anyway?
The term was first coined in 2015 by the sleep expert James J. McKenna, PhD, who is the director of the Mother-Baby Behavioural Sleep Laboratory at the University of Notre Dame. He published a co-written article with Lee T. Gettler in the peer-reviewed paediatric journal, Acta Paediatrica, titled:
“There is no such thing as infant sleep, there is no such thing as breastfeeding,
there is only breastsleeping.”
It was in this article where the phrase originated.
The concept of breastsleeping is that a breastfeeding mother and her baby are physiologically attuned in such a way that co-sleeping, and feeding, is so natural and instinctive that neither mother nor baby fully wake through the night to feed. A breastfeeding mother will be in a much lighter sleep state for much of the night so she is more apt to rouse if her baby is in danger.
Breastsleeping has many benefits including the effect is has on a mothers’ milk supply. By keeping your baby close, she has access to the breast which is likely to result in more frequent feeding and therefore more abundant milk supply. In the first 6 weeks of breastfeeding, feeding at night when your prolactin (milk making hormone) levels are at their highest, is crucial for maintaining abundant milk supply. If your baby is with you throughout the night, she will be communicating with you exactly what she needs and your body will naturally respond to this and produce her milk requirements accordingly.
Sounds interesting, how do I do it?
Bed-sharing, and therefore breastsleeping, is only advised for breastfeeding mothers and their babies. This isn’t an attack on mothers choosing to formula-feed their baby, just that McKenna believes those who have chosen to bottle-feed are not as easily woken by their baby’s movements and activities throughout the night.
When choosing to co-sleep with your baby, breastfeeding or not, it is important to remember the following:
Keep all blankets, pillows, sheets away from your baby, or anything else that may obstruct your baby’s breathing or cause them to overheat.
Make sure your baby cannot fall out of the bed or get trapped between the mattress and wall.
Never share a bed with your baby if you, or your partner, have taken drugs or drunk alcohol.
** For more guidance on safe co-sleeping advice you can head over to the Lullaby Trust for more information**
Should I choose to breastsleep with my baby?
Bedsharing can double, and even triple, the number of breastfeeds per night. So why on earth would you want to share a bed with your baby? Won’t that disturb your sleep even more? You may ask. In my personal experience, not at all. In fact, I was able to sleep more than when I was pregnant and frequently waking to go to the toilet! (If you’re in your first or third trimester, you’ll know all too well what I mean…)
With breastsleeping I didn’t have to leave the bed at all (HUGE bonus), meaning I felt more of a semi-conscious awakening, in a kind of dream like state, rather than being abruptly awoken by her crying and having to fully wake up, get out of bed and see to her. Having your baby in bed with you means you can tend to, and respond to, your baby as soon as they begin to stir rather than waiting for them to cry out.
It’s a very personal decision and it all comes down to what you feel most comfortable with and what works with your family set up. I don’t want anyone to feel I’m making an attack on any particular sleeping or feeding arrangement, I just want to share my own personal experience with breastsleeping and to let Mums know that it is such a thing, you’re not dreaming it up, and that it can actually be a really beneficial and wonderful thing to do with your baby if done safely, and of course should you wish to.
Okay, so I’m feeling this whole breastsleeping thing. How can I do it safely?
Most parents do end up taking their babies into bed with them at some point in the night or early morning. It’s important for us to bear in mind, though, how we can do it safely. Rather than instructing a categorical “NO” to parents and co-sleeping we should be emphasising that actually, when we take all practical precautions it can be hugely beneficial to have your baby in bed with you.
The Lullaby Trust has loads of information on there about how we can make bed sharing safer, so worth checking out if this is something you would like to do with your little one. Here is a link to their Safer sleep for babies, a guide for parents.
Whatever you decide to do, however you want to feed your baby, and wherever you choose to sleep, it’s totally your choice! No one knows you or your baby better than you do. Trust your instinct and do what feels right for you.