"Let's see, mom, how did I sleep when I was a baby? Because she is four months old and only sleeps on her chest ... and I don't know what to do anymore," the daughter asks her mother. "I gave you the bottle and normally you were so relaxed that you immediately fell asleep in my arms eating, or with the pacifier," the mother replies. "So, are you using me as a pacifier?" "Yes, daughter, that seems ... you have to try not to do it."
This conversation is repeated, sure, in hundreds and hundreds of houses every year. A daughter asking for advice from her mother, the pediatrician or whoever, receiving in response a "if you sleep on your chest, you are doing it wrong". The problem? Well, what is a lie. That a four-month-old, eight-year-and-a-half year old baby falls asleep Not only is it normal, but it is also logical.
We slept with the pacifier, or without him, because we had no chest
Of course, one wonders why we slept as a child without the tit and the answer is obvious: they didn't breastfeed us. We took a bottle, sucked the nipple until our stomachs were full to the flag and then we were ecstatic. It didn't take much for us to fall asleep, and if anyone needed it, it would change the bottle for the pacifier and to suck, that does not calm that. Loving arms, little balls, some song and rendered.
In Babies and more Every night millions of women sleep with a tit outsideIt seems that what happened with us, in our childhood, is normal, that of a lifetime. However, as we all know, artificial milk is an invention of nothing and normal is the other, breast milk, the whole life.
Extrapolating the situation, a baby falls asleep when he has eaten, with a little dance or song, if necessary, but sucking something. Yes, I know that some do not need it, but most sleep better with a pacifier or with a tit.
Why the tit instead of the pacifier?
Because the pacifier is also a recent invention, we cannot say that it is normal that after the breast we put a pacifier on the baby because The whole thing is to have the baby suckling and fall asleep even sucking.
If a mother wants to change one thing for another, she can do it, it is only necessary for the baby to accept the change, that many do not even want to hear about the "dry rubber tit" if next to her mother's breast, which is meat Really and get milk.
In Babies and more The great explanation in drawings of a mother to her husband about why she gets up so tired and irritableThe chest, much more than food
And it is that many people, and here I include many professionals (especially the experts of the childhood dream lovers of behaviorism), believe that breastfeeding is the same as giving a bottle: you give the milk you need and outside, it is over to eat, it makes no sense to keep sucking. That is why they say nonsense as big as babies have to breastfeed awake, then they have to be awake for a while and finally they must fall asleep apart from the mother's breast, so that they separate eating with sleeping.
Nonsense because a mother's breast is not a bottle, nor does it seem too much. It is true that the two take out milk, but once it is finished, the function of the bottle is zero and nevertheless, the function of the breast is not. Breastfeeding is feeding, but it is also offering non-nutritive suction, it is to allow skin-to-skin contact, it is to avoid having to put the child to burp, it is the smell of mom and it is, look you, mom. Baby bottle vs mom: too many differences.
But there is still more
But it doesn't end here. Breast is sleepy. Sucking, as we have said, relaxes them. Doing it on mom's lap relaxes them. Filling your stomach makes you sleepy. Warm milk makes you sleepy. Breast milk makes you sleepy, among other things, because It contains an amino acid called L-tryptophan It helps babies fall asleep. If it were normal for the baby not to fall asleep on the breast, the milk would carry caffeine.
And I say more, breast milk also contains melatonin, the hormone that helps us establish the rhythms within the day and the cycles of wakefulness and sleep. The amazing thing about it? That the flow of melatonin is variable, depending on the time of day, to help the baby focus on what time of day it is.
It is said that the most advisable thing to help them keep up with the circadian rhythm is to ensure that there is darkness at night and promoting that during the day, even if they sleep, there is light. Thus they learn before when it is day and when it is night. Well, in addition to doing this, it is achieved through breast milk, which sends different concentrations of melatonin to the baby's body depending on the time of day.
In summary
Do you still think it is not normal for a baby to sleep on the chest? Because if so, you will have to explain your arguments to me. I don't see them anywhere. In fact, it seems so normal and logical that babies take advantage of mom's sucking and contact to fall asleep peacefully, until the day they feel safe and are able to sleep alone, that I can't understand that there are those who pretend to explain The normal thing is that they sleep alone.
