Eat, Play, then Sleep

For healthy nutrition AND sleep, stick to an “Eat, Play, Sleep”routine.

 

If you’ve been researching infant nutrition or sleep, it’s likely that you’ve read about the “Eat, Play, Sleep” routine. From experience, I know it’s easier said than done! It takes dedication and determination to achieve, but has great benefits for improving sleep AND feeding for small kiddos.

 

Here, I’ve listed 5 tips and facts to help you improve your babies feeding AND sleep habits with an  Eat, Play, Sleep routine.

 

1. Feeding your baby upon waking assures that they get bigger meals because they are less likely to fall asleep on the job. Awake feedings increase the amount of overall milk, and especially protein rich hind milk, so that baby can get the nutrients they need to gain weight and grow!

 

2. Playing after meals (instead of snoozing to sleep) means your little one is much less likely to spit up that precious liquid gold because their little tummies have had time to digest their food before they lay down flat to sleep. 

 

3. Make sure “play time” includes some movement and a variety of positions: on back, upright, tummy time, to assure that food goes down and bubbles are coming up instead of becoming painful intestinal gas. 

 

4. If your little one had a nice big meal after their nap, they probably will not be hungry before their next nap, so there is no need to feed them before laying them down (this may only increase spitting up and aggravate reflux). 

 

5. It’s common for baby’s tired signs to be connected with their hunger signs, so if you’re seeing hunger signs right before nap, it’s a good idea to get your kiddo in to bed as soon as possible. They are not hungry, but tired and telling you it’s time for some Zzzz! 

 

 

 

Having a hard time encouraging Eat, Play Sleep to happen at your house? You are not alone, it can be really challenging, until you get to the root cause. Schedule a 30-min Consultation and Mellisa, our lactation and sleep consultant, can help support you to get you on track!