Coffee.
Some people may need their daily caffeine intake.
I know I certainly do, but it was one thing that
I had to watch out for when I had my baby.
Today's question is does coffee affect my baby's sleep?
About one percent of caffeine ingested will pass
through into the mother's breast milk. Now there
are studies that have shown that mothers that
drink coffee and mothers that don't drink coffee
and their baby's sleep is no different from each other.
So it's really unclear whether it actually does
affect your baby's wakefulness or not. Now if
your baby is wakeful there's a couple of things
that you should also look out for and check
before blaming that coffee. So, wind is a really
big one, especially in new born babies. Wind can really
upset and really make it hard for some babies to
settle, especially its really obvious if they
wake up within that sort of five to ten minute
mark of actually going to sleep. So, undigested
wind can affect some newborns a lot more than
others. With those babies, I would really make sure
that you try and wind and burp them half way
through a feed, after a feed, after they've been laying
down for a couple of minutes on their back and then
also before you're about to change them and pop
them back into bed. Another thing that can affect your
baby sleeping is over and under tiredness.
Over tiredness, you'll end up with a baby that's
really hard to settle, crying a lot, pulling
their legs up, appearing like they've got wind and
not wanting to go to sleep. The more infamous
under tired is when you're putting your baby down
to bed and they're just not genuinely tired enough
to actually have a sleep. They also will be crying
and unsettled and resisting your settling attempts
and not wanting to go to sleep. This often happens
if your trying to pop them down and those newborn
stages after an hour and a half and your baby is
actually, you know, moved on from those
newborn wakeful periods and you need to extend
those awake times. Another thing that can affect
your baby's sleeping is reflux. Now reflux is
actually completely normal in babies, especially
in newborns. It's when the milk is flowing from their
tummy back up into their mouth and sometimes out.
Now if your baby is spilling and their actually
happy and not unsettled and not crying after that
happens that is actually fine and completely normal.
If your baby is spitting up or it is bringing milk up
and accompanying that is really unsettled behavior
and their crying a lot, that means that they do have
reflux and this is where coffee can actually be to blame.
My pediatrician told me that I could have one coffee
per day and to make sure that, that was a decaf coffee
for my children that were diagnosed with reflux.
If you're worried if coffee is to blame for your baby's
sleeping then maybe limit your coffee to one per day
and make it a decaf coffee. I hope that answers your
question on does coffee affect my baby's sleep?
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