How nutrition can affect your baby or toddler’s sleep

Nutrition plays a huge role in sleep throughout your child’s life. 

I will break down how nursing or formula feeding affects sleep and how it changes when you introduce solids or purees.

When you have a newborn, basically all they do is eat, poop and sleep, and the cycle continues. 

I get asked all the time what is more important: feedings or sleep. The fact is that they go hand in hand. When your baby isn’t eating well they won’t sleep well and will have short naps. But unfortunately, when they don’t sleep well, they tend to have small meals, pass out and then you are stuck with all these short feedings, followed by short naps. 

So how do you get out of this cycle? 

Start in the morning! Every day is a NEW day!

Make sure you aren’t offering a “night feeding” too early in the morning (5-6 am) so it isn’t affecting their first morning feeding when they wake up for the day. This will depend when your baby starts their day and how old they are. As a fresh newborn, make sure the feedings are at least 2 hours apart. So, with a 7am wake up time, feed at 5am, not 6am. This might mean holding your baby and helping them sleep during those early morning hours if needed. 

You want the first feeding of the day to be good and long. This is going to help your newborn or baby to sleep better for their first nap. I do recommend trying to follow an eat, play, sleep routine. Our goal is to not feed to sleep, but it may happen sometimes and that’s okay. The reason I try to avoid nursing or feeding to sleep is that it can cause them to not drink as long, especially if they get overtired, causing them to not get as much daytime calories and potentially needing to feed sooner. We want them to feed until they are full, not to feed until they are sleepy. Feeding too close to sleep can also make it harder for babies with reflux or an immature esophagus, causing them to struggle to be laid down after a feeding. We want to make sure your baby has 10-20 minutes of being upright before laying them on their back. 

Helping your baby connect sleep cycles and having longer naps can also help them to feed better. Making sure to also spread the feedings out so they aren’t feeding every hour. During the day, newborns should be feeding every 2-3 hours, sometimes 1.5 hours if they need a top up before a longer nap. We want to avoid your baby snacking, or only taking very small feedings. 

If your baby feeds well during the day, they will be able to go longer stretches at night which allows them to sleep longer. These longer stretches, even 3-4 hours, can start at 2-3 weeks old, depending on how well they are gaining weight and your doctor's recommendations. 

To help your baby go longer stretches at night, offer support to your baby to help them back to sleep rather than feeding them right away. Not every wake up at night means they are hungry. It could be gas, cold, warm, undertired, overtired, or they just want to be soothed. Try offering a pacifier or rocking them back to sleep first. If they go back to sleep then they aren't that hungry. Even if they only sleep another hour, it helps your baby to go longer stretches between their feedings. This can help to drop a night feeding when the time comes. 

Check out my blog about how to wean night-time feedings. This does not mean you have to wean all night-time feedings, but helps you understand how to move from 3 nights feedings, to 2 nights feedings and then down to 1 before eventually sleeping through the night.

When your baby is around 6 months old, able to sit up and is ready to start eating solids or purees this can also affect sleep. We want to ensure that when you offer food, it does not impact their nursing or bottle intake. This can impact their sleep if they aren’t getting enough calories from breastmilk or formula. This can feel tricky to fit in all the feedings, but trust me it’s needed to get those calories in during the day. 

It is recommended to feed 1-2 meals around 6-8 months, then offering 3 meals around 8-9 months old. 

When introducing solids/purees, I recommend staying away from fortified oatmeal and rice cereals. The iron in these foods have been linked to causing stomach upset in babies, making them very uncomfortable which makes them struggle to sleep. I dealt with this first hand when my baby who was sleeping through the night was screaming and crying a few hours after going to bed. I could tell he was in pain and I wasn’t sure why. I realized that the food was the only new thing, so I stopped offering it and he slept just fine again. I did my research to find out that a lot of babies had the same issues. 

Something else I commonly see when you introduce solids is how it affects their bowel movements as they are growing. It can cause constipation, or the timing of bowel movements to change, causing early morning wake ups, or shorter naps because of a bowel movement. In these circumstances I recommend feeding foods at dinner that help to slow down digestion like: bananas, apple sauce, baby cereals, refined grain (like white rice, white bread) dairy products (yogurt, cheese, milk), 

Then, during the day, you want to offer foods that helps them to poop.  Fruit (pears, plums, peaches, berries, raisins), prunes and pumpkin are the best to have on hand for when you need it. Prunes help them go more quickly and pumpkins help them to stay regular. Other foods include whole grains, vegetables (carrots, broccoli, peas, corn, squash), lentils, chickpeas. Also making sure they are hydrated by introducing water, after the age of 6 months old is important. 

Babies that get constipated can be in pain, which will impact their sleep. If your child is experiencing persistent constipation, please contact your doctor. 

Another thing that I commonly see is when babies eat too much in their last wake window before bed. This can actually affect their ability to fall asleep and stay asleep because too much food before bed can trigger reflux, upset stomach, cause them to be more gassy or make their bellies feel uncomfortable. But one of the main reasons is that when they eat too much, it causes their body to focus on digestion, instead of sleeping. Some foods can keep your body in an active state, which can lead to a restless sleep. It can also disrupt your child’s metabolism and hunger hormones leading them to want to eat more at night, which can lead to more wake ups at night. 

When you start to introduce dinner to your baby, start with a small amount and work your way up to larger meals and food types. This can help you to see what is affecting your child’s sleep. If you aren’t sure, then decrease the amount of food they are getting before bed to see how this impacts their sleep. 

It has been proven that dinner should be about 2 hours before bedtime to help them have enough time to digest and process their food before bed. You can offer a snack or bottle before bed, but no large meals or large bottles. 

Sugar can also negatively affect your child’s sleep, by taking longer to fall asleep and having more wake ups at night. Sugar stimulates the brain, overstimulating your child, making it harder for your child to fall asleep. It takes 1-2 hours for sugar levels to peak, and about 2-3 hours for the sugar levels to come back down to normal. This is why it is recommended to not have sugar about 2 hours before bed, ideally. When consuming sugar, it increases your blood sugar levels, which causes your body to react by releasing insulin. This can cause a crash in energy levels which can cause more night wakings and make it harder to fall back to sleep. Studies have shown that diets higher in sugar are linked to struggling to fall asleep, more sleep disruptions and a more restless sleep. A study also found that a high sugar diet can reduce the amount of time spent in deep sleep which is crucial for healing the body both mentally and physically. This includes growth, memory consolidations (very important with milestones), immune functions and your child’s energy levels. 

If your child has food allergies, this can directly affect your child’s sleep, in their ability to fall asleep and stay asleep. This is due to the body’s immune system response to the allergens, causing inflammation, gas, and discomfort. Sometimes allergies can even make your child more sleepy during the day, disrupting their sleep times. If your child already struggles with open mouth breathing, or snoring, it can lead to sleep apnea. 

I hope you found this very informative, as so many things can impact your child’s sleep. 

If you are struggling with your child’s sleep, from newborn to 7 years old, reach out and book a call with us today! We are happy to help and share our knowledge.

This is not medical advice, and you should speak to your doctor if you are struggling with your child’s feedings or even potential allergies.