Would Your Baby Sleep Better on a Fuller Tummy?

In the first year of a baby’s life, change is the only constant. Your baby is simply developing too fast for you to get used to one stage before everything changes again and that includes sleeping patterns. 

According to the baby books, babies aged two to three months can manage a five-to-six-hour stretch of sleep before needing a feed, moving up to about seven hours by the age of four months and a solid eight hours at six months. But babies famously don’t read baby books, so yours may not obey these “rules”. Also, if you’re a baby and you sleep for eight hours when your bedtime is 19:00, this means you’re awake and starving by 03;00. That’s not exactly “sleeping through the night” as far as mom and dad are concerned.

One of the best bits of parenting advice you can get is to let go of expectations of “what’s normal” and rather focus on “what is” in your family. Still, whether you have a wake-every-hour baby or a solid sleeper, chances are you’re short on sleep hours yourself and are always interested in maximising rest, for your baby as well as for you, because a happy mom equates to a happy baby.

It’s especially hard when your baby has been sleeping well, or as well as you have come to expect, and things suddenly change.

As you already know by now, a million factors could be at play. Your baby could be going through a growth spurt and needs more food than you have been feeding them, especially if they are suddenly more active, for instance, if they’ve started crawling. They could be dropping one of their daytime naps and it’s messing with their nighttime routine. They could be developing object permanence – the knowledge that you continue to exist even when you are out of their sight – leading to clinginess. Or perhaps they’ve recently started eating solid foods and their digestive system is adjusting.

Hungry Baby: Rule Out Other Options

One of the options is that your baby’s nutritional needs are changing and you think they could be waking from hunger. But before you diagnose a “hungry baby”, be aware that it’s a controversial subject. It’s not scientifically defined or described in medical literature; it’s difficult to diagnose and some treatments, such as thickening the formula, are not helpful.

Anne-Marie de Beer, a registered dietitian and the medical and scientific affairs manager at Nestlé, urges parents to first rule out environmental factors that could be contributing to wakefulness. “Investigate if wet nappies, being too cold or too warm, or in a noisy or too quiet environment is unsettling the baby,” she advises.

If a baby is formula fed, “look at the size of the teat: does your baby struggle to get the milk and fall asleep before they are finished? Or is the teat too big and the baby gulps the milk down, only to spit it up a bit later?”

Next, “look at the feeding table: is the volume appropriate for the baby’s age? If it is too little, the baby may indeed be hungry and require a larger volume of feed.” But whatever you do, De Beer cautions against “strengthening” the formula by adding extra scoops of powder to the water, increasing the concentration. “This can lead to dehydration and stress on the kidneys that may make the baby very sick,” she says.

It is normal for breastfed babies to feed more regularly than formula-fed ones. But if you are seeing signs such as eager eating of solids, smiling when eating, reaching for offered foods, and crying and fussiness between meals, you may have an individual with a ferocious appetite on your hands.

Don’t Use the Anti-Regurgitation Formula for Hunger

Please note that there is a difference between thickened formula and so-called hungry baby formula. Thickened formulas are marketed for babies with proven reflux (gastro-oesophageal reflux disease, or GORD). The formula is thickened with corn starch, rice cereal or other thickening agents to try to weigh the food down and allow for less of it to be spat up during reflux episodes.  

Definitely do not give thickened formula to premature babies. Only use them on the advice of your doctor or healthcare professional. “There is no evidence that a thickened formula keeps the baby fuller for longer,” says De Beer.

Casein-dominant

Formula milk is (usually) made from cow’s milk and contains the proteins casein and whey. Both are complete proteins that contain all the essential amino acids to help build muscle and repair cells while we sleep. Casein digests more slowly than whey, meaning it could leave you feeling fuller for longer.

For that reason, some formula manufacturers have brands that have a higher ratio of casein to whey, also called “casein-dominant”, which you can use for a night-time feed and see if this allows your baby a longer stretch of snoozing. Remember, though, that overall levels of protein in formulas are tightly regulated, as too much can lead to obesity.

Newborn formulas are whey-dominant to mimic breast milk, which contains as much as 90% whey at birth and settles over weeks to about a 60:40 whey: casein ratio, and heading towards a 50/50 split as a baby matures into late-stage breastfeeding.

Casein proteins are larger and therefore more difficult to digest than whey. Most follow-on or second milk formulas (from six months onwards) contain more casein, again to mimic breast milk. But casein-dominant formulas are usually not recommended for babies under the age of six months.

Novalac SD (standing for Satiety Disorder) is the only brand currently on the SA market that is marketed specifically for “hungry” babies. It’s recommended for nighttime use for babies who are not underweight. They don’t need extra nutrients; they just need to sleep better. This means you can breastfeed or formula feed your usual formula during the day, but replace the last feed before baby’s longest sleep with Novalac’s SD formula.

Aspen Nutritionals (S26) and Nestlé (Lactogen and NAN) have advised that they do not sell casein-dominant formulas. Yet most follow-on milks or second milks do contain more casein than from-birth or newborn milks. While it is not essential to migrate your formula-fed baby onto the next-stage milk, it’s certainly worth a try.

Unless there’s a serious problem, it’s unlikely that your healthcare provider will advise you to supplement breastfeeding or to formula feed casein-dominant formula before six months of age. If you are already mixed feeding or supplement feeding, continue to breastfeed as any amount of breast milk is better than none, and there are no contraindications to alternating breast and bottle.

Solid solids

Around four to six months is the time your baby will start to eat solids, so while you wait for the sleep issue to settle, you can try to make sure that what you’re feeding is a sleep aid.

Some tips include:

• Feed your older baby their biggest meal at lunch and a smaller meal at dinner so that the process of digesting the solids doesn’t keep her up.
• Not many solid foods are as dense as milk is, so your baby will eat more food, which will take up more space in their tummy, but get less nutrition out of it. You can choose dense foods if you think they need more nutrients: avocado, mashed potato or sweet potato, nut butters (once cleared with your doctor) are good, dense food choices.
• Once your child is an established eater, try foods that contain tryptophan (an amino acid) that helps produce serotonin and melatonin (the “sleep hormone”), such as cheese, nuts, tofu, soy, wheat, oats, bananas, eggs, green leafy veg, and poultry. But remember to combine these foods with insulin-releasing complex carbohydrates (whole-wheat pasta, brown bread) to help the tryptophan reach the brain.

Cultivate acceptance

If nothing works, reach deep within yourself for your psychological reserves and remind yourself that this will not last forever. You will make it through. Something will change – and usually sooner than you think. It sounds heartless, but sometimes cultivating an attitude of acceptance about your non-sleeping baby is the kindest thing you can do for both of you. Hang in there. This will pass!

ALSO READ: Best Formula to Keep Baby Fuller for Longer

Disclaimer: This is not a sponsored post. BabyYumYum reserves the right to its opinions and fully supports the notion of promotion that breastfeeding is best in line with the World Health Organisation (WHO) infant feeding guidelines. Breast milk is the best food for infants. Good maternal nutrition is essential to prepare and maintain breastfeeding. If breastfeeding is not applied, an infant formula may be used according to the advice of health professionals. Preparation and storage of any infant formula should be performed as directed on the tin in order not to pose any health hazards.