Hello Jessica,
Could you please cite your sources re: formula having a “sedative effect”, and the causational effects of SIDS in formula-fed babies?
With kindness,
Amy

100% agree!

The suggestion that infants know how to sleep because they sleep as newborns is an incredibly loaded and far reaching assertion; the root of which is yet another claim that infants know how to sleep and we as mothers are getting in the way. This doesn’t help me or the countless other mothers who are exhausted from a screaming infant all night every night. My newborn son had undiagnosed reflux and for weeks, could only sleep for 30 minutes at a time all night. Rest assured, my belief or lack thereof in his abities was not the problem. I really don’t understand all the new propaganda trying to disguise itself as something new and different than the CIO method. It seems disrespectful and as if it doesn’t belong anywhere close to Magda or Janet Lansbury’s canon of work. I implemented Janet’s principles and they saved my family. This just doesn’t make sense to me as a mother and follower. ‍♀️

If you enjoy it why stop? Will you be having many more kids to do this with? Human connection and closeness is so important. Your child will be off and independent before u know it

Hi there
Without differentiating between formula and breastfed sleep
Patterns all research is pointless. Formula acts as a sedative – babies sleep longer and deeper when fed formula that’s why it’s associated with SIDS – sadly this fact is common knowledge. Breastmilk and breastfeeding is designed to work if mother and baby do it frequently particularly at the beginning. The formula industry is directing this new cultural obsession with babies sleep because they want women to use their product…suggesting that letting an infant fall asleep at the breast is a bad idea is one of their tactics to reduce a mothers milk supply. Formula companies see our breasts as direct completion! Using sleep as a tool they r trying to limit the time
Mothers let their babies breastfeed. Their marketing departments are well funded! Any article on infant sleep is not complete with out a mention of James McKenna and his work. As a LLL volunteer I hear so many stories of these poor mothers struggling with milk supply because they think their babies should be sleeping more and they limit the babies time at the breast – just what formula companies want. Breastsleeping is what the mother baby dyad is about – sleeping while feeding/eating. Again the formula industry has demonized all forms of co sleeping in their efforts to limit night time feeding. They pay the AAP over $3m a year nationally and millions more
To the local branches. (Yes I have called them to check!) In turn the AAP adopts their narrative regarding co sleeping and the dangers but never metnikns the dangers surrounding formula. I urge all mothers to read MCKennas work as well as Unlatched and the BIg Let Down. All very interesting

If you want a consistent milk supply you need to let baby fall asleep on the breast particularly if they are young. Only one of the studies mentions formula and it says there’s no difference in babies ability to sleep for 5 Hours or longer. Well formula has a sedative effect and so if we assume that formula fed sleep patterns r the norm we are asking for trouble. Formula increases the risk of SIDS because it puts babies into a dangerously deep sleep. I find this research completely lacking – I do not see any mention of James Mckennas work

Max, Thanks for expressing so much of how we lived when our sons were little. Life was so uncomplicated! I felt that I was better rested than so many moms whose lives were much more “structured” with babies in cribs in other rooms. Our sons are adults with children of their own. The younger son and his wife are doing things similar to the way he grew up. The older son and his wife have careers that require more structure. It saddens me that their sons have more stress, but they are still a happy family.

I rock my 22 month old to sleep. I love that tine with him but as your article mentioned I know it is detrimental to him because he still wakes at night and needs to be comforted (by me) back to sleep. How do I respectfully help him begin to fall asleep on his own? I know he will fight it.

I completely agree with you on all counts! That is what I came looking for as well.