Everyone warns new mothers about the sleep deprivation, yet it still comes as a shocker because you simply can’t fathom what it means to get up every couple of hours with a newborn night after night. Luckily, breastfeeding provides a secret weapon for sleepy mothers: the hormone cholecystokinin (CCK).
When the baby suckles, the mother releases CCK. The hormone infusion relaxes her and readies her to drift off to sleep again. If mother and baby are co-sleeping, the mother might even drift off before the baby finishes the feed! What a peaceful experience compared to getting up to prepare a bottle, …read more

Why did I have the audacity to say in the Six Month Checkup that Nicole was back to sleeping four hours at a stretch at night? As soon as I hit “Publish” on that post, her nose started running and she kept me up all night because she could not breathe.* I should know better than to offend the sleep gods with such arrogance. Never again, I swear! Although I will mention in passing, just as a matter of fact and without any presumption that the event will repeat itself, that Nicole did sleep better last night. So much so …read more

Speaking of sleep, two prominent researchers in the field of breastfeeding are conducting a survey of mothers’ sleep and fatigue. Kathleen Kendall-Tackett, Ph.D., IBCLC, Research Associate at the Family Research Lab, University of New Hampshire, and Thomas W. Hale, Ph.D., R.Ph., Professor of Pediatrics, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, invite mothers of infants 12 months and younger (breastfeeding or formula-feeding or both) to participate in the study by answering a survey online [Edited to remove link. The survey is now closed! Thank you for your interest!]. They explain:
In this survey, we will be asking you some detailed questions …read more

My third baby slept well as a newborn, better than my other two. She “slept through the night” within weeks, if you count sleeping the requisite five hours in a row as “sleeping through the night” when it takes place from 8:30 p.m. to 1:30 a.m.! I did not wake her to nurse as I knew she was getting enough milk by her wet and dirty diaper output, and her appropriate weight gain. I was not about to ruin a good thing!
Once the school year started in September though, my first grader and preschooler began bringing home every illness to …read more