The synergy of breastfeeding and babywearing.
Breastfeeding and Babywearing:
It just makes sense to keep babies close to the breast. We know that human infants, like all primates, feed frequently. Despite what we are (mis)led to believe, it is not normal for breastfed babies to spend long hours sleeping away from their mother. Indeed, books and so-called "baby whisperers" have greatly undermined mothers confidence in the past decades.
Schedules, routines and charts suggesting feed times spaced neatly round the clock are not evidence-based. They are simply cut and pasted across generations since the first doctor intruded into the maternal space and tried to organise everything!
Babies do not have clocks, they have bodies! Rapidly developing bodies which expend great energy for growth and need frequent breastfeeding to sustain that. They sleep and feed. Sometimes, they sleep AND feed!
Nature designed a perfect system: keep the baby within reach of the breast day and night. Create subtle feeding cues easily noted by their mother long before the desperate crying which will alert predators. Allow the mother to quickly move the baby to the breast from their position on her chest. When baby falls asleep at the breast, continue to keep them close.
An infant sleep cycle is just 40 minutes, compared to the 90 minutes of an adult. When mothers sleep in arms reach of their baby, her sleep synchronises with theirs, so she is in a light sleep stage when her baby stirs. As baby attaches both bodies are flooded with sleep-inducing hormones. The mother is often unaware she has woken. Her baby breastsleeps until falling into a deep sleep and releasing the breast.
The frequent removal of milk from the breast and the hormones released each feed keep milk production active. The supply keeps pace with the fluctuating needs of the baby: more milk during rapid development, hot weather, immune system activity, less milk after a growth spurt, milestone or recovery from a cold. The skin contact from close proximity keeps hormones like oxytocin active and bonding is enhanced.
Babies breastfeed regardless of clocks, despite routines and without concern. They wake, they feed, they sleep. Repeat.
