Pumped Breast Milk Like Shot of Espresso If Given at Wrong Time of Day

Just when you thought the rules surrounding breastfeeding couldn’t get any more confusing — Drink lots of fluids!  Breastfeed for six months — no, ONE YEAR!  Don’t paint your nails while breastfeeding! Be sure to nurse with one hand behind your head while jumping up and down like a monkey! (Seriously, please do and send the video to me) — a new study comes out confirming that giving babies pumped milk could disrupt their sleep if given at the wrong time of day.

Say wha –?

You see, researchers from Spain have found the composition of breast milk changes throughout the day.  The milk contains more nucleotides, an ingredient known to induce sleep, at night (from 8 p.m. – 8 a.m.).   So if we feed the baby at night with milk that was pumped in the morning, well… we may end up with a restless Cranky Pants.  In fact, it’s like giving coffee to a baby because the day-specific ingredients stimulate activity in the infant.

The bottom line:  In order to ensure correct nutrition, the baby should be given milk at the same time of day that it was expressed from mama’s breast.

“It is a mistake for the mother to express the milk at a certain time and then store it and feed it to the baby at a different time,” points out the researcher.

So… if I want to get actual work done in the day, I should feed nighttime milk to Miss Skye ALL DAY LONG!  Like slipping her a Mickey.  Um, not that I would actually DO that or anything.  Just a passing thought.  *AHEM*