My baby is hungry! (?)

“My baby cries a lot because he’s hungry.”

“He cries after he nursed because he’s hungry.”

“He wakes up every 2 hours because he’s hungry.”

“When I give him a supplement, he sleeps rested because he was VERY hungry!”

Shuné Pottier @ sxc.hu
Photo by Sergiu Vălenaș on Unsplash

Clarification: All babies cry! Crying is the only form of communication they have at their disposal. If we count the hours that we speak or express ourselves by gestures and facial expressions, perhaps the baby does not even cry as much. The baby cries because he is hungry (right) but also because he is too cold/hot, has a dirty diaper, wants attention/rest, or stimuli or is stressed by excessive stimuli. Summing up: it cries for everything and anything else.

Crying after breastfeeding is very common, especially in the more active babies. Just as we do when we eat in a hurry, we delay to feel satiety, so do babies. Between the stomach being full and the brain receiving this information go a few minutes (even 1/2 hour). Therefore, it is not usually a sign of hunger, but rather a sign of too much avidity in breastfeeding.

Breastmilk is the only food your baby is prepared to digest, so it is natural that in 1h30 it has already digested it all and wanted more. Giving supplementation only makes them sleep more because the digestion effort is so high that it ends up giving drowsiness. Realize that it is not a healthy sleep, it is another compulsory siesta so that the baby can digest the artificial milk. The breastfed baby is able to establish better and faster the sleep routine (it is understood to sleep all night) than a baby fed with artificial milk, which alternates between feeding and sleeping naps, day or night.

The hunger/good feeding of babies is not evaluated by crying but by the number of diapers soiled per day and weight gain (whether 5 g / day or 60 g / day, if increased, it’s growing and feeding well). By the way, babies do not always get fat every week, not even in proportion to what they got from food, but to the level of growth at that time. Growth works by peaks and it’s not an exponential increase.

So NO, your baby is NOT HUNGRY!

React to every ouch!

Babies and children, in general, tend to react in response to the reaction of their main caregivers, that is, no matter how much it may cost us at first, we should not react with distress to every fall/trip or others from our little bundles of joy.

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Photo by Marcos Paulo Prado on Unsplash

1º Assess the situation

2º Evaluate the reaction of the little one

3º If we have to intervene, try not to enlarge the situation

Ex: If we are in a boat that seems to be in trouble and the captain is panicking, what will be our reaction? What if he seems to be calm in solving the problem? Yeah … and we’re adults