Should babies really be sleeping through the night?

Swansea University has released a video to help new parents understand their baby’s sleeping patterns.

Based on a study of more than 700 families, the video challenges the idea that babies should be sleeping all through the night and seeks to disprove ‘the myth’ that babies will sleep longer at night if they are given more solid food.

The film helps to highlight the key research findings which firstly contest the idea that babies should be sleeping through the night once they are past a few weeks old and secondly that what you feed babies will help their sleep.

There is a common belief that formula milk or giving more solid foods will help your baby sleep better and this study shows this isn’t true.

We did find that mothers who were breastfeeding fed their baby more at night but this could be because breastfeeding is a simple way to get your baby back to sleep quickly!

The babies who were formula fed still woke up, they just weren’t fed.

– Dr Amy Brown, programme director for the MSc Child Public Health course