Many nursing mother pump breast milk for their babies once they return to work. A recent study published in the journal "Nutritional Neuroscience" found a definite pattern to when the levels of certain substances (nucleotides) in breast milk were higher and lower, and that those known to induce sleep were, higher in breast milk produced during night than in breast milk produced during the day. The authors also cited previous studies finding that breast milk levels of melatonin, a hormone secreted prior to sleep onset, also vary in relation to the time of day, with melatonin found in breast milk produced at night, but undetectable in breast milk produced during the day.
And so the question: does giving a baby milk produced in the morning for an evening feed have the potential to disrupt the baby's developing sleep patterns?
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