Nutrition & a Good Nights Sleep by Jo Tantum

Jo Tantum [1] is the UK's No 1 baby sleep expert. Her best-selling book Baby Secrets is available at all good bookstores and also available through Amazon [2].

Do you suffer from sleepless nights and broken sleep? Does your new-born have daytime naps but is then awake for most of the night? It’s a familiar story for a lot of new mums and although motherhood presents any number of difficult challenges, getting your new-born baby into a good sleep routine can be one of the hardest.

As all new mums (and dads) quickly discover, getting your new baby into a good feeding and sleeping routine is vital in the first three months.

And, if you’re breastfeeding, good nutrition is high on the agenda for mum to give her baby the best breastmilk she can. That means balanced meals, healthy snacks and plenty of water.

Your baby needs to be breastfeeding around every three hours in the day for the first three months to ensure she gets enough nutrition to help promote  restful sleep at night.

If the baby isn’t fed as often, and has long sleeps in the day she will wake in the night and spread her feeds over 24 hours rather than 12. This means that mum will get less sleep, which in turn reduces her milk supply as she is not  fully rested.

So try following Annabel’s breastfeeding nutrition guide [3] to ensure your milk supply will nourish your baby. It will stop you worrying about not having enough milk and your baby will be fully satisfied. If she has a full tummy then she will happily fall asleep on her own each time, instead of snacking and not feeling full.