Benefits of Co-Sleeping and Breast Feeding

[FarmGirl]

Fantastic segment on Catalyst last night.

ABC iview

[willow5]

Thanks for posting I was sorry I missed it the other night.

Interesting correlation between a baby not sleeping and PND. Is it the sleep deprivation, or the fact that mothers have such huge expectations placed on them to have a baby sleeping through? Or maybe a bit of both? Perhaps mums wouldn't feel so pressured and be able to cope better with lack of sleep, if they weren't feeling inadequate and stressed about their baby not sleeping through.
I don't know the stats, if there are any, of PND in other countries/cultures, but I'd be very interested to see some from cultures where 'sleeping through' isn't socially expected.
Everything Dr McKenna said makes sense to me. I think a lot of the time common sense is overlooked.

[Ca Plane Pour Moi]

Willow, I did research on this when DS was little.

When a mother laughs, it produces "sleep through" hormones into her milk. This sleepy milk is released around dusk. So laughter makes a baby sleep better. (I prescribed myself half an hour of Monty Python a day after that - there was a slight improvement. But if I got 2 minutes of laughter a day that was good.) However, when a mother has depression, she doesn't laugh. Therefore she doesn't make sleepy milk. Therefore the baby doesn't sleep. It's a vicious cycle.

Given that few adults, even those without PND, don't laugh for a half-hour a day minimum, sleeping through shouldn't really be an expectation in younger babies.

[willow5]

Hey Flying Butter that is very cool info! My 19month old still wakes between 5+times every night so that's going to be my next try at getting it to less than 5. Laughter would also help with the PND I would imagine. Pitty there's no one sure fire way to make all those mums with PND laugh each day

[Ca Plane Pour Moi]

Nonsense. Monty Python. Works every time.

DS was up once last night (yay! once only!) so there is probably more to it than just laughter releasing sleepy hormones, but there was a link there.

[willow5]

Nonsense. Monty Python. Works every time.

Monty Python for all then it is!
Yay! for one wake up Hope he keeps it up, so keep on laughing!!