Q: How do you do the circadian thing with a newborn?
Q: How do you do the circadian thing with a newborn?
A: Breastfeed, sunshine, routine
Since announcing the birth of my youngest child, people have been asking:
Q: How do you do the circadian thing with a newborn? Is it just the same?
A: In most ways, yes, you take care of a newborn’s circadian rhythms the same as your own. A key difference is newborns don’t make their own melatonin1. This means they are dependent on the mother’s milk—and the strength of her circadian rhythm—for the hormones of their circadian rhythm2. Getting baby outside and in a social routine with the rest of the family is the other key to syncing their rhythm up with local solar time (ie, being awake in the day and sleeping through the night)3.
I’m working on a more in-depth post about how safe solar exposure is different for newborn skin than adult skin. Stay tuned for that!
In the meantime, if you care about this topic of early rhythmicity, you may want to revisit:
Your mother gave you your circadian rhythm.
And jump into the protocols at the end of the Newborn Jaundice Course. These give even more detail about optimizing a new…
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