Q: How do you do the circadian thing with a newborn?

A: Breastfeed, sunshine, routine

Good morning, Baby!

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!

Edit: here’s the post about nurturing baby’s solar callus now that it is out:

Nurturing baby’s solar callus

In the meantime, if you care about this topic of early circadian rhythmicity:

And jump into the protocols at the end of the Newborn Jaundice Course. These give even more detail about optimizing a new baby’s circadian rhythm.

In them, I also shared new ways to support cellular health from preconception through early postpartum:

Support protocol 1: Preconception, pregnancy, birth and postpartum

Support protocol 2: For babies at home

Support protocol 3: For babies in the hospital

Cheers!

1. Kennaway, D. J., Stamp, G. E., & Goble, F. C. (1992). Development of melatonin production in infants and the impact of prematurity. The Journal of clinical endocrinology and metabolism, 75(2), 367–369. https://doi.org/10.1210/jcem.75.2.1639937

2. Caba-Flores, M. D., Ramos-Ligonio, A., Camacho-Morales, A., Martínez-Valenzuela, C., Viveros-Contreras, R., & Caba, M. (2022). Breast Milk and the Importance of Chrononutrition. Frontiers in nutrition, 9, 867507. https://doi.org/10.3389/fnut.2022.867507

3. McGraw, K., Hoffmann, R., Harker, C., & Herman, J. H. (1999). The development of circadian rhythms in a human infant. Sleep, 22(3), 303–310. https://doi.org/10.1093/sleep/22.3.303