Issue with eating before sleep?

Question

I get that it creates an association between eating and sleep, but what is the problem with it? My 8 month old has always eating before a nap or bed, everything I read says remove the association, but I can’t find a good reason why. Can someone share what they’ve done and why it does/doesn’t matter? Thank you!

Answer

If its not a problem for you then its not a problem. Sleep is developmental.

Answer

I always nurse before sleep. Makes sure his tummy is nice and full. I put him in the crib awake so he can learn some self soothing but the nursing definitely helps him get sleepy. Nothing wrong if it works for you!

Answer

I gave my baby bottles before nap and bed her entire first year. She is 13 months now and when we switched to cows milk I still offered her a sippy before bed. She sleeps 12hrs a night now and usually just a drink off her sippy cup right before going down so. I was never told I guess to remove that association. I just did what worked for us. What i found more helpful was putting her down awake or drowsy so she learned to put herself to sleep. That was a bigger game changer for us.

Answer

Our two year old eats before sleeping and always has. He has lunch and then a nap. Later he has dinner and goes to bed. He goes down great for both and sleeps well. He doesn’t get sleepy just because he eats. He’d stay awake and play if we let him.

Answer

I don’t feed my 13 month to sleep, but he needs a full stomach to fall asleep. I don’t mind my newborn falling asleep on the bottle, but around 3-4 months, that habit needs to be broken.

Answer

Because it gets your child used to being fed prior to bed which then leads to being something he needs in order to go to bed. It’s pretty common sense and you can easily find information on this anywhere on the internet. It’s also why you should limit the amount of time you spend rocking your kid to sleep or the use of swings and rockers for sleep. It prevents them from learning how to self soothe and put themself to sleep on their own.

Answer

So sleep associations, particularly at bedtime, create a need for that same thing whenever baby wakes up throughout the night. Everyone wakes up throughout the night, but most adults don’t remember because we quickly put ourselves back to sleep, if you wear a sleep tracking device you may have noticed this already. Babies do the same thing, but sometimes rouse themselves the whole way awake and once they have developed object permanence, they realize that whatever was there at bedtime, i.e. a bottle, isn’t there, they often will wake the whole way up and cry for it to help them get back to sleep, rinse repeat. 
Feeding to sleep is also not ideal once baby has teeth because it can lead to cavities and early tooth decay if the milk pools in their mouth from falling asleep while drinking. 
For further sleep association information, I like the book Precious Little Sleep (also the blog, podcast, and FB group). It explains all these concepts really well in the context of teaching independent sleep and gives examples of “sneaky” sleep associations that can throw a wrench in the whole
Bedtime routine.

Answer

To promote healthy independent sleep that isn’t predicated on needing anything. We have a sleep consultant and they call things like feeding to sleep, pacifiers, swaddles etc. “sleep props” and the goal is for baby to be able to fall asleep unassisted. Otherwise you end up like my SIL who still has to breastfeed her 2 year old twins to sleep even though they should be able to fall asleep without it.

Issue with eating before sleep?

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