Components in formula milks that improve sleep

Abstract

Human milk is the nonpareil food for the first six months of life. Breast milk is a non-static biological fluid and so it is a dynamic fluid that changes not only over the course of the period of lactation but also during the day. As a result, the design of formula milk has to be as similar as possible to breast milk because this contains nutrients for sleep and for awakening according to the time of day. For several years already, some manufacturers of formula milks have been trying to improve sleep in babies who suffer from sleep problems by adding substances that promote sleep, for instance the essential amino acid tryptophan or vegetable extracts like chamomile or valerian among others. Other vegetable extracts have also been proposed, which are reported to be able to enhance sleep in children. Therefore, by applying chrononutrition – a field of chronobiology that establishes the principle of consuming foodstuffs at times of the day when they are most useful for health – to infant formula milks, we can increase sleep in babies.