Mothers who shared their "knockout" bottles online are garnering criticisms for the dangerous way that they put their baby to sleep. The concoctions are made from breast milk or formula milk and it is mixed with baby food, cereal, and medicine.
The "knockout" bottle was first shared by Alexis Delaney from New York. She posted a picture of her mixture on Facebook and she said that aside from formula milk, cereals and baby food, she also added Tylenol. This was the mixture that she gave her son when he was not feeling well and claimed that it worked every time.
Her post got more than 20,000 shares and other mothers started sharing their own mixtures and claiming that it works well. However, not everyone is pleased as other mothers and experts say that it is dangerous and that the cereals on the mixture can be a choking hazard.
Mom's knockout bottle
Although the mothers who shared the mixture claimed that it works and that it is perfectly safe, thousands of parents online voiced their concerns about the dangers of feeding solid food to babies who are younger than six months and the negative effects of drugging children in order to make them fall asleep faster.
According to the NHS, babies should only drink breast milk or formula milk as they can't digest solid food yet. Giving them solid food can cause constipation, undernourishment, and dehydration, not to mention they could choke on the particles because they do not have a complete set of teeth yet.
When can babies start eating solid foods?
Babies are introduced to solid foods when they are around 6 months old. Complementary feeding or weaning is a combination of breast milk or formula milk and solid foods like bananas, crushed beans, and porridge. Weaning is done to help your child get used to the idea of chewing and eating, instead of just drinking and swallowing. As your child gets older, you can increase the amount and the variety of solid food that you give until they eat the same foods that you do.
The "knockout" bottle introduces solid foods in the most dangerous way because if the cereals are placed in the baby bottles, your child will just swallow them, thinking that it is milk, and they could choke or it could cause indigestion.
How to make your baby sleep faster?
Giving medicine to your baby so that he or she can fall asleep faster is frowned upon and extremely dangerous, especially to a developing body. If you want to make your baby sleep faster, prepare a quiet and comfortable nursery for him. Give your child a warm bath and feed him before bed, as that can help your baby relax and eventually fall asleep. You can also let your baby play during the daytime so that your child can feel tired at night naturally, and will have a good night's sleep.
For toddlers, you can set up a routine before bedtime, so that they will be prepared to go to sleep. You can wash them up, read them a story or tuck them in with their favorite toy. In this way, they will drift off naturally and they will have a fixed sleeping schedule.
