Baby Oatmeal Recipe to Help Your Baby Sleep Through the Night
Today we have a fantastic recipe perfect to add to your baby’s bedtime routine! It’s a banana oat recipe with a special ingredient that is true to help calm baby and get him ready for bed!
This easy and tasty baby oatmeal recipe is made with 3 simple ingredients that are sure to help your baby sleep better through the night.
This recipe is better for babies who have been eating solids for a couple months.
It’s made with ingredients that help babies sleep better and put them in a relaxed state before bed.
So whether you are dealing with an overtired baby or trying to come up with a soothing bedtime routine, this is the recipe for you!
I made this exact recipe often for my rough sleeper and it always helped him rest better, which is how I got more sleep as a new mom too!
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Contents
Sleepy Time Oatmeal Ingredients
For this baby oatmeal recipe, you’ll need only a few ingredients.
- Baby oat cereal
- 1/2 Banana
- 1 Chamomile Tea Bag
If you only have a couple of the ingredients, I’d still go for it and make it! The oats with the banana or oats with chamomile will still have a great calming effect!
How It Helps Your Baby Sleep
This baby oatmeal recipe is packed with healthy, effective, but not too strong foods that help induce sleep!
These sleepy time foods are oats, bananas and chamomile!
Bananas are a sleep-promoting food
Bananas are a special food to help your body get ready for sleep. This makes it a perfect treat for children and babies before bed.
Seriously, we always have bananas in our house, and the older kids are always getting them as a pre-bedtime “treat.”
They are high in potassium and magnesium both of which help relax your muscles and nerves.
This naturally helps the body feel calm and sleepy.
Also, this study shows that banana’s help your body produce melatonin, the hormone that makes you feel sleepy.
So again, bananas help relax the body and get it primed to produce lots of sleepy time melatonin!
Chamomile is a safe, calming herb
This recipe calls for a small amount of chamomile tea.
Chamomile is a nervine, which is something that helps relax and calm the nerves.
It’s an old remedy that has been past down through the generations.
This literature review states
“Chamomile is widely regarded as a mild tranquilizer and sleep-inducer. Sedative effects may be due to the flavonoid, apigenin that binds to benzodiazepine receptors in the brain”
We have used chamomile in our house long before our children came, and we started giving them chamomile as soon as teething pains started.
Making a big pot of chamomile tea at night is a great family tradition to help everyone feel more relaxed and calm for bed.
With this oatmeal recipe, you can easily incorporate it into your baby’s nighttime routine as well.
I recommend using only organic chamomile in your baby’s food and drink though.
The nonorganic teas are loaded with chemicals are not only harmful but can actually stimulate your baby, making them feel more awake.
Oatmeal for the Sleepy Time Win
And finally, this oatmeal recipe contains… oats!
Oats are another fantastic sleepy time food.
They are high in B6 (which helps reduce stress) and help the body produce melatonin (similar to the banana.)
So, you can each of the ingredients for this baby food was selected carefully and with lots of thought!
How to Make Sleepy Time Oatmeal
To make this make the baby oat cereal as you normally would, but instead of water, use warm chamomile tea. Then add a bit of mashed banana.
The chamomile adds a light sweetness to the oatmeal, and the banana makes it so sweet that any baby would love this, even without any kind of sweetener.
Yes, I tried it! And it was good.
This delicious oatmeal should help your baby sleep better through the night, plus offer a nourishing snack before bed.
Only give this recipe to babies old enough for solids. If your a breastfeeding mom, you can add a little bit of breastmilk to it if you like as well.
If you are nervous about using the chamomile, you can always just try the oats and banana.
It should still work great!
Sleepy Time Baby Oatmeal Recipe
This yummy and simple recipe is best when given to baby a couple hours before bedtime. The ingredients help to support a calm and restful night sleep.
Ingredients
Instructions
Mix 1 serving of baby oatmeal with warm chamomile tea.
Mash in 1/2 of a ripe banana into the oatmeal.
Let the oatmeal cool to room temp and serve to baby.
Notes
Always check the temperature to make sure it's not too hot for baby. Chamomile is safe for babies, however some people who are allergic to ragweed can also be allergic to chamomile.
You can test for allergies by rubbing a small amount on babies skin the day before and watch for a reaction.
Nutrition Information:
Yield:
1Serving Size:
1Amount Per Serving: Calories: 314Total Fat: 5gSaturated Fat: 1gTrans Fat: 0gUnsaturated Fat: 3gCholesterol: 0mgSodium: 145mgCarbohydrates: 62gFiber: 8gSugar: 9gProtein: 9g
I made this for my son and it hasn’t helped him sleep better at all. It’s actually made him sleep worse. He’s up every 2 to 2 1/2 hours.
Oh no! Getting babies to sleep can be one of the most frustrating things to deal with. Not everything works for all babies. I had a terrible sleeper and had to try dozens of different “tricks” to help him get some good sleep. This was a godsend for my baby. How old is your little one? Perhaps he is going through a sleep regression? Or teething?
I had the same issue. My son was frantic after I fed him this, more than I’ve ever seen. Didn’t sleep most of the night. Turns out that too much chamomile tea can have the adverse effect on a baby. I don’t think subbing the tea in place of all the water or milk is a good idea here. Maybe a tbsp or two instead.
You definitely know your baby best. What brand of chamomile are you using? Make sure it’s true chamomile and not a caffeinated version. Also, I should edit the recipe to include that I only used a small amount of oatmeal so only a tablespoon or so of the tea was used, and the mixture was half banana.
I haven’t read where chamomile can cause an adverse reaction as described above. I’ll dig deeper and see what I can find though! Thanks for sharing your experience.
Alright. After some more literature review, I have not come across anything that states that chamomile can cause hyperactivity. This doesn’t mean it can’t, it just doesn’t seem to be too common. Small amounts are safe for babies when used appropriately. A big thing to keep in mind is to make sure you are using real, organic, nothing added chamomile tea.
Nonorganic tea can contain pesticides that could make your baby react strangely. My child reacts strongly to food dyes and becomes hyperactive almost instantly. Some pesticides can have this effect too.
One thing I can think of is that some people with ragweed allergies, tend to have allergies to chamomile as well. I could see how this could cause some issues if your baby is allergic.
Also, any change in a nightly routine can also cause sleep disturbances.
When in doubt, always go with your mama gut! It’s almost always right =)
I tried this recipe and it worked great! Thank you so much! My sweet girl is almost 8 months old and has recently woke up a lot with teething pain. Chamomile is wonderful! It’s added to most baby sleep products so I’m not sure why the other comments say that it caused hyperactivity.. chamomile is known has a nervine which induces sleep! It bind to the receptors in your brain that are responsible for relaxation and sleep.
I really appreciate this recipe and will continue to use it as needed. Keep it up mama!
Thank you! I’m glad it helped your baby sleep! I loved using chamomile during the teething periods too. It was such a relief for my baby too and usually helped everyone get more sleep.
My auto-correct is awful. It keeps changing my words around. Please excuse the mistypes!
Hi Kristin, my son is 8 months and still wakes up a lot!
I want to give this a try and since it seemed to work for your baby I was wondering how much you gave her?
Hi! How do you use chamomile tea for teething?
Hello there! I really want to make this for my 8 month old.. How much tea do you add? I want to try this tonight! Thank you and I can’t wait to try this to see if this helps!
Hi there! What I do is pour 4-6oz of hot water over a chamomile tea bag. (I like organic, as the pesticides in non-organic tea may have the opposite effect and make them wired.) Then I just substitute the tea for the amount of water it would take to make the baby oatmeal. Worked like a charm for my babies. Of course, it’s not magic! But I definitely noticed it helped them wake up less throughout the night. And when your sleep deprived, any little bit helps! I hope you both get good rest mama!
Do you throw away the rest of the tea? It can you save it for another day
I always ended up drinking the rest of the tea. Chamomile is one of my favorites!
Hello Kristan. Can I use fresh chamomile instead of the tea bag? I want to try it for my 7 month old. Thank you.