Parents warned over ‘dangerous’ trend with life-threatening risk to babies | World | News

Nutritionists have sounded the alarm over a seemingly harmless TikTok trend that could have real dangers for young children.

Social media plays a greater role in our everyday lives today than ever before – and with so much information at our fingertips, it can be difficult to distinguish between helpful advice and baseless, potentially harmful suggestions.

A recent trend that has taken TikTok by storm falls firmly into the latter category, according to nutrition experts.

Parenting influencers have been posting videos of themselves feeding their babies spoonfuls of butter before bedtime, claiming that the snack helps their children to sleep through the night.

The videos, some of which have racked up millions of views across social media platforms, may be an offshoot of the popular – and widely disputed – keto diet, which recommends its followers subsist primarily off meat, eggs and cheese.

In one clip, an American influencer called Elana Roumell, who claims to be a “paediatric natural doctor”, said the spoonful of butter ensured her baby son always gets “a peaceful night’s sleep”. Her video has been viewed over 200,000 times.

But a leading baby nutritionist has roundly rejected the claims that a mouthful of butter will help young children drift off.

Charlotte Stirling-Reed told The Times that there was “absolutely no evidence” to back the viral videos.

“Butter can be high in salt and saturated fat, which are not recommended in large amounts, especially for babies,” she added.

“Additionally, the texture and slipperiness of butter can pose a choking risk for babies who are still developing their eating skills … Offering large chunks of [it] directly from a spoon is not advisable.”

She added that many influencers capitalise on the idea of quick fixes, easy solutions that purport to solve complex problems with a variety of causes and factors at play.

“There are no specific foods that guarantee a baby will sleep through the night,” Ms Stirling-Reed said. “Otherwise we would all be using them and parental exhaustion wouldn’t be such a common issue.”

Daisy Ferns, who founded the Parenting Experts Academy, added that a spoonful of butter before bed could actually have the opposite effect on young children – forcing their digestive systems into overdrive just “when the body should ideally be winding down”.

“The vast majority of childhood sleep challenges stem from behavioural, developmental, or routine-related factors rather than simple environmental ‘hacks’,” she added.

“Even if a trick like this seems to help in the short term – although I wouldn’t recommend trying it – it won’t address the root causes of disrupted sleep.”