Do FF babies really sleep better?

[MrsLOllypop]

Met with my AN group today for coffee and of the 8 babies that were there, all except DS (21 wks) & one other (18 wks) are sleeping between 7 and 12 hrs per night. We are the only 2 EBF, the rest are FF or have both. On a gd night DS will go 4 hrs between feeds, but good nights are few and far between. So I guess I'm asking if it might help to introduce a FF at bedtime? I really wanted to make it to 6 months EBF, but am worried that he is overtired.

[crazygracieuk]

Not always.
I have 3 ff kids. First slept through at 4m, second at 4 weeks and third at 9m.

[MrsLOllypop]

Am putting hands over eyes and pretending I didn't just read 9m

[vodkaanddietirnbru]

I have 2 ff children - dd slept through at 5½ months and ds was 8 months (had to be persuaded gently to give up the night feed)

[teacher123]

Are they all telling the truth...?!

DS is 6 months now, and has slept through the night once (night before last). He was ebf until 4 1/2 months, then I introduced some formula at bedtime on the advice of my HV (which he doesn't always have, some days he has just a sip, some days he has 4 oz, random baby!)

It's hard because anecdote is not data, there was a thread on the breast and bottle feeding page asking when breast fed babies slept through, and there were answers from 6 weeks to 2 years! It also depends what you mean by 'sleeping through'. The night before last, DS slept from 6-6.30 without waking up. However he had been doing 5-7 hour stints before that, with the odd 9 hour one thrown in for good measure.

DS started out as a terrible sleeper, I have posted on here many times asking for advice and have lurked on these boards daily since he was born. I don't know whether the formula has anything to do with his sleeping better but I have started weaning him (waited till 25 weeks) so maybe that has helped too, I imagine it's a combination of lots of things. The biggest thing though that made a difference to us was him learning to self settle. He has found his thumb and you can hear him furiously sucking his thumb when you put him in the cot at bedtime!

You could try the formula and see what happens. That's what I did, but I don't know how much difference it made.

[EnglishGirlApproximately]

No. Ds is ff from 3 months. Hrs slept through from about 10 weeks to 18 weeks, lulling me into a false sense of security, then decided sleep is for wimps. Weaning doesn't help either

[ISeeDeadFairies]

Smug alert!!!! Ds is 22 wks and has been sleeping thought night since 7wks... He goes from 8/9 pm until I have to drag him out on school run. He then goes back to sleep after breakfast. He is ff.

I do think he may be a reincarnated teenager tho!

[stargirl1701]

No.

[ISeeDeadFairies]

To be fair dd was ff and is now 5. She still doesn't sleep through the night regularly.

[MistressIggi]

He will not be overtired, though I'm sure you are! I would question whether sleeping for long periods of time is what a baby really needs - clearly they are designed to sleep a bit, feed a bit, sleep some more, since so many babies do this. We need longer stretches of sleep, but I don't see that a baby does - waking up and reconnecting with parents is lovely from their point of view!
I've had two ebf babies, the first one slept for far longer chunks than this one is doing, there's more to it than the milk I think.
I could of course be talking nonsense as haven't had a full night's sleep in six months

[Flojo1979]

In my experience yes, but everyones is different. My DS was too hungry and formula helped with that, so once on formula, he slept much better.

[RubyrooUK]

My DS was ebf and still doesn't sleep at 2 years old. He is just a rubbish sleeper and nothing has improved it really. He did improve a bit when I gave up bf at 16mo as he wasn't waking up eight times to have lovely snuggly feeds all night, but he didn't need food all night by 16mo.

My friend has an ebf 2 year old who has rarely spent a night awake since 2 months old. Another friend has an ebf baby who has slept through since she was five weeks old.

I have friends with ff babies who have slept through from a few months old. And lots and lots whose babies and toddlers still wake up now.

So I don't think there is any guarantee that ff would make a massive difference before your baby is ready to sleep. Sorry....

[MrsLOllypop]

Thanks for your responses. He used to sleep 7 hrs but then hit what I presumed to be the 4 month regression early at 14 weeks, but we've yet to emerge the other side! Think we have now hit a growth spurt as back to feeding every 90 mins. Think I'll try and stick with the EBF for another couple of weeks then maybe try the FF and see if we get lucky (she says with everything crossed & lucky Buddha clutched to chest ).

[Stokey]

Dd1 was ebf and slept through from the start - I had to wake her for feeds for the first 6 weeks at 3 in the morning as she was losing weight. When She reached 6 weeks, I stopped waking her and she slept from 7 to 7 with dream feed. Dd2 has had a bottle of formula every night at 10-11 since her first week as she was prem and losing weight but still is not sleeping through at 7 months. So I honestly think it depends on the baby. I would also take the other mums statements with a pinch of salt, v unusual for 6/8 babies to be sleeping through at 21 weeks IMO.