Is there any difference between FF & BF babies in your opinion?

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I FF my first but now thinking about BF for my second. I wonder though from people's experiences on here, what difference in any did you see in a FF vs BF baby?

I'm not wanting to start a controversial thread, fed is best and I don't judge anybody for how they decide to feed their child. I just want opinions.

My bottle fed babies were happier and have been more resilient health wise than my breast fed babies. So glad I spent all those months on my knees breast feeding 🤣🤷🏼‍♀️

Babies, however they are fed, should be fed on demand and not an arbitrary schedule

My daughter is turning 22 months, and I’m still breastfeeding her.

Pros:

1.	She has gotten sick far less often than babies her age, who often rely on paracetamol and antibiotics to get better. Breast milk really helps as a home remedy when they’re sick, and she recovers more quickly than many of my friends’ formula-fed babies.
2.	It’s convenient at times and makes it easier to pacify her.

Cons (This is just my personal experience):

1.	Breastfeeding has been extremely demanding and has caused me a lot of stress and postnatal depression.
2.	My baby refused bottles after 3 months, which meant I had to be available 24/7 to feed her every 2 hours.
3.	She rejected formula even when I was tired of breastfeeding because she became addicted to the taste of breast milk.
4.	She refuses food, is a very picky eater, and prefers breast milk all the time.
5.	She still wakes me up every 90 minutes at night for comfort feeding.
6.	Her growth is significantly stunted—this could be unique to our case, as she’s being investigated for other issues, but I’ve noticed that all the formula-fed babies I know seem more alert and have grown more compared to my daughter.
7.	She’s extremely clingy to me.
8.	I’ve found it difficult to attend social gatherings because I see other kids, bigger and more aware, eating all sorts of things, while my daughter clings to me, refuses food, and only wants to breastfeed.

I chose to breastfeed because doctors, social media, and the NHS promote it as the best option. As a mother, you want to do the best for your child, even if it means sacrificing a lot. But now, I realize that’s not always true. If I had read more honest reviews like this earlier, I would never have exclusively breastfed, thinking it was the only right choice for my child. In my case, the small benefits haven’t been worth the challenges.

If I were to have another baby, I would switch to formula after the colostrum stage, giving my mind and body time to rest and heal.

looking at 2 children I doubt you could tell which was FF and which was BF but at a population level it must make a difference or else it wouldn’t be advised that “breast is best”?

I FF my 2

I think my attempts to BF and then guilt when I stopped certainly contributed to my PND

From our experience and what I have seen, BF - much clingier to mum, worse sleeper unless bedsharing, harder to wean onto food, cry less.

FF - better sleeper, happier to be passed around, harder to settle/cry more, slightly more cases of being a bit overweight when overfed to settle, vomitting/spitting up more.

Obviously not the case for every baby, but just my broad observations of pros and cons of each.

My breast fed first born was and still is the most sickly out of the lot of mine.. I have 4dc.

Can only comment on ff as all 3 of mine were ff.
We had no sleepless nights, all were happy smiley babies and we loved every minute.
They have all grown up into healthly, wonderful, strong women.

All my three have been breastfed and I think differences are more down to their personalities and genetics than how they were fed. DD1 has eczema and asthma, picky eater, hard to settle as a baby, not clingy now, didn't sleep through the night until fully weaned. DS has no eczema, asthma or allergies, good eater, very clingy and prone to tantrums, easier to settle as a baby than DD1, didn't sleep through the night until fully weaned off milk. Both had allergies when weaning but grew out of them (egg for DD, egg and milk for DS).

DD2 is only a week old and is breastfed. So far she is a much better sleeper and easier to settle than her siblings. I have my fingers crossed that I might finally have a baby who sleeps through the night before they are 2 years old!

If you want me to be truthful then I will admit to me formula babies smell a certain way. I don’t like it tbh. It is not a nice smell and I can smell it a mile off. But then I can also smell other weird things like sneeze & illness.

FF babies do sleep better and longer than breast imo.

Pros for BF
Easier on the gut/digestible
Increased immunity/antibodies
Less faffing /on tap
Bonding
Free
Better for environment

Pros for FF
Others can help
Can see how much baby has
Tends to feed less/stay full longer
Bond with dad too
Easy to do out and about (if self conscious)
No cracked nipples

There's evidence around BF benefiting long term health but you also have to take into account environment, genetics, nurture.

On and individual level there will be no difference.

On a societal level there will be better health outcomes for the breast fed babies.

There is no nicer smell in the world than the breath of a breastfed baby. I don't know if formula fed babies have that same buttery smelling breath.

I bf one for three months (actually combination of bf and ff as I had difficulty feeding) and one for 18 months. The bf one caught far fewer viruses throughout childhood but there's no way of knowing if how I fed them had any impact on this or if one just has a poorer immune system.

The FF baby did sleep better!

The biggest difference I've noticed is that the babies are the same but the mums are different.

How do you know if someone is breast feeding their baby? They'll tell you. Not everyone obviously, but the militant ones will announce it no matter what age their kids are.

Or in my case accost me in the formula section while I was with my adopted baby to offer breast feeding tips.

In which case I suppose one could argue I'm over sensitive because I was formula fed myself. It's probably where my ADHD comes from.😉

Bullshit

I find these questions so repetitive and unnecessary. How many times do people have to ask this?

No, you can't tell the difference
Yes, it DOES make a difference

@PillowRest that is just not true. You can be a responsive parent and feeder with a bottle of formula. How you parent will affect your bond more than how you feed your baby.

I BF x3 kids for 2yrs (bk to work FT at 6m) so combo from 9m ie had formula on baby cereal

They are never ever unwell and never had sickness bugs

I was BF until 2 and never ill either.
DH FF and has colitis and gets every virus going. Rest of us just carry on

SIL FF her 3 same age and all unwell a lot.

All the FF babies I know sleep better 😂 seriously though, individuals can tell you about the difference between individual FF and BF babies, which means nothing. You need to look at a population level. My understanding is that there are small benefits to mother and baby to BFing but you’d need to find the stats.

@Josette77
How do you know if someone is breast feeding their baby? They'll tell you.
spot on, the comments here are shocking and god help some struggling mum reading them.
The amount of ignorant and smug comments is depressing.

This thread is pointless!
You need to look at population level data, not anecdotes.
Humans are very good at justifying their own choices - so you are just going to get a list of people saying that what they did was right.
BF is obviously better for babies though - it’s purpose made for them individually rather than a generic ultra processed food. Most babies love a snuggly bf. It is hard at first but then much easier as you don’t have to faff with bottles. It is great if they are ill as it is the ultimate comfort and you know they will feed.

A friend of mine (mid 30s now) wanted to take part in a medical study recently. Part of the criteria was that you had to have been breastfed for at least 6 months. He wasn't but tried to fib his way in. They tested his gut and found he had not been, so he couldn't take part.

I can only conclude it has some effect on your gut which is measurable even 30 years later 🤷‍♀️

I bf my daughter until 2.5. No real difference in her compared to other kids except I'd say there is a special bond that grows between you and your baby/toddler, based off breastfeeding. Not saying you can't have that with ff kids, but it obviously will just be different.

Oh and I'm pregnant again and whenever the midwives ask about how my first was fed, I get a lot of approving smiles and nods from them when I say how long, like I'm in a special club. It can be a bit culty sometimes. Especially as she got older at baby/toddler groups, I found myself seeking out the other mums still doing it just to be able to have a chat about the various challenges of extended breastfeeding. They became fewer and fewer until eventually it was just me. I was that weirdo. I went out for drinks with a group of mums when she was about 18 months and one mum said "once your baby can ask for boob it just starts getting creepy and weird"... I was there like "oh man, she's been asking for months now... do people really think that's creepy and weird?"

Other things to consider: bf mums need to think about what they're wearing everyday. You need boob access. Obvious when they're small but gets a bit tiring once they're nearly a year. And you're in maternity bras for most of that time too. Oh and I had to wear nursing pads until she was nearly a year or I'd leak. Things like child free weddings or just evening social events without baby can be a pain because not all bf babies will take a bottle and not all mums can pump and that just causes stress. And people will tell you "just pump!" Like there's anything "just" about it.

I'm moaning a lot here but I wouldn't have changed it for the world. It was really special. Again, not saying you can't get that with formula and the plan with our second is certainly to combi feed as I am concerned about juggling breastfeeding with toddler but I'm glad I did it once for the experience.

My experience (of my own kids and those of friends and family):

• bf babies don’t sleep as well - wake up much more in the night and take longer to sleep through. Mine didn’t sleep through until I stopped bf at 13 months - most of the ff babies I know were sleeping through at 3 months. It is much harder doing night feeds with a ff baby though as you have to make up the bottles - I co slept so found the night feeds just about manageable.
• ff means mum gets a break and parents can have a much more equal role…in theory. In reality most mums are off on leave and dads are at work so doesn’t seem to make a huge amount of difference the majority of the time.
• It’s not true to say that bf mums love their babies more or have a better bond obviously - but there is a difference in how you feel about proximity to your baby caused by bf hormones. All the ff mums in our family left their babies with grandparents for their first overnight stays within the first 1-2 months (and had a great time, a good rest, baby was happy - all good!). Whereas you would have had to prise my 6 week old from my cold dead arms before I’d have left them for more than a couple of hours at that age. Literally couldn’t have contemplated it. The babies felt the same way and had an intense need to be near me (their food source - makes sense). There are mainly cons to this from the mum’s point of view I think!

Obviously can’t comment on supposed immune system benefits etc as you need a much larger sample size for that. Anecdotally my bf kids have all managed to swerve the asthma and hayfever that everyone else in their dad’s family (including DH and cousins who were all ff) have, but that could equally be my genes.

I also know that it’s protective of cancer and diabetes in the mother and now that I am a mum I obvs need to stay alive forever for my kids so that is a nice bonus.

Overall I’m glad I did it - the hard days establishing it both times were easily balanced out by the convenience and pleasure of it later on. We are lucky though to have a choice!

Exclusively BF DD to almost 3. She's never sick. A cold lasts 24-48 hours for her at most while her friends will be fine with the same cold for a week or two. She eats everything. Very good at self regulating (which I'm not) and can take or leave snacks, sugar etc. Eats one biscuit where I would eat half the packet.

Sisters kids - first FF and second two EBF to three years. The FF son is always sick, very fussy with food, has extreme food phobias and very bad gut issues. Also autistic. Second two who were EBF to 3 are rarely sick, eat everything, strong guts.

But there are likely other factors too. The FF nephew has had a lot more medication than the others and a lot of antibiotics. My DD has never had antibiotics and she's 17. My sisters BF boys have only had them once or twice (they're 18 and 25). But is that because being EBF stopped them getting sick enough for antibiotics in the first place, possibly.

I think the health and microbiome benefits of EBF are undeniable but there are so many other factors that affect children's health and happiness.