AIBU to think ff babies sleep better than bf babies?

[Scrumptiouscrumpets]

It seems blatantly obvious to me that ff babies sleep better than bf babies. Just take a look at the sleep board on here, the bad sleepers under a year old are more or less all bf (and many of the older ones too!). Yet nobody officially seems to acknowledge this, all bf info I can find on the Internet states that bf mums actually get more sleep than ff mums because it takes more time to make up a bottle etc. Well maybe that's true during the first three months but definitely not later on when the ff babies start sleeping in long stretches while the bf babies start to wake more and more often!
I have a 4 month old who is ebf and I love bf, but I am seriously considering switching to formula.
Am I just imagining things? Are all these bf blogs right and bf mums actually get more sleep?

I'm totally pessimistic about increasing breastfeeding rates in the UK. We don't have a culture of breastfeeding, formula feeding is the cultural norm and has been for a few generations. I don't think any kind of NHS promotional scheme could possibly reverse the cultural shift. What might actually help those that do want to breastfeed is to concentrate any available resources (presumably very little given current financials in the NHS) on actual proper support. So, up to date training for HV and midwives, better access to qualified lactation consultants, more breastfeeding support on postnatal wards etc etc.

I would recommend going to the doctor if the baby were still losing weight one week after birth

For the benefit of the Breast is Best lobby, in Nottinghamshire they wouldn't even be concerned about a baby failing to gain weight Day 14. Then they would give midwife and lactation support for a week with advise (and warning) that baby would be referred to a paediatrician on Day 21 if still not gaining. At no point is it Nottinghamshire policy to advise a GP visit due to a new born failing to gain weight.

I don't know about elsewhere and I don't know what the difference is with a newborn dropping centiles, as opposed to losing weight.

I would also add that a perfectly healthy breastfed baby with no issues feeding or health issues could easily still be losing at Day 7. To seek medical advise at that point just puts the newly breastfeeding mother under unnecessary pressure, in my view. It could easily be into the second week before a 'normal' baby starts gaining weight.

My twins were formula fed. one slept like a trooper and was a bit chubby and one was a skinny insomniac. Theory Smeary!

Hv told me the reason my 6 month old did was no longer sleeping through was because she was breastfed and digesting the milk quickly.

Pearl when (breastfed) DS3 was first weighed by the health visitor, at about 2 weeks old, it turned out his weight was unchanged since he'd been weighed by midwives a week before.

HV said they'd be back out in 3 days to re-weigh him, and that they'd recommend formula top ups if he still wasn't gaining weight. So IME introducing some formula would be pretty much the first thing suggested if a baby was losing weight.

In our case, DS3's tongue tie got snipped about the same time as this weigh in, and he started gaining weight rapidly after that. So I don't know how the HV would have escalated things if her suggestions f formula top ups had (a) been needed and (b) not resulted in baby gaining weight.

I don't know about elsewhere and I don't know what the difference is with a newborn dropping centiles, as opposed to losing weight.

My breastfed DS did not put on any weight between week 1.5 and 3.5 and was dropping centiles.

HV told me to top up with formula after feeds and came out to weigh him more frequently.

Thanks for the link SpeakNoWords. So there is actually at least one study clearly proving my theory.

Seeing as sleeping for longer periods equals less night wake ups, this would mean better sleep - for me at least, don't know if others would agree. (personally I'd prefer one longer wake up to three short ones, even if the total amount of sleep is the same).

SpeakNoWords you are right in assuming it's a cultural thing. I live in Germany and the pressure to bf is just as high as in the UK, the advice and lactation consultants I had to deal with were pretty awful (not that they'll be like that everywhere of course). Yet bf rates in Germany are higher than in the UK because bf is seen as the normal way to feed a baby for the first 5 of 6 months at least.

FATEdestiny

Whilst I don't consider myself part of the 'breastfeeding lobby' (two ff, one bf baby) I think a good step would be to offer parents and parents to be, the training that health and child practitioners are receiving in clinics/hospitals and children's centres via the Baby Friendly Initiative. I found it to be very informative about what breastfeeding entails, the pros and cons versus formula feeding, it really helped me to decide to breastfeed my current baby even though I'd also learned the pitfalls of having to deal with potential tongue ties, mastitis and blocked ducts, cluster feeding and how BF babies can feed and then quite happily will feed again 10 mins later!
I think it would really help parents make properly informed decisions when it comes to infant feeding.

FATEdestiny, a healthy baby who is feeding ok would not still be losing weight at 7 days, though they might not yet be back to birth weight.

Yes, sometimes adding formula while finding out how to improve the breastfeeding is sometimes helpful, because getting nutrition into the baby is vital, it will usually improve the weight gain but will do nothing for the breastfeeding unless mum is also getting skilled support with that.

I prefer 2 or 3 quick wake ups compared to one longer waking, probably because that's what I'm used to. With a bedside crib, or co sleeping, you often hardly have to wake up to feed and resettle.

offer parents and parents to be, the training that health and child practitioners are receiving in clinics/hospitals and children's centres via the Baby Friendly Initiative. I found it to be very informative about what breastfeeding entails, the pros and cons versus formula feeding

I agree. It's like the information is there, but they keep it a bit secret because of the Breast is Best policy. If the BisB policy became about informing and educating openly, I think outcomes would improve.

I'm totally pessimistic about increasing breastfeeding rates in the UK. We don't have a culture of breastfeeding, formula feeding is the cultural norm and has been for a few generations.

What a defeatest attitude!

Many things that have been in the culture for generations change through health education. Follow the progress of sugar intake since the end of rationing. Or the journey of smoking from culturally normal through to socially unacceptable.

Yep, I'm a glass half empty kind of person. Although, I prefer realistic to defeatist as a description.

FATEdestiny, a healthy baby who is feeding ok would not still be losing weight at 7 days

Losing weight would indicate a problem with feeding method. Not health. A perfectly healthy breastfed baby who is losing weight continually, has a problem with breastfeeding.

If support and help is given and the healthy baby continues to lose weight, there will always come a point when feeding method comes second to health

Formula is not magic and should not be offered as a first thing to try, because there are a whole bunch of thigs that could be going on. Tongue tie, allergies, underlying health condition... SIL had to do an exclusion diet so that her baby wasn't getting allergens through her milk, but the paed was very clear that breast feeding was the absolute best thing for baby with multiple allergies. Formula would have worsened his condition, and exacerbated the weight loss. My own son has multiple allergies, he was bf to 18 months (EBF to 7 months, his choice, refused all food). His specialist said it was the best thing he could possibly have done. Formula would have been bad for him, too - CMP allergy.

Ideally, a lactation consultant, well informed HCP and plenty of support should be offered well before the casual suggestion of top ups. My third child never lost an ounce, was 99th centile, but one week he "only" gained 3oz. HV pulled a face and suggested top ups. I laughed at her.

All anecdata, but an awful lot of HCP and indeed, mothers, have a lot of misinformation fed to them and appear to believe it. Not helpful. We need to normalise breastfeeding, not see it as some unattainable gold standard.

People have unrealistic expectations of how long their young babies should sleep. They don't follow rules like older children and adults do.
They wake up naturally and fall asleep naturally whether it suits your routine or not.
All babies differ and should not be compared to any other baby. It is us who are unnatural by being routine obsessed because of the way we live today.

But like it or not where'smyhairytoe there are estimates of up to 5% of women genuinely having structural issues with milk supply. Their babies' weight problems will be solved immediately with Formula.

Of course it's utterly ridiculous when a HV suggests a top up because some massive baby has only gained 3oz in a week. But my babies never put on any weight at all when they were being breastfed. No health problems, latch was fine, just not getting enough milk. My breasts never even changed when I was pregnant at all, or after the birth. The true awfulness of having your 2 week old baby admitted to hospital because they are shrinking/ you are starving them has to be experienced I think. Formula sent them both straight back to the 25th centile line. They followed exactly the same weight pattern despite their feeding being different (one gave up, the other was sucking at me 24/7)

I think it'd have been far better to have understood exactly how hard BF could be. I had a baby who struggled to latch and suck and I immediately felt something must be very wrong and gave her formula.

She was low birth weight and needed treatment in nicu after birth and I panicked after a Dr told me she needed fluids to metabolise the drugs administered to her through her cannula.

We continued to try BF but never got a good latch and a period of sucking so I expressed and gave formula. In retrospect I gave up too easily as I hadn't expected that it was normal to have problems getting to grips with it at the start.

Luckily, my DD thrived on formula and quickly gained weight and has tracked the 50th centile for months.
I'm glad she benefited from the antibodies in colustrum and transitional milk but I sometimes wonder how it would have turned out if I'd tried a bit harder for longer.

I think setting realistic expectations of breast feeding and pushing the 'every feed counts' message is more helpful to new mums than 'breast is best' (and you've failed if you don't manage to BF).

From a personal point of view, I suffered hugely from anxiety after her birth and knowing that my husband could share the feeds and I wasn't entirely responsible for keeping her alive I think played a huge part in my recovery.

I agree that at a population level breast is most certainly best in terms of economics and health outcomes but each mother must make the choice that is best for her baby and herself, without scrutiny and judgement from others.

I think a good step would be to offer parents and parents to be, the training that health and child practitioners are receiving in clinics/hospitals and children's centres via the Baby Friendly Initiative

I'd agree with that.

DS1 was bottle fed after we failed to get breast feeding established.

Looking back, I'd say that a major part of that was how completely underprepared I was for a baby that didn't easily take to breastfeeding. The stuff I'd heard before DS1 was born had given me the misleading idea that breastfeeding was easy and natural, and that any problems could be resolved by changing baby's position.

Knowing more about potential problems, how to tell if something's a problem or normal breastfeeding patterns (e.g. that cluster feeding is normal), what to do if there are problems and who to ask...
All that would have been far more helpful in getting DS1 and me breastfeeding than a "let's not mention possible cons of breastfeeding in case they're scared off trying it approach", which just left me completely lost and with no idea what to do and where to go when there were issues.

I was much more prepared with DS2. Although he turned out to one of those babies who takes to breastfeeding like a duck to water, so I'd have got away with being unprepared for breastfeeding pitfalls if he'd been my first.

2 week old baby admitted to hospital because they are shrinking/ you are starving them

Basicbrown

The way I think of it is, in third world countries babies who fail to thrive like this die.

In the western world fail to thrive babies usually become part of the formula feeding figures. In the third would they become an infant mortality figure.

It takes a basic level of common sense to know which is preferable.

Everyone would agree with that FATE, I'm not sure anyone here is suggesting that breastfeeding must be protected at the expense of babies health or survival.

Do you think that current NHS policy and practise around breastfeeding results in increased infant mortality due to refusal to use formula?

SpeakNoWords: Yep, I'm a glass half empty kind of person. Although, I prefer realistic to defeatist as a description.

Realistic that it is not possible to change established cultural norms with well thought-out health education?

Indulge me...

About 30 years ago when I was a child, the advertising strategy for Milky Way (the chocolate bar) was that Mums could give their child a Milky Way just before dinner and it wouldn't full them up.

Woo hoo - empty refined sugar calories Mum can give her child without any effects on their appetite. What a fantastic product! This was genuinely how it was marketed as a chocolate bar.

I am now almost exactly 1 generation on. I have children the same age I was when this Milky Way advertising campaign was running. The attitudes of my children towards surgery foods (and mine as a parent) could not be more different.

This change has happened within 1 generation with the help of effective health campaigns backed up by forward-thinking health policy.

Being defeatest about Breast is Best policy is not realistic, it is a consequence of really poor policy decisions. BF rates in the UK could be much higher if the health policy was more robustly thought through.

breastfeeding results in increased infant mortality due to refusal to use formula?

I have never come across a single health professional in the NHS who would advise a mum to breastfeed regardless of babys health. Because their priority is the baby, not the feeding method.

Breastfeeding is not that precious.

I don't really understand the hunger stress thing. When you are breastfeeding, if your baby gets a bit grumpy, then you whack them on your boob as a first resort. Occaisionally, if you are somewhere where whacking them on your boob is not practical, then there may be a few minutes delay where baby gets a bit shouty.

But presumably, if you formula feed then there is alway a delay, every feed time, while you faff around with prepping, or at very least heating, the bottles? And you might have to put the baby down to do this. Cue more screaming. So aren't formula fed babies subjected to slightly more hunger stress.

Or are formula fed babies mostly fed by timetable rather than on demand?

I'm sure you're right. Is there the political will and the money for it though? I don't think there is, and there won't be for a good long while I suspect. Plus you can't talk about breastfeeding in our current culture without it being taken as an insult or attack on those who formula feed. How do you envisage a better health policy could address this?