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?

2 bf babies here, both were sleeping thru at 12 weeks, both continued to be excellent sleepers bar illness, growth spurts etc

I think part of it is to do with how bf can be easier during the night-no having to go to kitchen and prep bottles etc. Just up, feed and back to sleep. Plus theres hormones that means mum goes back to sleep easily.

I bf and mine has always been a great sleeper. I think it's also just your luck whether you have a good sleeper or not.

Plus theres hormones that means mum goes back to sleep easily.

What now? I seem to be missing these hormones.

I feed him, he goes to sleep, I can't sleep and then read MN for 2 hours, he wakes up for another feed, I fall asleep while feeding him, wake up in a panic in case I've dropped him or rolled onto him, then he goes to sleep and I lie awake again for hours.

So I'd say you're probably right OP.

Mine were all BF and co-slept. Slept through the night at 6 months, a year, and waiting for DC2 to do it at 11.5 years. Some humans sleep in different patterns; I've never slept through a whole night. A few hundred years ago, the norm was to sleep in two or more sessions.
Expectations have a big part to play. I think if you expect and accept several months of broken sleep, it's easier to deal with. An artifical expectation of a 12 hour sleeping 6 week old just leads to people feeling bad and trying extreme solutions (CIO, for example) for something that shouldn't actually be a problem.

My bf 11 month old wakes up 4+ times a Night, I never got this far with bf my others and none of them were ever this bad!

Both of mine were almost exclusively FF. DS was a terrible sleeper but not bad by 18 months. DD will be 3 in April and is still up up to six times a night.

My best friend also has a boy and a girl. Both EBF until weaning, continued BF until 9 months. Her children are both excellent sleepers.

Obviously this is a very small sample, but in my experience, no. FF babies do not sleep better than BF babies.

LuchiMangsho
Thanks for your interesting post. You give me hope!

I breastfed DS for about five weeks but would give him a bottle at night as I tried BF night feeds and it exhausted me and I absolutely wasn't co sleeping. Plus I struggled getting him to latch at times at night and after me in tears feeling like a failure we just gave him a bottle. He has slept very well since about five weeks, where he would sleep through till five or six in the morning after a last feed at ten/eleven.

After a shaky few weeks when he was poorly and we had a period of sleep regression at around 16 weeks he slept for twelve hours last night! In my experience I would say he slept far better on a bottle than he did with breast. And he's not chubby!

My formula fed twins didn't sleep through the night until 3!!

You can believe what you want it if makes you feel better but all babies are different and will sleep according to their own schedule.

I've breast fed two. DD woke every two hours for a feed, DS has pretty much slept through since coming home from hospital. Definitely agree with theory you have a sleeper or you don't. Formula doesn't come into it.

That will be why formula feeding increases the risk of SIDS. Little babies aren't designed to sleep through the night so whilst formula milk may make them sleep for longer periods due to the heaviness of the milk and also babies need a higher volume of formula than breast milk (similar to how you feel like a nap after indulging in a big roast dinner) it's not necessarily good for them.

Depends what you call a better sleeper?

Ff baby, up every few hours, takes ages to warm milk, screaming baby, faff, feed, wind, put back to bed = constantly knackered parents.

2 x bf baby, up no more than ff baby, shoved straight on a boob, in bed = everyone got a tonne more sleep

My ff baby slept through much earlier but the bf ones we're still easier imo!

I have two kids, one was ff and one was bf, they were (are in the case of DD2) completely shit sleepers.

Fact they do.. and I have done both. My dd3 had to be ff as I wasn't producing and she has slept through 8-8 every night for 18 months! And is a tiny thing in size 6-9 months clothes still so the chubby thing mentioned up thread is a load of bollocks.

Each to their own on how people feed their babies like I said I've exclusively done both with mine but had no choice the last two.

Meh..3 dc, ds1 was ff and was a decent sleeper.
Ds2 was bf and was a decent sleeper.
Dd was ff and doesn't actually know what sleeping is..she's 2 and I haven't had a full night sleep since she was born. I wish it did make her sleep better.

9th my kids were ff and both shit sleepers. Dd has complex med needs and couldn't latch Due to facial palsy. Ds didn't because I was on certain medication that would do him harm.

My dsis bf and her kids were equally shit sleepers. It was weird because our kids are the same ages, weeks apart, the stares we would get were the same.

Dsis bf would be glared at and me ff would be glared at etc.

I think it doesn't really matter as long as they are fed tbh.

I've had 3, all EBF, and all slept through from 8 weeks.

My only one FF was a terrible sleeper, and even at 10 is still an awful sleeper. My 3 other BF babies were dreams. Took good big feeds but only took about 20 min, no 'snacking' or on and off during the night and no night feeds really from 12 weeks r so. Easiest babies out of anyone I know. I really think alot of it is to do to with the expectations of the parents as well as the personality of the baby.

I'll probably get flamed for saying this but I think dummies have a lot to do with it too. From my own experience, if you ff, you're more like to give your baby a dummy which helps babies sleep better. If you bf, you're less likely to give your baby a dummy and so they wake up more as they aren't having the comforting sucking and want to use your boob as a dummy instead.

I'm very pro breastfeeding and breastfed both of mine until they were 2.5. They both were the most horrific sleepers ever and didn't start sleeping through the night until after I night weaned them and stopped co sleeping.

Nope not true. Both my boys were ff and my first didn't sleep through until he was 2. Dc2 is 8 months and wakes anywhere between 2-7 times a night.

Based on my 4 breastfed babies, I totally agree. Three slept through the nigh when switched to formula (4, 7, 8 months). One refused bottles and formula and was 2.5 when he slept through the night .

I formula fed all 3 of mine.

DS1= Horrendous sleeper. Didn't sleep through until 18 months old.

DS2= Brilliant sleeper. Slept through from 6 weeks old.

DS3= Brilliant sleeper. Slept through from 3 weeks old.

Personally, I think it just depends on the baby.

Three kids - all 3 ff and all 3 great sleepers. Anecdotally it seems to me that ff babies are better sleepers...used to say it was like having either a salad (bf) or pasta (ff) - the heavier pasta means you're less likely to be hungrier soon. Either way baby is fed and happy.

Re it being a 'faff' to get up to ff - I used to LOVE having a cuddle with my baby in the middle of the night. I'd watch my favourite pre recorded programmes and the house would be so quiet. It was hard to find such quality time during day.. then or now.

Guessing it wont apply to all babies. Mine is Ff, goes to bed 6:30pm, we dream feed at 10, she goes through to 6:30/7am, she has silent reflux but on Gaviscon, i think formula helps but its also down to how much baby needs to feed, my baby dropped the night feed on her own accord at 10 weeks old ( once Gaviscon was prescribed, reflux is a bitch) but friends had ff babies who night fed longer.

Why are breastfeeding mums less likely to use a dummy? Seems like a pretty sweeping statement.
I EBF and DS2 always has a piece of plastic plugged in his mouth