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?

All mine where ebf,.the youngest was the worst sleeper and she was also the biggest. I have to say looking back I probably should have introduced formula feeding, for her sake as much as for my own. But I really really wanted to bf. Seriously I put a huge amount of pressure on myself. When I did eventually stop at 13 months she still did'nt sleep and woke during the night asking for milk until around 2. Oh how I miss those days

No one mentioned the drawbacks to bf i dont find that to be true to be honest.All i heard where horror stories about bf.Whereas i had a great time,loved it.Never had a problem with latch,mastitis or anything.

I did have off days but overall it was a lovely experience for me.

Both of mine are still shit sleepers (aged one and 9 months). Always have been, I FF both from birth, didn't make any difference with mine.

My DD is 6 months and mostly BF with two bottles of formula a day. She's done this from the very beginning. She has for months refused the breast during the day (I pump) but takes it at night. Having a 6-7oz bottle of formula before bed has made zero difference to her sleep. Ditto with solids. She's just a frequent water, mostly looking for comfort and sometimes hungry. I'm just glad that she feeds for ten mins (or dummy given and held) and goes back lovely and so do I.

When she had a cold and needed a bottle as refused the boob at night, we were up 2hrs as it woke her up fully feeding this way, even though she had the bottle all day.

Be wary of giving up as the magic cure, especially since you enjoy it.

didnt make the blindest bit of difference for any of my 3 kids, but they all gained weight and breastfed brilliantly anyway. I thought formula might help ds1 sleep, but the only difference it made was that i had to get up to warm up bottles 3x a night instead of rolling over and getting my tit out. I really wouldnt recommend it as a way of making kids sleep. You might just make things harder for yourself

Florida sunset: sorry you were upset by my comments. Fewer bf mothers will use dummies because they are told it could interfere with latch. If you are giving a bottle then there is no problem with giving a dummy as it is the same sucking technique for the baby.
I actually bf and used a dummy after the latch was established.
I'm terribly sorry you found this judgemental, it is judgemental in that it is my subjective opinion (albeit based on facts given to mothers), but I didn't judge either way. There's more than one way to skin a cat!
I really didn't mean to offend anyone. As I tried to reiterate further up, certain combinations of actions go together better (and I make no judgement on which way is better - all mothers and babies are different) Hope you have a jolly rest of your day.

It's tricky isn't it, if you say 'labour wasn't that bad and breastfeeding was only uncomfortable for the first week' then you get accused of being unrealistic and/or a smug twit, if you say 'well I did scream for almost all the pushing stage and DS breastfed pretty much every 2 hours for the first 4 months' then you run the risk of scaring people.
All my true experience, but phrased differently/with different bits highlighted.

FWIW I'd say what I got told about labour was realistic to my experience and from what I got told about breastfeeding I thought it would be harder than it was.

I formula fed DS (no choice, have had mastectomy) and I didn't encounter any judgemental attitudes except when we had a stopover in Heathrow airport. Three different women decided to tell me I should be bf instead. All were pretty nasty about it too.

We aren't in the UK and the advice here is a bit different but DS has always been an excellent sleeper, we coslept from day one, I carried him everywhere in a wrap sling and have always been very relaxed about things.

Re SIDS, we were told here that the biggest difference is cosleeping, and in countries which culturally routinely practice safe cosleeping, SIDS is extremely rare.

Sorry meant to add that I do think its primarily down to individual babies, rather than what you do.

DD was ebf until she was 6 months, slept decently with the odd waking.

We swapped to ff (various reasons), had a nightmare with sleep. It was actually not hunger but development spurs and absolute awful teething which caused the nights being really fun.

A friend did ff and her DS didn't sleep well until he was over 3. I don't think the way of feeding is the reason for sleepproblems.

Do I just have a blind spot or do people (other mothers, HCPs, lactation consultants) really avoid mentioning the disadvantages of bf?

It's really difficult to tell someone who is super keen and has that FTM optimism that they are doing it "wrong" or doing it "the hard way". Given I am mum to a 2 year old (and also a mum of 4) who is surrounded by loads of FTM friends both in real life and online, it was sooooo hard to keep my mouth shut. Especially for the first 6 months.

You don't want to look like a knowitall tit. That's the main reason the conspiracy exists. Plus FTM just don't want to believe it.

Things I'm desperate to say to new mums, but usually don't:
● you'll regret not giving your baby a dummy when you are rocking/feeding or otherwise stressing about your non sleeping child.
● stop being precious about breastfeeding. Yes, breastfeed. If it's all easy and stays easy then great. If it isn't, don't stress your baby because you at too precious about feeding methods.
● cortisol levels in a baby matter. Newborn babies who are ff generally sleep better IMO because there is no hunger stress, ever. And therefore usually there is also no exhaustion stress. Breastfed babies have 40% more cortisol (the stress hormone). This affects the child. Period.
● Your plan to breastfeed to sleep and cosleeping is great while on maternity leave. When you go back to work, expect to carry on. If not, you're baby will be doing a lot of screaming at bedtime. Further exasperating cortisol levels. You could just establish a different settling method (dummy) from the beginning and never got to this point.
● Attachment Parenting (cosleeping, carrying for naps and breastfeeding for comfort) is not something you can decide you've just had enough of when you want more sleep. An attachment parented baby at 12 months (6 months even) will not just flip to independant sleeping. If you want independant sleeping- start early.

I could go on, but I know I'm sounding ranty and need to stop.

Suffice to say, I sound like a knowitall twat in my bullet points above. That is why experienced mums generally don't go about spouting I Know Best advise.

FF both of mine. First one started sleeping through from 9 weeks. Second has been sleeping through from 4 weeks old. Most people I know who BF, their babies are bad sleepers. I believe it to be true.

Because formula is so full of shit it takes their guts ages to digest it.

imyourmama what helpful input

FATEdestiny, it's really unfair to call mums "precious" for wanting to breastfeed. Is it "precious" not to want to feed your child something that's going to increase their risk of cot death, leukaemia, and diabetes? You say cortisol "affects the child. Period." but you haven't explained how it will affect them.

Wasn't true for me. I bf one child for about 8 weeks then went on to formula, and the other was bf for over 3 years. Both were rubbish sleepers. The one who was ff is still a rubbish sleeper now!

Because formula is so full of shit it takes their guts ages to digest it

ODFO

Also, as breastfeeding is the biological norm, wouldn't the cortisol level in breastfed babies be the 'normal' level, and the one in formula fed babies be artificially low?

Imyourmama That's not the only thing full of shit.

Fatedestiny - I'm glad you kept quiet you are not a know it all you seem to think. Your choices and opinions are just that and it's pretty condescending to assume others haven't considered their options or thought things through at all before making their own. E.g. Dummies have disadvantages too.

Why on earth would a bf baby have more 'hunger stress' than a ff one? Surely other way round if anything, as they never have to wait for bottles to be made up.

FATE would you seriously advise new mums (if you could, not saying that you would) not to breastfeed because their babies will be overstressed by hunger?

Maybe it's the wrong decision, but I've not used dummies with DS1 (now 4.5yrs) or with DS2 (6.5 months). I didn't need to rock or feed to sleep excessively. I went back to work when DS1 was 10 months, having always fed to sleep. He starting sleeping through at around that point, having only had 1 night waking for a while anyway. He also stopped feeding to sleep, and was happy to self settle. I just really don't recognise the picture you're painting at all.

WhamBamThankyouGeorge thanks, you didn't upset me but I just hate mums getting all judgemental of each other when there's so many things we probably already judge ourselves on.
I was more annoyed with another posters comments that ff mums are more likely to use cc, such a huge generalisation.

But hey ho, I hope everyone gets a good night sleep tonight

I disagree that BF gets hunger stress. I would have thought less stress but they go straight on the breast

And I speak as a FF parent

But I do agree on the attatchment parenting part

I'm not good at sharing my bed. Even dh doesn't share my bed . So I encouraged independent sleep as soon as I could. Now I'm lucky that both children responded well to that and now at 3 and 1, bedtime is literally story, kisses, lights out, done.

But again it's pure luck. Could have not worked

SpeaknoWordsi agree.
I think Fate thinks herself like SuperNanny.Knows everything.

Nope. Breastfed my DD who slept through for 8 hours from 3 months. She slept worse when we trialled formula for a few months when she turned 6 months old. Much worse after solids. Started waking up only once between 11-15 months. Finally settled around 15 months and sleeps through. In all bf made her sleep. I didn't enjoy it was a whole other story.