AIBU “Breastfeeding makes for bad sleepers”

[mmmgoats]

I can’t help but think this cannot be right?!
Friend told me yesterday that she bottle fed her children because breast fed babies don’t sleep and are nightmare sleepers.
She said her midwife admitted it but also said the goodness they get from it should put weigh the bad sleeping.
I have never heard this before?! Was your breast fed baby a good sleeper?

(I don’t have babies yet, not for the want of trying, but have always had the idea in my head that I would give BF a go. So not being goady, generally interested!)

I feel like this must be purely anecdotal as surely there are formula fed babies that are nightmare sleepers too!

Breastfed both of mine for Over a year each.
They can both sleep for England!

This is apparently true, as far as I'm aware. Not so much that they're 'better' sleepers, but formula is harder to digest and it's easy to overfeed them, and therefore they might sleep more heavily (just like when we get really full and sleepy I suppose). Breast milk is easily digested so babies will want more sooner. They're supposed to wake a lot to feed though when they're teeny, there's no difference between day and night as far as they're concerned. All that being said, there's obviously variation between all kids anyway, which is probably bigger than the variation due to feeding method. Certainly it seems like a terrible reason for choosing ff over bf not least because making up bottles during the night sounds like hard work and you can't sleep whilst bottle feeding

Both of mine were exclusively breastfed and both slept really well at night (6-7hours) as well as having 3-4 hour naps during the day until they went to school. The youngest was breastfed until he was 2 but picked up every bug going and then some right up until the age of 7.

My formula fed baby night mare sleeper.
Breast fed baby 1 amazing sleeper
Bottle fed baby 2 good sleeper
Breastfed baby 3 terrible sleeper
Breastfed baby 4 really good sleeper
Bottlefed baby 5 pretty good
Breast fed baby 6 good spells and bad spells.

That's my group of friends from baby classes. I think it is completely hit or miss. My best friend had 2 great sleepers and thought it was mostly down to her routine... then I had my sleep demon child and she now thinks it is much more down to genetics. Some breast fed babies feed for comfort rather than food and might need fed more often to resettle but there are ways to help with that if that is wanted every family is different and every baby is different.

My BF baby was a great sleeper! Could sleep for a 5hr stretch from a week or two old, rarely woke more than twice a night. They're just all different.

FF babies do generally sleep better as the formula is heavy on their stomachs.

However my friend FF & has two non sleepers, actually thinking about it I know 5 FF non sleepers.

BF wake more to keep your supply going in the first few weeks & build it up especially for growth spurts.

My two are BF & first did not sleep for a year until sleep training. Second slept perfectly up until 4 month sleep regression then went back into a routine again. Now does 7-6 with a 4am feed.

They’ve also never had sick bugs or needed antibiotics.

Totally dependent on the child and maybe routines/lack of routines

My bottle fed eldest only just started truly sleeping through last year at 4 while my bf baby slept through (as in 7-7 with no wake ups) when I dropped his night feed at 1 year.

What bollocks. Mine are all fantastic sleepers.

My little boy is 19 weeks. I breastfed him till 8 weeks then switched to bottle feeding. When he was breastfed he'd was a nightmare sleeper. Wouldn't go to sleep till 1-2am then awake every 1.5 hours. Switched to bottle and it was much better. He started sleeping 9pm till 5am from about 10 weeks and now does 7pm till 6am, he's a crap daytime napper though.

Pretty sure it's baby dependent, my 12 week old (EBF) slept 2200-0500 from week 3-7 and 2130-0700 from 8 weeks old.
Think a lot of it due to luck though

Mine were both BF (for 2+ years each). Awful sleepers as young babies, but got the hang of it after a while (7 months for daughter, 10 months for son). Have been amazing sleepers ever since: easy bedtimes, sleeping straight through 12 hours with no wakings.

I bf 3 babies until they were over 1.

dc1 - amazing sleeper, at 5 weeks he slept, 7-10, woke for a feed and then slept 10-6 am., then fed and slept til. 8. At 8 month she went 7-7

dc2 - horrendous sleeper , fed once per hour until she was 6 months and I offered her water instead of milk, and she stopped waking up at all and became an amazing sleeper

dc3 - OK, not bad, woke once during the night until about 6 months, then slept 7-10, fed and then 10-6. But still aged 10 she wakes at 6 am, always has.

I think that HOW you breastfeed is more of an issue. I saw a lot of people (not UK) who bf for comfort. So, baby unhappy =food always and their babies fed constantly on and off during the day.
Because dc 1 fed like clockwork every 3 hours, and wouldn't feed in between, I never did this. I cuddled and comforted, and bf was just food. So in the night, or when they are crying I gave cuddles not milk.
I think that probably did help with sleep in a roundabout sort of way

I think it depends on the baby, not how they’re fed. I’ve a good sleeper who’s never had formula (and definitely give bf a go - I love it)

Can’t be arsed to read everyone else’s comments but your friends mentality really irritates me.

It’s wrong and backed up by nothing. She’ll never know if her child would have been a good sleeper or not even if it was breast fed. There’s just no way of knowing.

My BF baby has generally been a good sleeper, had weeks of multiple wakings but that’s to be expected during growth spurts / development leaps.
A friends BF baby less good and I know she was in her knees with lack of sleep.

Was talking to a Mum recently who was also despair that her formula fed almost one year old doesn’t sleep.

Ability to sleep at night is hormone related and all baby’s get there eventually regardless.

Yes formula fills baby’s up more so they often go longer without a feed ergo more sleep at night.

BUT small baby’s are programmed to not be in such a deep sleep and wake up hungry regularly. It’s so that they actually do wake up, there is a reason there is a lower SIDS risk in BF baby’s

Well my bottle fed baby slept through for 8 weeks. And my breast fed baby slept through from...well 19 months and still waking.

It's true, but nobody likes to admit when they have a good sleeper, because it can enrage other parents.

My bottle fed DD was an amazing sleeper

My bf DS has been a terrible sleeper. He's started to sleep through the night now at 14 months but only since he's started to eat more solids through the day

I BF my son for almost five months. He was a horrendous sleeper, generally miserable and never napped during the day.

I was so exhausted that I tried him on formula and the change was unbelievable. I think he was permanently hungry when I was BF.

Apart from my eldest, they were really good sleepers and all breast fed.

Yes, research supports the assertion that bottle fed babies sleep much better than bf babies.

I was lucky enough to have 2 very good sleepers and both breastfed.

I was told once that formula for a newborn can keep them asleep unaturally long as naturally a newborn should wake frequently in order for the mother holding them to help regulate their temperature and breathing. Don't know how true this is but suggests very early sleeping through the night is not necessarily a good thing.

3 children. First 2 bottlefed. Eldest was a great sleeper. Middle was and still is (at 5) a bad sleeper.

Youngest breastfed, and is my best sleeper out of them all 🤷. He self settled from birth. Slept through the night 12 hours at 10.5 months. My middle one still doesn't sleep through.

Well my mum breastfed me and my two sisters and two of us slept through the night from 4 weeks old and the other from 4 months old. I've breastfed both my children and one was an amazing sleeper and the other is a dreadful sleeper. I think having a good sleeper is dependent on more than just the type of milk s/he drinks. It's simplifying something with a lot of variables.

I’m bfing my second now - both completely on demand and they’re just different people. Dd was impossible to put down for the first 3 months and woke every 2 hours for ages. DS is 5 months and slept 8 hours last night and was doing stretches of 5 hours very early on.

Dd was my nct group’s cautionary tale but as soon as she dropped her nap at 2 she’s been a cracking sleeper, so it’s not long in the grand scheme of things.

No difference at all between my bottlefed and breastfed children.