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!

DS fully breastfed, woke every 1 - 2 hours from 9 pm to 5 am, which he decided was morning and time to play . Until he was about 3. I did try FF at 11 pm to try and make him sleep longer, all he did was throw it all up. DS also never slept more than 20 mins at anytime during the day!

DD fully breastfed slept from 9 pm to 7 am from about 3 weeks plus having a 2 hour sleep in the morning and the afternoon . I took her to the Health Visitor because I was so worried about how much she slept. She just smiled and told me I was very lucky. .

Well I ff my first. He didn't sleep great but slept through from 18 months and has never been a problem since. My second was bf and didn't sleep through till he was 3. Currently bf dd 14 month old, terrible sleeper. Can't see any end to it either tbh! She does have trouble with her ears though.

BF all three of mine. DC1 and 2 were good sleepers, DC3 wasn’t until she turned one. Depends on the child.

Baby waking in the night to feed is normal.

My two bf babies both woke in the night to feed - this is not 'bad' or 'poor', it's natural. Bit bl**dy inconvenient, not to say exhausting, for mum, but it trains you for the next 20 years of having your life completely wrecked dominated by them.

FWIW my eldest slept through the night on the day I introduced cheese to diet, and never looked back, he's now a very deep sleeper.

Babies aren't supposed to sleep through the night. They are supposed to wake to feed. Also reduces SIDS risk. FF babies may well be considered 'good sleepers' (I hate that term!) Or maybe they are more sedated as they don't digest formula as easy. Or maybe it was a cunning rumour started by some formula manufacturer? Who knows.

DS2 (9 mo) is bf and I would say his sleep is fairly normal. Has never 'slept through' but he pretty much helps himself in the night and neither of us fully wake up. He is then straight back to sleep. I am glad he still feeds at night - firstly because it's keeping up my milk production and secondly because the benefits to his immune system are dose related - the more breastmilk he gets the better. Especially as he is on solids now.

I imagine it depends how much milk you make. Some people just make more milk than others. If you make enough for the baby to gain weight but not enough that they feel completely full they won’t sleep as well. If you make oodles then it would be no different to bottle feeding them

Utter rubbish.

Babies aren't supposed to sleep through the night.

Bloody glad mine do.

What's rubbish about it?

Where do I start?

Do you understand about supply and demand? The more they nurse the more you make? And that babies don't just wake because they are hungry? And that it isn't 'no different to bottle feeding?'

Do you understand about supply and demand? The more they nurse the more you make?

Only works to a point. I fed every 2 hours at first without and finally and dejectedly with a supplementary nursing system and pumped when I could (during the short stretches the baby slept). I still didn't make enough milk for the poor blighter to gain weight at the expected rate. Because I just don't have the glandular tissue required to make the milk (tubular breasts). Now this isn't a binary condition - if I had a baby that needed less milk I might have made just enough. If someone had slightly more glandular tissue than me but not as much as the average woman they might have made just enough. Since the quantity of glandular tissue is variable there will be people who cannot make more than "enough to grow but not to satisfy".

And that babies don't just wake because they are hungry?

Obviously babies wake for reasons besides hunger but hunger is one of the major things that wakes babies and a baby that isn't hungry is much more likely to sleep longer than one who is.

And that it isn't 'no different to bottle feeding?'

In the context of sleep quality and nothing else.

I anecdotally found it to be true that FF babies sleep through more quickly. When I stopped BFing DS, within a week he was going through. Though I imagine that babies only tend to go into their own bedrooms once BF-ing stops, and I wonder if it's that little bit of distance during the night, rather than actual diet, which makes the difference. And obviously, some babies are just 'better' sleepers than others!

I still didn't make enough milk for the poor blighter to gain weight at the expected rate

Who decides the 'expected rate'? is it a health visitor/midwife with charts based on bottle fed babies? I lost count of number of slim women who were told their babies where not heavy enough. The babies were all perfectly healthy.
I am not a slim build and never told baby was overweight or underweight. He was very ill, but being short it looked on the graph as if his weight was OK!!

If you breastfeed your baby takes what they need when they need it, with the right mix of fore-milk and hind milk, then stop. Cannot be reproduced with formula. UK is really bad for breastfeeding which is a shame - mum's should get more help.

Who decides the 'expected rate'? is it a health visitor/midwife with charts based on bottle fed babies?

The current WHO charts used by the NHS are based on breastfed babies. He dropped from the 50th to just below the 9th percentile and looked extremely skinny. I was told he would be hospitalised if he didn't begin gaining more and I don't believe the NHS would spend money hospitalising a child for no good reason.

I haven’t read the whole thread but I think that bf babies sleep worse than ff babies.
However it all evens out after a year or two, and it’s worth going through some (temporary) interrupted sleep for all the other benefits.

He also cried all the time. Once I gave him formula he was like a different child (though he didn't go above the 25th percentile even then). Hardly ever cried. Smiled and played. And oh yes, slept.

In my NCT group of 8 only two are EBF. 1 sleeps through the night and has done from 4-5 weeks old. The other just started sleeping through at 6.5mos. Was more down to who did a Gina ford type routine, and who did co sleeping and sleeping in the same room and feeding on demand. (We are the latter parents). The other combi fed babies are a mixed bag. 2 sleep through, other 4 are quite shit sleepers. But all are happy babies developing at their own pace. Yes, sleep is important but so is avoiding childhood obesity, illness, asthma etc.

Why all the pumping - seems to be a new thing in the last few years??

It won't help you make more, just means the baby will get unnatural mix of fore and hind milk. Normal feed starts with fore milk which is watery and ends with hind milk which is thicker and more calorific. To make more milk, I was told to eat and drink well myself, and get some rest.

I think pumping is only needed if you are in a job where you can't be available as and when baby needs you, or you are exhausted to the point you need someone else to feed in the night. (Or if you are 'engorged' in first few days due to baby being removed from you in hospital.)

Why all the pumping - seems to be a new thing in the last few years??

I was desperate. I had built in my head the idea when I had kids I would breastfeed, that it was basically immoral not to and the only people who didn't just didn't try hard enough. I took domperiodne, pumped, used the SNS, fed basically constantly while the baby was awake etc. it was really hard for me to accept it wasn't going to work.

my dc slept through 11hours after first 6weeks - don't know where stats came from

DieAntword sorry you had such a bad time.

Both my children were/are breastfed. DD didn't sleep through until a year old. DS has been sleeping through fairly reliably for 6wks, he is 9wks old

I tried ebf, then combination feeding, then blfirmula, then hungry baby formula, then weaning.

None of it did a thing. DS didn't sleep through until he was 6 years old and put on melatonin.

2,209 nights of broken sleep. I couldn't leave him with anyone as he didn't sleep through. I may still be bitter

He's 11 now and still has to take melatonin AND an antihistamine to nod off.

They're all different.

DieAntword sorry you had such a bad time.

Honestly was probably karma for how smug I was about it before having my first. Taught me some humility.