To think there is a correlation between babies that wake a ridiculous amount in the night and breastfeeding?

[toomuchpeppapig]

I've seen quite a few threads on here over the last year or so that I've been on here about babies who wake constantly in the night and will only feed to sleep etc. It seems that virtually all (if not all) of these babies are breastfed.

I bottle fed my 2 DCs and although my oldest has never been a great sleeper (now 16 months old), I don't remember him waking as much as many of these posts say. Is it because bottle fed babies sleep better or is it just coincidence?

NB - I have nothing against breastfeeding. I personally tried and failed, and my thinking is that fed is best. This isn't an anti breast feeding post. I'm just wondering if my thinking is correct.

My 2 were both breastfed and were great sleepers from an early age. Personally for us I think it was more to do with solid routine than how they were fed. We NEVER deviated from the routine, which was hard and meant we missed some events but it worked for us. They are all different and I think I was lucky too!

Nope there is not a correlation. My son was one of the most appalling sleepers imaginable, so I stopped breastfeeding after a few months in desperation. Bottle feeding made no difference whatsoever. My son still didn't sleep through until he was 3.

My three were all breastfed until just over 1 year and while I wouldn't say they were terrible sleepers, they woke for a night feed at 4am MONTHS after my friends' babies had all started sleeping through. Breast milk is digested much faster.
But I loved that 4am sleepy feed, I was actually quite sad when it came to an end!

There is a statistical correlation- a number of papers report it, but not all have found the relationship. Its not currently known why the link exists in some populations but not others. The theory with the strongest current evidence is that faster response to cries in breastfed babies creates an operant conditioning response to night waking. St James-Roberts, Hovish & Owens (2017) videoed 120 London babies and found that a 1 minute delay in responding to cries at 2 weeks old was associated with a 40 minute longer longest sleep period at 3 months old.

Both of ours were breastfed and brilliant sleepers. Just fed and put them down- dummies if didn’t settle after a few mins(I know we were so lucky). Didn’t creep around to keep them in silence. I think this thread shows babies are an art not a science. You just have to keep trying different things til they work.

I think sleep is mostly down to the nature of the baby and their genes. The method of feeding makes very little difference.

I bf my dd until she was 6 months, then switched to ff. There was no change whatsoever in her waking habits, except breastfeeding meant I didn't have to get out of bed.

@Thebishopofbanterbury

I think genes definitely play a part!
I am a self confessed rubbish absolutely crap sleeper and my DS is too!

Depends totally on the child. Both mine were bf on demand - 1 slept amazingly, the other didn’t sleep at all. Just luck.

Bottle fed DC, slept through 7-7 plus 11pm dream feed from 8 weeks One of the main reasons I didn’t breastfeed was because I had heard the same thing and knew that Id be able to measure how much they were getting with formula.

I wonder this sometimes, my DD was up most of the night and was bf. Though she's still a bad sleeper now and she's not bf in years.

And apparently I was a great sleeper, I was bf.

My experience is different. Dc 1 breastfed was an amazing sleeper.... 10/11 hour night stretches by 10 weeks old. My twins, bottlefed one was okayish and the other pretty terrible.... I think it's all in their personality.

Yes - all the breastfed babies I know, including mine are horrendous sleepers

Well I've got one that was bottle fed and one breastfed. Bottle fed was a fantastic sleeper even as a baby. Breastfed is still waking in the night and he's 13 months. So I'm convinced breastfed babies wake more!

Breastfed both DDs until 14 months or so. Both good sleepers, and in fact DD2 was a dream, she would snuffle awake enough to dream feed and then straight back off and it was only ever twice a night maximum even as a newborn. Can’t say it was anything to do with me, or breastfeeding, I just got lucky but I did co-sleep a lot

For what it’s worth ( & this is totally unscientific) I think baby sleep depends on:

Genetics- if the parents were poor sleepers as babies I reckon their babies are likely to be so too

Weight of baby at birth- bigger babies need to feed less often on average, and this is particularly true until the baby is 10/11lb or so, a weight bigger babies get to after a few weeks

Expectations and Responsiveness of parents to sleeping and
crying- I think if you jump up straight away & feed, then over time the baby will want it, and I do think breast feeding has a small role here, I reckon on average breast feeding parents are more responsive

Time of stopping night feeds, I stopped about the time I weaned with my two.

And I think the issues are different with older babies/ toddlers/pre schoolers than with tiny babies, unless there is a medical need, only tiny babies need to feed at night. So with older ones I think it’s for comfort and parental attitude is important (one parent thinks it’s natural to have kids wake up and accepts it, another doesn’t and encourages the older baby to self settle.