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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To blame extended bf for poor sleeping

49 replies

3mma35 · 10/03/2024 20:58

Posting here for traffic and opinions!

I have two DC. Eldest DC is a poor sleeper, the other, by comparison to eldest DC, is great. However in comparison to other children they’ve never settled easily and they like plenty of bedtime cuddles.

Both were exclusively breastfed to 6 months followed by extended breastfeeding.

The only other mum I know IRL that did this also has children who take (a lot!) ‘more’ settling.

Left me wondering if perhaps our children are actually normal but in a minority because exclusive extended breastfeeding is rare in the UK.

YABU - it’s just poor sleep
YANBU - feeding style has an impact on sleep

OP posts:
Row23 · 10/03/2024 21:04

I guess if they use breastfeeding to help them get to sleep or as part of their sleep routine then they will be harder to settle as they’ll always expect it.
My little boy is 1 and still breastfed, but I don’t feed him to sleep and he sleeps 11 - 12 hours overnight. He doesn’t require any particular settling at night and really dislikes cuddles so the only time I get close to a cuddle is when I feed him!

Wrongsideofpennines · 10/03/2024 21:07

I'm intrigued as to what counts as 'extended' breastfeeding. But I think feeding method has very little impact. Although people will often try and tell you that babies that are bottle fed sleep better.

My breastfed baby dropped night feeds at about 10 months and slept through from 12 months with no regressions. Friends bottle fed baby still doesn't sleep through at 3 - takes hours to settle, wakes multiple times, gets up for the day early. Its all anecdotal.

DontCallMeKidDontCallMeBaby · 10/03/2024 21:07

It’s not my experience, but my 2 dc are a small sample size! They both had periods of night wakings beyond the typical ‘baby’ stage, but they passed relatively quickly (although didn’t feel like it at the time!). I stopped feeding to sleep relatively young though, so maybe that made a difference?

Kitcatmouse · 10/03/2024 21:20

Eldest is now 4, breastfed until just after 2, always needed (and still does need) cuddles/closeness and never slept through the night consistently until after the age of 3.
youngest is 10 months and breastfeeds and has been either sleeping through the night or wakes once for a little while now.
I think it comes down to the child’s temperament, more than if bottle of BF ☺️

BingBongBoo86 · 10/03/2024 21:26

DD1, terrible sleeper, EBF and extended feeding until 3 years old. Still wakes up now at 4.5 years. Needed so much to settle, rocking, feeding. Still needs to be held to sleep and often is in bed with me.

DD2, currently 18 months old, slept like a dream since birth. Doesn’t need a lot to settle. Will fall alseep independently. Still breastfeeds.

I used to blame myself and breastfeeding a lot for my DD1s poor sleep but since having DD2 I realised she just finds it really hard to fall asleep and stay asleep!

JC89 · 10/03/2024 21:28

You have 2 children who were similarly fed but sleep differently, doesn't sound like it's the feeding that's making the difference?

FWIW, my DS (now 4, breastfed until he was a little over 3) has always slept pretty well. He used to take a long time to get to sleep because he was fed or cuddled to sleep but I think that's more to do with us not wanting or feeling like we needed to sleep train him (he would regularly sleep through from about 3 months although there were regressions when he was ill or teething - but there was no way we were going to mess with that!).

niadainud · 10/03/2024 21:30

Ohh. I was wondering what an extended boyfriend was.

As you were...

MillshakePickle · 10/03/2024 21:33

Mix fed both dc. Dc1 was completely off boob by 6m. Poor sleeper didn't sleep through a single until age 6! Dc2 10 m only stopped breast feeding in the last couple of weeks. Sleep 12 hrs solid every night, do bath, bottle, book, quick cuddle and straight into cot. Asleep with in 5 mins.

I think it's down to luck whether you get a sleeper or not. Both dc had/have identical routines and starts in life.

And, personally I don't think extended bf is as rare as you're making out. I know several women who are still bf 3 and 4 year olds. I feel like the odd one out as I mix fed and wasn't ebf until at least a year.

Pacificisolated · 10/03/2024 21:37

If you use breastfeeding to get your baby back to sleep at night then yes, it will make sleep more difficult.
I breastfed for just over 2.5 years but stopped overnight feeds at eight months and had my baby in her own room by then. Two nights of dad going in to pat her back to sleep with every wake up and she was reliably sleeping eleven hours through the night.
In my experience, most mums I know who did extended breastfeeding were also into co-sleeping/attachment parenting philosophies so didn’t take any action to improve their child’s sleep.

Shudacudawuda · 10/03/2024 21:38

I breastfed my DS for 2 years and DD for 3 years.

DS was a terrible sleeper and napper, DD was a brilliant sleeper and napper. Even now at 14 and 10 my DD needs way more sleep than my DS.

All kids are different, just like adults, who knows why some sleep better than others 🤷‍♀️

In my experience feeding method had nothing to do with it.

AmyandPhilipfan · 10/03/2024 22:04

I fed my daughter to sleep as a baby but then started getting her to sleep in her own bed and then letting her come into mine when she inevitably woke in the night. And she would then feed (well suck, I'm not convinced there was anything there!) back to sleep until I refused to let her do it anymore when she turned 5. She still often wakes up at night (coming up to 7) but settles quickly when she comes into my bed. And about a quarter of the time now she will sleep through. Still likes me to sit by her bed though while she's going to sleep. I'm hoping to stop that soon as I find it quite boring!

VeryScathingWimpod · 10/03/2024 22:11

I've put YABU because I think it does depend on the child.

My very worst baby/toddler sleeper is the one who drops off in minutes every night now. 😅 All of mine were bf past 2 and often fed to sleep.

notthatkindofFatCat · 10/03/2024 22:16

Makes zero difference IME.

My kids were all breastfed till 2-3 years and are completely different sleepers.

All coslept for the first 18 months +, nursed to sleep consistently. One struggles to wind down and actually fall asleep, but then so do I, one just lies down and is out regardless of light / noise etc. I did the same things my children and in many regards and yet with food, sleep, motivations they're very unique.

3mma35 · 10/03/2024 22:36

Thanks for all the viewpoints.

In regards to extended bf generally I would class as beyond 2 years.

I completely agree all children are different and depends on the child. As you said @JC89 I’ve got 2 different sleepers, DC1 extremely challenging poor sleeper and DC2 good in my opinion but most family and friends would class as a poor sleeper. (Should probably add both are older now!)Other than the 1 other mum I know, no family or friends breastfed exclusively and had stopped totally by 1 year at absolute max.

When I went back to work both still needed night feeds and just made up for the drop in day feeds by having more night feeds! Both very much milk monsters 😂

Also, for varying reasons, me and the other Mum I know had quite minimal input from DH for bedtime and nighttimes.

Absolutely I could be doing

2 + 2 = 5
and it’s just coincidence that the only other exclusive /extended bf Mum has 2 poor sleepers too!

OP posts:
3mma35 · 10/03/2024 22:51

In terms of how the actually slept and sleep training:

DC1 didn’t sleep for more than 2 hours at a time from birth to around 3 years old.
Did sleep train, this was in the days of decent HV support. Within a week or so he could ninja himself out of a safe cot in the middle of the room, and crawl to my bed. Pretty sure I spent more time putting him in his cot than I did in my own bed! Oh and the screams of the night terrors (when he was actually sleeping!) still haunt me. He still needs very little sleep.

DC2 - had a co sleeper cot, didn’t sleep train as he slept well, would go down in cot fine and sleep for 3-4 hour blocks although didn’t stop night feeds until 2ish - hence classed as a poor sleeper that and he hates being in a room on his own - whether it’s bedtime or playtime. But then so do I!

OP posts:
BertieBotts · 10/03/2024 22:52

I have EBF (4 years / 2.5 years / 2.5+ years ongoing) and they didn't sleep through before about 2.5 years.

I think it's a correlation and I think the actual cause is probably a combination of the child's individual temperament and the parents' behaviour - but I have a bit of a theory about this.

Basically when you get woken up at night by a baby (or anything) every drive that you have, every survival instinct wants you to go back to sleep ASAP while having expended the least possible amount of effort.

If you're breastfeeding on demand and for comfort and at any time (and you're past the first bit where you might have latch issues etc) then the quickest and easiest way to go back to sleep ASAP is to feed the baby as soon as it's clear they aren't going to go back to sleep on their own. If they're in a next-to-me type crib or co-sleeping then you probably do it even sooner than this, at the first whimper. Because you can go back to sleep even if the baby is latched on and lying next to you, and it's quicker to just scoot them over than to wonder if they are going to wake up properly or not. It doesn't matter how long it's been since they last woke up, it's always easiest to feed them and so that is what you in your half-asleep zombie state will want to do, and are most likely to do. The baby will fall asleep at the breast and you'll either put them back down and go back to bed or you'll fall asleep with them if you're co-sleeping. Your hormones are engineered to make you sleepy when you feed too, probably because evolution is trying to get you to expend as little energy as possible when feeding your baby at night.

If you're bottle feeding, it's a lot more of a pain to feed because you have to get the bottle, which might be in another room and maybe even on a different floor, you might actually have to go and make the bottle too, or warm it up. You have to sit up, have enough light to see, and actively feed them. You can't fall asleep while you do it. It's going to be a whole lot easier if you can get them to sleep another way. You are probably going to ignore them a little bit first because your half asleep zombie brain is going "Noooo, be a fart be a fart be a dream" (hoping they resettle themselves quickly). If this doesn't work and you do have to get up to them you're probably going to ssssh or stroke, try a dummy, or just cuddle them a bit first rather than start the whole feed thing which is going to guarantee you're up for at least another 15 minutes. That might work, depending on what woke them up and what sleep stage they are in, sometimes you can just tip them back over the edge to sleep again like that, so they don't have a feed. If it doesn't work and they do want to feed, they might fall asleep on the bottle but they also might not. It's not an endless (ish) supply like breastfeeding so the milk might run out before they fall asleep. You might hold them until they're asleep anyway, but equally, if they are happy you also might just put them down (that mythical "drowsy but awake").

You might co-sleep if they are a baby who hates being put down, but IME most of the time, past the newborn stage, a deeply asleep baby can be put down. Breastfed or not. So the breastfeeding-specific advantage of co-sleeping is being able to safely feed and doze.

If the baby wakes again less than X hours later, especially if you don't have a bottle already prepared, you're going to try even harder to settle them in other ways because you're going to be thinking "she can't be hungry again!" and/or "oh no I really don't want to have to go down to the kitchen!"

So the breastfed baby is more likely to be getting fed promptly at every feed, let fall asleep at the breast and either put down deeply asleep or they stay asleep next to mum.

But the bottle fed baby is having more of a delay before feeding, the parent(s) are trying other things first, they are less likely to feed to sleep, they are more likely to be put down awake, more likely to have a dummy.

I do actually think sleep is mainly developmental and individual, especially in the first year or so, and you can't necessarily teach a baby to self-settle if they aren't inclined that way. And I don't like all the moralising around sleep, like feeding to sleep is a "bad habit" no, fuck off, it's lovely. There's no reason to bring good and bad into this IMO.

But the bottle fed baby in my example is getting lots of experiences where they fall asleep, happy and secure and satisfied either by a parent's touch, or the comfort from sucking their dummy, or just because they feel warm and full and safe and their cot is the place that they've fallen asleep before, and so when they have brief night time awakenings as we all do, everything is as they expect, and as they get older they just start to drift back off to sleep in that situation rather than crying out for you.

Whereas the breastfed baby is experiencing lots of mum being very close and milk being available very easily. And while they will start to stretch out feeds naturally, when they have those brief awakenings, some of the time they will be thinking (not necessarily a conscious narrative) "I sleep with Mummy. I want to be in Mummy's bed." Or even "Where is Mummy? I'm not safe without her". Then they will cry for you, whereas a baby who is used to being in their own space, who feels safe in their own space, won't.

It's not magic, it's just biology - sleep happens when they have enough of the right hormones (being tired, being sleepy) AND nothing is keeping them alert (stress, discomfort, hunger, cold, light, noise) AND they feel safe/secure. You have control over some of this but not all of it. Some children also have more sensitivity to certain kinds of stress (e.g. sensory). It takes quite a bit of effort compared with just breastfeeding ASAP to develop that safety and security and familiarity with a different situation. The difference is if you're not breastfeeding, then you never have the breastfeeding option so you're stuck with the more effortful option from the start and it doesn't pay off until later.

I think there's not really a huge amount of difference - it's mainly luck until you get towards the end of the first year. That's when it seems to diverge IME - which might be where the extended breastfeeding connection comes in. Probably if you're intending to wind down BF by 12 months, then you're already switching more to night time behaviour closer to the "bottle fed" example, maybe even consciously adopting some sort of sleep training approach. Whereas someone who is still feeding on demand and doesn't have any end date in mind is likely to simply continue what they have been doing all along.

BertieBotts · 10/03/2024 22:53

Haha OK my definition of EBF is a bit out of date then because I tend to think of it as past 12 months - that was definitely what people thought when DS1 was tiny.

Maryamlouise · 10/03/2024 23:03

Both excellent sleepers, EBF though only until 18 months but by then neither were waking in the night for feeds and slept through fine. Just luck I guess

RidingMyBike · 11/03/2024 09:25

It depends whether they depend on BFing to get to sleep, surely?

Anecdotally this seems common amongst friends who EBF and Co-slept but they seemed to choose to do this and were very big on it being normal for babies not to sleep through until four years etc. So more to do with their parenting approach than actual BFIng?

Mine was combi-fed, not dependent on BFing/me being present to get to sleep from early on as we took it in turns to do bedtime. We also separated feeds from sleep early on which helped.

She was extended BF (3.5 years) but slept through from eight weeks.

3mma35 · 11/03/2024 21:11

Thanks @BertieBotts I think you’ve expanded well on my thinking.

OP posts:
3mma35 · 11/03/2024 21:14

So now wondering if it’s more that there is a correlation between extended breastfeeding and poor sleeping without causality because there is correlation between extended breastfeeding and co-sleeping and it’s the co-sleeping that encourages poor sleeping habits?

OP posts:
3mma35 · 11/03/2024 21:26

Also it would be interesting to know
if countries with higher breastfeeding rates (and perhaps co sleeping) have the same
societal classification of a “poor” sleeper.

Think I might be biased by being told my children are poor sleepers / built a rod for my own back etc because within my circle other children are better sleepers along with extended breastfeeding being an anomaly.

OP posts:
bakewellbride · 11/03/2024 21:29

Extended bf is classified as bf over a year.

GoodnightAdeline · 11/03/2024 21:32

If you look at the ‘please help, toddler still wakes 15 times a night’ threads they nearly always involve extended breastfeeding.

It’s been my experience too. DC1, mix fed for 6 months then bottle fed, slept through from 7 months. DC2, EBF, has just turned 11 months and although now awful is a much poorer sleeper and has never done a 12 hour stretch. Anecdata from friends supports this too

Frosty1000 · 11/03/2024 21:36

My ds was a hopeless sleeper due to his extended stay in NICU and me being told to wake him every 2 hours around the clock to bf him.

He was my first so knew nothing else and when we got home that's what I continued as he still medically needed it.

Fast forward a couple of years and he was kind of addicted to bf and just couldn't sleep without it even though he didn't during the day and ate plenty of usual food. I was the walking dead as I slept in one hour chunks. So I had no energy or inclination to wean him even though I should have done.

It got better after he was 3 when he slept in 4-5 hour bursts. He didn't sleep through until he was 5 and we still cuddled to sleep by then after he naturally weaned at nearly 5.

So yes extended bf in my book equalled very bad sleep.

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