Are all bad sleepers breastfed?

[sharkstale]

DD, breastfed until 18 months. Horrific sleeper until we stopped.

DS, combi-feeds, but wants to be glued to my boob all night every night. Even worse sleeper.

Due to the fact that sleep improved instantly when I stopped bf DD, it makes me want to stop bf DS now at 8 months, believing breastfeeding is the issue.

What are your experiences please?

Yabu - bf is not the issue
Yanbu - stop bf and get some decent sleep.

I BF all three of my children for a year.

DC1 slept through from 8 weeks old.
DC2 did not sleep properly until the age of around 2.
DC3 slept through from 6 weeks old.

So that really doesn't help at all really, does it... 🤣

2 breastfed babies for me, both good sleepers.

it sounds to me like you are feeding to sleep and co-sleeping? If so, those 2 things will be your issue, not breastfeeding in and of itself.

it’s tricky to wean off feeding to sleep but is doable. Do final feed before story, then pat/shush/ cuddle to sleep. Probably easier for your DH to do it at first. It will take a long time at the beginning but then get easier. We now put our baby in cot and shush/pat her for about 2 mins, then walk out and she falls asleep within 10 mins.

Do you want to keep co-sleeping? He’ll probably sleep much better in a cot in his own room.

Both mine formula fed due to medical needs, DD1 was a great sleeper and slept through by 5 months, 2nd didn't sleep through until 18 months. But I think it's personality let as much as anything

DD1 used to guzzle 8oz and then sleep through. Now at 10 she has bigger meals and no snacks, very focused/single minded but struggles more with imagination/creative activities.

DD2 used to take a couple oz, get distracted, have a break and so on through the day. Now at 6 she prefers to graze through the day, struggles with bigger meals and is less focused/ better imagination and creativity

So your baby might not sleep better with formula, but you might get more sleep as your partner can then do some of the feeds. And that is a very reasonable reason to stop or reduce breastfeeding, you are done brilliantly to get to 8 months

The single biggest factor we found was being able to self settle rather than feed/cuddle to sleep. Once they both acheuved this DD1 slept through and DD2 dropped to 1 feed per night, which she needed as wasn't taking enough during day.

DS breastfed and horrendous sleeper. Later turned out to be SEN and I think looking back that’s why he’s always been a bad sleeper (now 4).
DD is breastfed and she sleeps well

Breastmilk is digested more easily than formula and that has something to do with it, because babies won't be as full for as long on breastmilk. It is also about comfort though and wanting to feed/cuddle to get back to sleep when they wake up in the night and breastfed babies can depend on that. Which is both lovely and exhausting.

If you're at the stage of solid food then certain dinners may be more successful at getting baby to sleep for a longer stretch. I remember mashed potato worked well for my son and we thought we'd discovered an amazing mashed potato hack😅

Any baby that is fed to sleep will struggle to go to sleep without that comfort, so when they wake they will look for it.

My DC all were combi fed but were always put to sleep awake so learnt to go to sleep without milk from the start.

I don't think the origin of the milk is a huge part if it, though breastmilk is digested quicker hence more frequent feeds in the early days.

I know a few people who stopped BFing thinking that their baby would sleep through the night and it only got worse for them. They were then having to fetch bottles or get up and rock them.

Our toddler is a terrible sleeper. I do still BF and find it a magic solution to get him back to sleep quickly. If i dont latch him on then i have to go through a whole cycle of patting and singing nursery rhymes. Then i end up wide awake and struggle to get back to sleep. But if i latch him then hes asleep within 5 mins and i stay half asleep anyway.

No, no correlation. I've had three and breastfed all to 12 months. First one ok-ish and slept through 11pm to 6am from about 9 weeks (though we were new parents and clueless), second one slept through from 2 weeks (and we thought it was down to excellent parenting) and the third one . . . had colic for several months and didn't sleep much at night.

If only...

but no, bad sleepers are bad sleepers, no one has still come up with an explanation.

People will have lots of theory, but they are all bollocks.
My favourite: if you tiptoe around a child, they never sleep. Let them get used to noise and they'll sleep like a log. Yeah right. Yet somehow some babies sleep better , and a lot better, in a very quiet house.

DC1 exclusively breastfed on demand till 20 months, no dummy (refused), coslept, horrific sleeper (didn't properly sleep through till school age).

DC2 exclusively breastfed but on a schedule till 7 months and put to sleep (mostly) by DP not me, took a dummy from the start, no cosleeping, really good sleeper.

I do think the schedule, DC2 not falling asleep while feeding, not cosleeping and her taking a dummy helped with sleep a lot. But I also think that DC1 is just a massive night owl/bad sleeper (still struggles to get to sleep aged 13!) so it's not the whole story.

I breastfed both my sons. The second was a shocking sleeper and ended up in a sleep school unit on a hospital. The nurse there told me that the babies coming through were 50% breastfed and 50% formula.

It’s purely down to temperament, I’m afraid.

I was bottle fed and my mum says I was a dreadful sleeper. Both my dc were ebf and both were dreadful too.

Unfortunately IMO at 8 months it's too late so you might as well carry on BF.

I think there is a correlation and it's to do with the way that it's easiest for parents to respond at night. If you're bottle feeding it's a faff to sort that out at night so you'll probably try other things first. And if you do end up feeding then it has an end point, after which you almost definitely won't offer more milk and if you do then it comes with a significant delay. If you're BF it's easier to stick them on the boob and you can do that indefinitely, so they can learn to hold out for it. While you can comfort them in other ways, it takes much longer and so BF tends to be the magic bullet.

I was too soft for CC type sleep training but with DC3 I cracked the idea of training myself if that makes sense - Lyndsey Hookway was helpful here too. I like her process of making sleep changes one step at a time.

Bear in mind a lot goes on developmentally at this age which tends to make sleep tricky in general. Separation anxiety, object permanence, learning to crawl, maybe starting childcare as well and teething, and this time of year with viruses going around doesn't help either.

Both of mine were BF and both excellent sleepers.

My friends kids some FF and awful sleepers . I don’t think it makes a jot of difference

I breastfed all 3 til 10 months, I stopped at that point so that they would reliably sleep through the night and it worked.

Nope. It's the first thing MN will tell you to do when your BF baby is a bad sleeper. Based on nothing but anecdotal evidence.

I have three, fed differently, all shit sleepers.

The only advantage is if you have a supportive partner and they will get up in the night to settle the baby so you can sleep. If that is your situation then you'll get more rest as you won't be the person getting up. If you aren't in that situation you'll be getting up to settle a wakeful baby anyway.

I think it is easier sometimes to get a formula fed baby to sleep through because they’re less likely to have a feed to sleep association, the bottle is not a comfort like boob is, you’re not going to feed them again if they’ve just had a big feed, it’s a faff to do a bottle overnight so you’re more inclined to try other settling methods first and cosleeping isn’t as safe when not breastfeeding so you might persevere with the crib. So I think often you end up doing a sort of very gentle sleep training without really realising you're doing it.

But mostly it is personality. I don’t think I did anything different with my 2, they were both formula fed and I roughly followed the same routine but 1 basically slept through from birth (had to set alarms to feed her until she regained her birth weight) and the other always did a decent stretch but didn’t consistently sleep through until he started solids at 5.5 months.

This was exactly my experience. Both breastfed. My first was a nightmare and I expected pretty much the same with his little brother, but no, he slept so easily and soundly.

I’m interested to hear what others have to say as I only had one child. Your answer is odd though as you’ve responded as if OP has asked a different question to the one she posed.

I bf both of mine, co slept for part of the night, didn’t sleep train or have a schedule. Child one awful sleeper. Still doesn’t sleep well 7 years on. Child two great sleeper from the start, only has a bad night if she’s ill.
It’s definitely the child not what you feed them

Can I ask how you stopped feeding to sleep?

I think they studied it, and FF babies slept on average 10m more than BF babies?

I think FF babies probably have on average different sleep habits because they don't fall asleep on the boob and are maybe more likely to be put down to sleep routinely?

My son is probably the best sleeper out of all his buddies so far on average and I BF til 20m.

Sleep is a long game though - BF, FF, CF, they all have had different trends because they're different babies! The CF baby who slept through independently from 3 days now only cosleeps, and the sleep trained baby that usually does 8-8 and a 2h nap wakes regularly for 2h at the moment.

The sleep will be more disrupted at first, but it doesn't need to be your problem as you're no longer the only one who can feed.

I don't think it will be a magic bullet, but if you want to stop, stop, and it does mean you can have nights off.

Personally, I kept going until night weaning because the thought of being up to prep bottles was even worse than breastfeeding. All mine were awful sleepers.

The OP is wrong. You mean it the other way around.
And YABU. I BF 5 and they were all different.