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.

My DS was breastfed til 22 months. He slept very well. But we did do some sleep training and didn’t just feed on demand constantly during the night after 6 months.

We did sleep training at five months - bottle fed. They were already pretty good at sleeping through the night but the training and moving them to their own rooms definitely helped. Times it for when I was going back to work and needed good sleep

formula is heavier so it can make them sleep a bit longer before they're hungry and wake up.
it's possible that something the mum eats might might cause some wind or something for the baby which might make them sleep less well? but equally, some formula ingredients disagree with some babies.
I think some just sleep better than others, the same as adults.

I did combination feeding and carried on bf mine at bedtime until they were 4, never did sleep training, they've generally been an amazing sleeper.

FF all 3 of mine, all excellent sleepers. But I don't know if you can pick FF as the cause as there was no comparison. The only thing FF impacts if you ask me was having my husband / mum do the feeds if necessary so it wasn't all on me - made me a lot happier and so we all were.

You could try formula at night if you think it'll make a difference but honestly, if you're struggling and not sure it's helping them it's ok to stop, whatever your reason. Other people can do night feeds for a bit if he's fussing for bf at night and you can see how it goes?

Exclusively formula fed my first, exclusively breastfed my second.
Both slept through at 10 weeks.
Think it's just luck, or lack of unfortunately 🤷🏼‍♀️

Both of mine were exclusively bottle fed and were excellent sleepers. There is no link IMO.

Both of my girls were breastfed
Dd1 via bottle, she couldn't latch, and I pumped
Dd2 straight from the nipple
Dd1 was a horrendous sleeper, just turned 5 and shouts us awake generally at least once a night still
Dd2 bloody loves her sleep, goes straight through most nights from like 6 weeks old
It's the kid, they're all different

From someone who worked in a maternity ward I can concur that the most restless babies were breastfed

Made no difference with mine. And if they are waking at night, it's far easier to roll over and shove a nipple in their mouth, than to go and make a bottle. All of mine were awful sleepers as babies, all sleep like logs now.

This is a misguided view. Just because something is 'natural' doesn't mean it still applies. Breastfeeding evolved to be the way our ancestors fed their babies, that's about all you can say about it - there is no perfect plan.

Evolution takes hundreds of thousands of not millions of years, our modern life doesn't. Way back in history we didn't live a life where we are awake all day and asleep all night. Babies would have been fed little and often all the time, including by other lactating women. We are trying to cram a square, historically set, peg into a modern, round hole and still claiming it's somehow akin to the divine.

I'm not saying it's not a good thing, it's just that being 'natural' doesn't mean anything.

DD was a brilliant sleeper, to the point I couldn't let any other sleep-deprived fellow mums know 😆

Fully breastfed until 6 months.

What a strange question, no.

It’s ok to have boundaries with breastfeeding. You don’t have to do it all night every night. You can limit to a reasonable number of feeds in the night. I think at 8 months I was still doing one feed in the night but other wake ups need to met with a different response. By feeding them every time they stir, you’re reinforcing the waking up. I know it’s easier said that done but closer to age 1 you can definitely wind down on the breastfeeding. By DS first birthday, he was just having one feed in the morning and one before bed.

My DC was formula fed and slept through from the very night she was born.

Exclusively formula fed both from around 1 month. Both fab sleepers, especially DD

I breastfed both of mine. My first was a horrific sleeper and didn't sleep though the night until she was 3, at one stage she only slept 2 hours at night and then a few 20 minute naps, I was exhausted all the time 😴. My second was amazing and was sleeping 5+ hours at 2 days old. He slept really well until he was about 2 when he started having nightmares, night terrors and sleep walking 😱
If they are constantly feeding all night then you can try night stoping breastfeeding at night and just bf at bedtime and and during the day but you need to transition to not falling asleep while feeding. It can help if you have someone who can support you to get them to sleep without being on the boob.

My 1st baby I breastfed until 3 months old, after that my milk supply dwindled (to the point where she was losing weight) so switched to formula and she was still a poor sleeper (didn't sleep through regularly until she was 3yo) She was in her own room from the start as we had no space for even a moses basket in our room so wasn't that we were disturbing her or that she could smell breast milk, she just didn't sleep for more than a couple of hours then fed and difficult to get settled again.

BF both of mine - DC1 was an outstanding sleeper, 10 til 7 from 10 weeks. DC2 was on two feeds a night until almost 1 but would take both sides in 15 minutes and conk out fully. Still a good sleeper.

BF DD to 16 months. Always just one night feed and as soon as she was old emoji she would help herself so I slept through. Always slept late too - no 5 am wakings and never any sleepless nights for me.

https://www.perplexity.ai/search/is-exclusively-breastfeeding-a-oWe1neHSQQOBx4bHK6EbBA#0

If you look at the research, it seems like quality of maternal sleep is poorer (more fragmented, with more frequent night-wakenings) but total amount of sleep in 24hrs is similar across BF and FF infant populations. Similar to my experience....

Mine were both bf and both terrible sleepers but thats probably not very helpful or what you want to hear!

My daughter is EBF, has always been a good sleeper. Just waking for 1/2 feeds. Slept through from 7 months, now 10 months and sleeps through every night. I planned to stop night weaning around 7-8 months but she did it automatically. I did sleep train at 5 months! Hope it gets better with sleep soon.

My bf babes slept through the night from 6’weeks old

my bf nieces were great sleepers too

my ff nephews took until age 2 and age 5 to sleep through the night

baby will sleep when baby is ready

Bottle fed my DS. He sleeps 5 hour per night in total. He's 3 and his sleep has always been this bad. When he wakes he's climbing on furniture, jumping off, running around, running into walls. He doesn't even wake tired. Not all bottle fed babies end up being good sleepers.

Saying that, I have a friend who was adamant her son needed to get melatonin despite no ND conditions. He's the same age as my son but as soon as she stopped breastfeeding him he started sleeping through the night. He was only waking up and feeding, not waking up and starting his day at 2am though.

I had twins. DS was exclusively breastfed until 7 months, terrible sleeper. Carried on being a terrible sleeper once he was on formula. DD wouldn't breastfeed so was bottle-fed breast milk for the first 3 months and then formula fed. Was always a pretty good sleeper. Not sure if this adds or detracts from your theory.