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.

This is totally only my experience, but both of mine only started sleeping through the night when I gave them a bottle of formula. Literally same day miracle. I did continue BF in the daytimes for a few months after, but the bottles were a life saver.

I've noticed that people who breastfed longer than typical tend to have poorer sleepers and eaters when solids are offered. Just an observation from my life

My grand daughter wasn’t breast fed at all but was allergic to lactose and was put on special formula and antacid meds. She’s 14 months and I don’t think either my daughter or son in law ever sleeps the night without her waking and crying.im old and I just remember bringing my kids to bed with me bc I was exhausted

My first was formula fed from 4 months old and slept like shit 🤷🏻‍♀️😂 She didn’t sleep through the night until 18 months.
My second was on specialist prescription formula due to medical issues and he also slept like shit. Didn’t sleep through the night until he was 4 years old 🫠
Third was exclusively breastfed and slept pretty well from the start. We coslept so she had access to my boobs all night - by the time she was 6/7 months old and could roll and army crawl herself around, I’d barely wake up when she was helping herself.

Love it

I still breastfeed my son who is 2. He’s a great sleeper and always has been. Was sleeping through the night pretty much from birth. When he was a newborn I had to wake him up to feed for a while to help him get back to his birth weight. I think it’s probably just the way he is and has very little to do with the breastfeeding but breastfeeding certainly didn’t make him a poor sleeper.

In my experience yes - the milk was more filling and the babies tend to sleep for much longer.

Both of mine were formula fed the first one slept well the second is now 26 and still can’t sleep all night !

The first time I realised it was happening, I woke up, baby was still fast asleep next to me and I turned to my exH and said “Omg she slept through!”
He looked at me, eyebrows raised and said: “No she didn’t….but you did” 😂😂

I think you’ll get a lot of emotive answers but not much truth OP. I found BF Mother’s to feel a sense of martyrism because it’s not easy, takes a lot of dedication particularly in the early days and they need to feel proud and reassured so they can keep going with what’s best for their baby.

Anecdotally and thinking practically/physiological POV it makes sense that a BF baby would wake more often during the night. FF babies feed less often and I guess into that rhythm from a young age. If co sleeping it’s little effort to get to the breast and yes they can’t smell it. BF babies also use the breast to soothe where as FF must do a larger element of self soothing. Obviously none of what I am saying is fact, just an observation.

6 kids breastfed, all great sleepers all i had(have) to do is whip out a boob- did you cosleep? Cosleeping and breastfeeding,cant get better combo than that.

No my nephew was bottle fed and he’s a dreadful sleeper.