Breastfeeding - positive sleep stories

[Whatisgoingoff2024]

Can anyone shed any positive light/stories whereby they have had a successful breastfeeding journey and their baby has slept? I’m talking long stretches/ consistently through the night without relying on the boob for comfort.

We are expecting baby number 2 in the summer, I would like to give breastfeeding a go as I couldn’t with my son who we had to formula fed.

My worry is that 95% of stories/personal experiences I’ve come across around breast feeding relate to the baby not sleeping through and relying on the boob for comfort.

We may well have fell lucky with our Son who has slept through the night since 12 weeks old and has always been able to self soothe. He will be 3 in July and has always been a fab sleeper.

I am aware that temperament plays a big part and sleep may not necessarily linked to feeding.

I am just after some positive stories of sleep!

Hey, my DD2 slept for about 6 hours solid after 4 months, she was EBF for the year. She slept through 11 hours since 8 months old (but she would only be up once a night really before that). She didn’t rely on the boob to fall asleep either. I just would hold her hand and let her fall asleep from about 3.5/4 months I think. She’s 2.5 yrs now so it’s harder to remember, but don’t let sleep put you off BF! I think when it’s baby no.2 they maybe fall into a routine easier when you’ve already got the first. Appreciate it’s maybe not like that for everyone but that was my experience!
good luck wit the rest of the pregnancy!

So far my breastfed DD2 is sleeping as well as my formula fed DD1 or even a bit better. I feed her just before I go to bed and she normally does 6 hrs. Only 4.5 months in so aware that we might still get hit by regressions.

I breastfed until Dc was 9 months- slept through from 4/5 months (with a dream feed at 9/10pm) and from 7pm-7am from 6 months. He is now 2 and consistently sleeps 12 hour nights. No regressions. I strongly feel getting sleep as good as possible is vital for mental health and general family wellbeing. I mainly exclusively used breast milk but think the following helped sleep:

1. pumped and DH gave a bottle for the 6:30pm and 9pm dream feed. I think this helped give consistent quantities and get DC used to not falling asleep on the boob or having boob as the only comfort. Also meant I could go to bed early.
2. at the start I had low supply and DS struggled to feed as he was very small. We therefore used some formula and pumped milk very early on. This meant DS was used to bottle, boob and expressed milk from day 1
3. we did sleep train gently using increasing intervals and consistent routines. We did this around 10 weeks onwards and felt it is a lot easier earlier on to get them into good habits.
4. (this is more controversial) I woke DS to feed at 3:30am and never just left him to see how far he’d sleep until. I then gradually noticed him needing less milk so gradually reduced how long I fed him for until I felt ready to leave him and see if he slept through. Probably more for me than him as I liked the predictability and my body got more in a rhythm of being up at 3:30.

I'm still breastfeeding my 13 month old, but unless she has been poorly with a cold or upset stomach she has slept through almost without exception since she was 6 weeks old (initially 9-6, now 7-7 at minimum). I can still count on one hand the times she has been up in the night since then for a feed without being poorly. If she has a cold then obviously we have a bad night but these are also rare.

I think it's important to remember that sleep is a long game. Yes, you get some miracle babies who sleep through early on and stay that way, but for the majority, there are good times and bad times.

FWIW, my son was breastfed until 20m, and he's been the best all rounder in our group. Not usually the best or worst, but the least awful. Very rarely bad habits two nights in a row, etc.